Ham and pickles panini

This was late 3pm lunch yesterday. I took it randomly with my iphone camera, just because I needed to draw it. One of those random just getting the shot out of the way so I can start eating, sort of shots. But I thought the photo looked nice. With just the right amount of sunlight and all. And the panini sandwich was nice too. made me realize how I actually kind of like pickles. Always thought I hated them.

I've got so much things on hand, it's driving me a bit crazy. Will have to prioritize and tackle them one by one. Today will be the day I start making a difference. I can sense it already. Off to shower, then make myself a smoothie then to school! See you!

Week 1

Every single bit of food I've eaten last week. The funniest moment has got to be during Holy communion in church. Imagine weighing your portion while praying! So totally embarrassing! But yes, I have yet to cheat so far, and I don't intend too. So far, I've given up sampling food bits at the market, decided not to eat ice cream when it's sitting nicely in the freezer, calling out to me. Just so you know, I never reject any bit of ice cream that comes my way.

I wonder what other exciting things will happen this week..

Weekend adventures

Oh what a lovely weekend it has been. I loved every single bit of it! From waking up early to be pampered with some outdoor cooking, working on a bit of art, observing our surely but slowly growing spring onion and herb garden, lots of reading, struggling not to fall asleep while drawing late into the night, enjoying hot pot-the way we like it, cooking sole meuniere, taking walks in the city, watching and rented dvds, even setting up a little Easter egg corner in our home. Feels just like Christmas, sans the Christmas tree!

Oh how I wished it was Friday all over!

PS: Thank you all for your wonderful sweet comments about my Giant book project! It's really encouraging!

Food glorious food, wonderful food!

Inspired by the love for good food and the idea of Human's obsessive compulsive consumption nature...smudgy watercolours with delicate fine inky outlines - that's what my work is about. Everyday subject matter of food and commercial packaging are transformed into whimsical sketchy-styled drawings, easily identified by any product-buying consumer.

Keeping in mind the idea of how the simple joys of eating can be degraded and deemed as binging, my current work focuses on the construction of a giant 1m tall book, documenting every single food item I have been consuming, serving as a social and public commentary as to what eating and consumption is all about in our crazy world today.

And so, the above bit's just my artist statement, a very brief description of my work and what the project is about. I wrote it for class in a record 10 minutes. So if it sounds a little off, don't mind it! So yes, I've been going into my studio daily, staying till the evenings, painting and drawing everything ( except glasses of water ) that basically gets put into my mouth. Yup, that's right. EVERYTHING.

I love food. So much. Too much! And sometimes, apart from cooking, I feel like I need an outlet to express my love for food. So there you have it. I draw to express my love for food. I am not so sure how long this project will actually last. I'm into my 5th day and so far so good. It's tiring, but trains me to be really organized. Makes me think twice, sometimes thrice, about eating whenever I feel like it. I'm hoping I can actually last till October, so it will be really like some sort of endurance project.

So fingers crossed! Hope everything works out!

Hello!

My new ankle boots arrived in the mail two days ago. I've been meaning to show it to you guys but unfortunately, my house's internet connection has been down. Over the weekend it was our router that broke down. And yesterday, our modem. After checking and fiddling around with it and all, we suspect someone out there might have been trying to hack into our connection the past few days, resulting in firmware failures in both our modem and router. Sigh. Whoever you are, it's not very nice to hack into other people's system you know. It's a big mean thing to do!

Anyway, I love my new boots! They are kind of comfy to wear, but a wee bit tight around the sides. But I suppose that always happens because I've got wide feet. I'll just have to wear them more often to loosen the leather. I need to get nice proper-length socks to go with these boots. Unfortunately my favourite Muji ankle socks don't do very well with these boots.

In other non-boot related news, I want to say thank you for hanging in there with me the past week, when I kept ranting about being stuck in a little 'art rut'. As mentioned in my previous post, I got things sorted out and am now working on a giant book. I would love to show you more photos and talk more about it. But for now, until I get a spare modem, here's another snippet of it.
PS: Typing on the school keyboard is weird. I don't like blogging in school. Doesn't feel personal at all. Oh well.

Dear internet connection, please come back soon! : (

Getting a Kick start

As mentioned before, I was feeling lousy about my art. Everything I wanted and wished for to turn out nicely didn't and I just felt like the stuff I was embarking on in school was nothing but distant to who I am and really shallow, without much purpose. So I took a step forward, threw everything out ( not for real, but you get the idea ), and embarked on the idea of making a huge book.

If you've read my Design Files feature last year, you would know I was intending to make a giant book. You see, due to budgets, money and all sort of financial issues, it never did happen. But I thought hard over the weekend, this is it. I gotta do it. Almost a year and the idea of making a giant book is still on my mind. So here you go, Day 01 of my giant book project. So far so good. I'll tell you more over the next few days, about what the project/book is about!

My weekend adventures

What tiring but fun weekend! Our internet router died first thing early morning. So it called for an early morning trip to North Melbourne to get a new router, followed by a delicious pancakes and french toast brekkie at Fandango which never fails. It was then over to Docklands with my housemate and her partner for the Flathead food and wine festival, which totally sucked. There was practically nothing there. So we decided not to waste our time and go fishing instead. We went to buy a rod for my housemate, got ourselves brand new fishing licences, and headed to nearby Albert Park for some fish and chippery lunch and yummy ice cream from my favourite ice cream joint. Then it was off to fishing till dinner time for us, but no luck! And being in singlets and all, the cold got the better of our hungry stomachs and we headed back to Albert Park again for some good ole' takeaway burgers.

By the way, I live at Southbank, and it's pretty near to Albert Park, that's why I'm always there. Haha

We headed home after that and watched the remaining bits of Mrs Doubtfire while enjoying our burgers. Then we decided it called for fishing round 2! So off we went to St Kilda, this time way more warmly dressed for night fishing...I didn't bother bringing my camera along while we fished, so no fishing pictures!

Sunday was slower, not so much rushing about. Had a speaker come speak to us at church. He was really funny. I reckon it was like watching some sort of stand up live comedy. And Darren and I went to catch Alice in Wonderland 3D. Finally! We both thought the story line was pretty shallow and lame. But the graphics and acting was all so good, made up for it. We enjoyed it nevertheless. We ended our weekend off by walking along Chapel street and some grocery shopping. It was all in all, a pretty spent but fun weekend.

Ah, hello again Monday...

Red pair

Been feeling really stressed out and horrid about my whole art practice. So I decided to try and not think so much about it. And I chose yesterday, to hang out with my ace friend instead. We spent some good time in Prahran, mainly at the American Apparel store, trying on fun stuff. I bought myself a nice t-shirt since it was 60% off! And a pair of red stockings.

I'm hoping it becomes colder soon so I can wear those fun red stockings with my plaid flannel dress!

Once in a while

I like to indulge in a little bit of low fat fruity yoghurt. I like topping it up with lots of apples, strawberries, sultanas and some nice cereal. Makes my tummy happy and bowel system thankful...

Of spirits and wolves

Was at the city library last week and happened to come across a fun fact book on wolves. In it was a picture of a beautiful Arctic wolf. I just had to draw it. I was actually going to try to paint it large-scale, in oil or acrylics, amidst some mountains. But just thought I should practice and draw it on paper too. While drawing, I was reminded of works by these few amazing artists, whose work I look up to and try to learn from. They are seriously so good!

You see, I was rather amazed at how wolves can survive the freezing cold winter temperatures with just their thick coat of fur. I started thinking of winter animals, eskimos and the whole ancient thing about seeking wisdom from animal spirits. It's strange but during the same week, I came across おくりびと Okuribito, a Japanese film by Yojiro Takita. The film deals with death and about sending the dearly departed on his final journey. So I thought, how strange, what's with the whole death and spirits thing in the same week. But anyway, the movie is really good. Watch it if you can.

In other news, I've been working on quite a few projects now it's becoming a little crazy since 1/2 of the ideas I have don't really work. Still trying to figure out what's best! But I'll be sure to post snippets of the tiny progress works!

Oh and I've been invited to take part in an art swap. I need to look for some crafters/artists/creative type friends who are willing to take part too. Basically you send 1 piece of handmade art/print/sewn goodie and you get 36 pieces of art in return! So if you are the creative sort, and would love to play along, please do email me! Thanks! : )

Spoonful of sugar

Some tiny ceramic clay teaspoons with bits of 'sugar' in them. These spoons here are just a rough try out though. Not the final spoons yet. Need to work on making the shape much nicer!

Dream coat + shoes

Both from this wonderful etsy shop. The coat was out of my price range but the boots were not. So since I've been on the lookout for nice simple boots for almost a year now, I bought them. Oh yay! Now I can't wait for them to arrive from New York!

Good morning!

I am a firm believer in breakfasts. I never miss a single breakfast. Even when I'm in a rush, I'll make sure I pack a sandwich the night before so I can just grab and go when I need to. This morning I made myself a nice ham and alfalfa whole meal sandwich. All toasted and warm. Munching on it now while listening to this lovely song. What a nice way to start the day!

What do you guys usually eat for breakfasts, I wonder...I like cereal with lots of sultanas, crumpets with butter and honey or ham sandwiches. Either one makes me happy!

Opening Party tomorrow night!

The party is going to be at at 1000 £ Bend from 7pm to 11pm. I'll be there and so will lots of other artists involved! So see you there if you can make it! And remember those $2 coins! Oh yay!

More weekend photos

Thanks for all the lovely comments yesterday, on the first part of my weekend photos. I hope these shots make you smile too. Oh and I would love to mention a big thank you to Lee Tran and the girls of Ballad Of, Lindsey & Claire! And also to some of my readers and customers..Thanks for featuring my work on your blogs! You can check out the Q&A I did, over at Lee Tran's food blog! I had so much fun answering all those questions!

Weekend day trip

On Saturday, Darren and I decided on a last minute day trip and set off for Daylesford, a town about an hour and half from Melbourne. We've been there before but our last visit was really just a mini stop over since it was raining cats and dogs.

This time round, we made it a point to find the little charms within the town itself and we're glad we did. Daylesford has quite a bit of nice stuff! And we did quite a lot, even though it rained cats and dogs ( Our trips to Daylesford always somehow has heavy rain involved! ) We visited the Farmer's Market and bought some really sweet tomatoes, honey and almond muffin mix, had a delicious giant pack of fish and chips, popped by the Maker's Market, ate ice cream, visited cute shops, picked heart-shaped leaves, ventured to a waterfall, visited a huge vintage shop, etc.

So much fun. I have too many photos to squeeze into a single post, so I'll be posting another lot tomorrow!

Paper Mountains

No weekend photos today because I haven't sat down to sort them all out. But tomorrow there will be, I promise! For now, some paper landscapes I've been making...

So many ideas in my head but guess what, my school/studio is closed for this week due to severe damage done by the crazy storm on Saturday. I hope they aren't flooded or something. Sigh. I left my pencil case and colour pencils in school! Only got a ball point pen for now...

Crazy Melbourne weather

There's only one thing on my mind right now. And that's watching the crazy heavy rain. It flooded and hailed in Melbourne yesterday, but Darren and I were away on a daytrip to Daylesford. It rained like madness over there too. ( You might be able to tell from the pictures ) Someone got struck by lighting. Road accidents happened, bits of the town got flooded, ambulances were rushing up and down the town's main street, and my feet was constantly wet and soaked.

I'm now sitting and watching the rain pour down again from dark clouds. Not sure if it's going to flood and hail again today. But there's severe weather warnings..

So to all you Melbourne blog friends, stay dry, warm and safe!