Daily pet

I just bought a second hand kid art instruction book, called "How to draw pets". So I try to follow a few examples. I can't wait till the day I can have a real dog.

Scavenger Hunt#160

This new year, one of my artistic resolution is to do more life-sketching in pencils or other mediums that I am not familiar with. So here are some sketches in an HB in my 8x10 inch Japanese sketchbook.
#4 brush
#5 file -- my thumb drive
#6 light
#7 heavy

World-Wide Sketchcrawl#25

Well pardon me for the late blogging of this article. The event took place in late November but as a mother-of-the-2nd-child-to-be I was too overwhelmed to keep up with blogging. But finally, today I have some more energy to get around to do this so here goes:

This time, our Bangkok friends are mostly busy with their business, so I set out to do a solo crawl in the morning and later I met two other Bangkok sketchers in the evening. In addition, my babysitter could not make it, so my DH and my 4 year old daughter, Iris, joined along with me from 8:00 am - 4:30 pm. I was afraid that my daughter would feel boring and uncomfortable to have to tag along mommy sketching. Luckily, we got cool weather, and we minimized walking and only using Tuk-Tuk or Taxi to hop from one spot (cafe) to other spot (cafe). Things went well and we all have fun. It is too bad that Iris did some sketching of the sculptures at the sculpture garden but she later destroyed it unintentionally. She did it her way, the stick-figure style but she quickly scribbled many colors over it before I can take a photo of it.

Here are the summary shot of my locations:


#0 Warm up, my neighbor walking her dog.


#1 In the morning, I had to pick up my baby health check report from Siriraj hospital, the biggest state hospital in Thailand. Before I left the place, I stopped at the hospital plaza where Thai people went to pay respect to The King's father monument, who also the father of Thai medicine, and Thai people also gathered to write well-wish messages to our beloved King who resides at the hospital at the moment.



#2 We crossed Chao Phraya River to Tha-Chang pier, heading to the sculpture garden of Univ. of Fine Arts. Iris, did some sketches of the sculptures with me here. In the middle of sketching, one bug landed on my sketchbook, so I sketched him in my left corner of my sketchbook, that is why you see the big bug on the left top side of the building.... not that the bug is that huge.






#3 We walk 100 yards, down to a cafe opposite the entrance of the Grand Palace, we call this gate "Wiset-Chai-Sri-Gate".


#4 After our lunch, our family moved on to sketch in a cozy cafe, "Passport Cafe", in the vintage district of Bangkok. This is the spot where I later met with two SketchCrawler, P'Asnee, and K.Nate. We had some talks and sketched some scenes in side the cafe. I ended my SketchCrawl there, but P'Asnee and K.Nate were meeting up with two more Thai sketchers to cover more of Bangkok vintage landmarks.

2009 Scavenger Hunt Sketches -- Part1

Well, this year I have been more active in sketching things around me with the help and encouragement of my art friends on Wetcanvas Scavenger Hunt forum. Every nine days or so, we will get a new list of things around us to do a life-sketch. Some weren't that good but all of them really allowed me to enjoy my little art moment, one item at a time. So here are a few highlights. Among items below, I think I like the "non-art-brush (the toilet brush)" the most. It seemed to stir up quite some nice words from my art friends.

Paint out -- Klong Suan Market

Well today is my lucky day to get to join a few painter friends at KlongSuan Old time market. It locate about 60 Km. south east of where I live. The market is the 100 year old community along the Klong, or Thai canal. The canal, the shops, and also the food are awesome. I did the noodle shop ink sketch after we finished our delicious lunch there.

WorldWideSketchCrawl

I did have a great sketching out today. I did meet two more SketchCrawlers today: K.Asnee and K.Pramote. So Bangkok WorldWideSketchCrawl will never be the same... Yeah.

I started my SketchCrawl solo in the early morning by doing the outside scences of Temple at Wat Pho, a famous Bangkok attraction. Later I moved inside the temple to do the reclining Buddha. Later I met up with the two more Crawlers mentioned above.

#1 Me, with my first sketch of the day. I had attracted several of bystanders who tried to chat with me while I was sketching including 2 kids ;-)


#2 Two new crawlers, from Left K.Pramote, K.Asnee, and me.


#3 -- Thai temples at Wat-Pho


#4 -- Another pagoda scene at Wat-Pho


#5 -- I did the head part of the giant reclining Buddha.


#6 -- I try to establish the scale of the giant reclining Buddha by sketching one tourist posing for a photo in the middle.

Scavenger Hunt#133

These are sketches from life objects or people around me based on the 'clue' given in Wetcanvas Scavenger Hunt#133. They were done in ink (Stabilo pen) and watercolor on my 9x12 inch Strathmore 400 sketchbook.

The Tuner

This is about 6x8 inch sketch, done with pencil and watercolor pencils during 30 minutes that the 'piano-tuner' was working with our piano today. When he finished his job he got to see it and smiled.

Back to music

This is the sketch of our piano for the recent Scavenger Hunt#128 using casein paints.


The enchanting zen from Koh-Tao island trip makes me reconnect with all my senses. I miss playing music. I decide to get back to piano and I am lucky to find a nice instructor who will come to teach me at home every Friday morning. I took 2 lessons so far. It has been great.

I started my first piano lesson when I was late in high school. I had several interruptions. The first one I had to go to senior year in a highschool in the US. Then when I came back to Thailand I got accepted to a University that is quite far from my home. I had to stay in a dorm so no time and no piano to practice. Then when I got my Bachelor I also work far from home again. The following year I got scholarship from the Thai government to go do master an Ph.D in the US. So I had to be away for another 8 years. Once I came back to Thailand in 2002 I had taken a lesson for 2 years but then I quit for my intense work schedule and later I had baby Iris and left thumb tendon injury. So no piano again... until two weeks ago that I restarted the lesson. I hope I can continue despite so many hectic things in life. Now my teacher gives me a simplified piece of "Green Sleeves" to work on.

I am a beginner piano student. I often feel inferior when I hear Tone plays. He is fabulous. I often said to him that he plays piano like I paint. He has a nice way to comfort me that "...But you play piano much better than I paint." What a lovely remark he made. I am lucky to marry Tone then ;-)

Something I have borrowed...

This is a sketch of an art book I have borrowed from our library. It is done in a 9x12 inch thick paper sketchbook using a Stabilo pen and Inktense pencils with some water applied. The author uses sketching as a memoir of old places in Bangkok.

My #21 Worldwide Sketchcrawl -- Bangkok

Jan 10 is the #21 Worldwide Sketchcrawl, which means people around the world will sketch today either going out or staying in and then they will share their sketches at www.sketchcrawl.com. So each of us will get to see the snapshots of each other live across the globe.



I first had my ambitious plan to go sketching the Grand Palace in downtown Bangkok but my daughter got sick. So we had to take her to the doctor in the morning. So I adjusted my plan by starting to sketch some pot plants, and Thai topiary at my parent home, which is close to the doctor clinic. Then we took our daughter home and I got to sketch scenes from my neighborhood temple which situates next to the orchard canal. We live in the orchard suburban of Bangkok, called Bangmod. It used to be the area famous for a kind of sweet tangerine orchards. I closed today with the canal scene (Bangmod canal or the Thai called it "Klong Bangmod) across from our gate community. The last few pieces, I had to add the gouache wash at home due to I have to hurry home for my daughter care. I really have a good time sketching outdoor today. I have to Thank my DH, Tone for driving me to the temple, which I had already forgot that we have an interesting one in our neighborhood. BTW, Iris is feeling much better now... whew.

#1 plants at my parents' home (watercolor)


#2 On the return route back to my home, the latest "pink" bus, which just came out to Bangkok streets, and the street garland vendor


#3 My neighborhood's temple entrance


#4 The bell tower at the temple


#5 Thai country houses along the orchard canal or we call it "Klong Bangmod"


#6 Thai water canal convenient shop, opposite from our gated community. Bangkok used to be called "Venice of the East". Now many of the little canal ended up becoming streets.

Fun things I did in 2008

Well, there were so many fun things I did in 2008. Starting this year, I went out and got my mountain bike on my January birthday. I had a bike accident on my first bike trip, getting bruise thigh for two weeks but I am OK and still loving my bike. I should have done it more often. Later in late March and April, we went to visit our family in the US. I got to paint a lot and mailed my art friends my art cards, getting to know so many nice people. I did a world wide drawing day once in June and got so many good comments on my bird painting. Later in September, I joined a sketch-from-life group in WetCanvas Scavenger Hunt forum, I enjoy sketching so much. I never thought that I could draw... I still have a lot to learn but certainly joining the sketching group help me getting into fun routine of sketching much easier. I also did the World-wide sketchcrawl one time in October. It was fun to venture out to Bangkok and sketch my beloved city and shared the works for the world to see. I also joined BlogingDaily movement in November and got exhausted but had fun and learned a lot. I did another day out sketching on my own on the Thai father day holiday, Dec 5 and got a few fun sketches as seen above. In late December, our family took a vacation at Hua Hin, a beach town 2 hour from Bangkok, and I got to sketch some more. I hope you have a great fun creative year in 2009. Happy New Year.

Artober -- Oct 30, 2008

I just join my art friend Diahn's Artober movement. Here is a sketch I did today for Wetcanvas's Scavenger Hunt as "Made of paper".