Merry-go-Round: What do we hope to learn/achieve this year?

It's time for another ride on the merry-go-round! Jump on and join a group of 9 artists/crafts-women as they link around the world and tell you a little about their lives in art and craft.
This month topic is: "What do we hope to learn/achieve this year?".

I have being thinking of learning print making for a long time. I think this is the major skill that I want to acquire this year.

I am thinking of enroll myself at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. I like the school. It was there that I picked up my basic painting skill such as watercolor, oil and sketching.

The course of print making will start on July this year and the enrollment is on May. They usually take only few people for the class. You must apply for it early. I hope I don't miss the date to enroll myself.

Another thing is that the figurative painting. One of my friends invited me to a figurative painting class. But I always find myself busy with this and that and never attended it. I think I should  make myself go there regularly.

 

Magnolia and Bird Laptop Skin

Of course, apart from these two major goals are the goal to improve my art skill in whatever I am doing right now.

Please do visit other merry-go-around blogger for their goals this year:

Wendren at Wren
Sara at Sara's Texture Crafts
Charlotte at Fancy Picnic
Marian, Florcita's Art
Agathe at Le Bar du Vent
Fabienne at Easterya
Ruth at Birdland Creation  
Alison at Tweed Thoughts
Misty at Art Mind
Kim at My Textile Adventures

Moonlight Owl Bird Abstract Landscape Big Laminated Print

 

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This  is a Large Laminated Print of 16 x 20"/41 x 51cm.  It is from Moonlight Owl painting. This is made for a customer who is collecting owl for her pink office. I believe it would be very nice to fit in a pink environment and interior decoration.

Just a note about the photo, the owl print is supported by a white canvas. I think I should not use a white canvas next time for taking photos due the bright color.

Moonlight Night and Magnolia Bird Square Magnet Set

 

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I have a request on the above set of magnets. They are from the Moon and Flower Night and The Magnolia Bird Green paintings.

It is in my shop now.

Magnolia and Birds Spring Square Magnet Set and Magnolia Bird Laptop Skin

 

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One of my customers bought two prints Just Resting and Magnolia Birds. They are very nice together I think and made a pair of magnets from  them.

One of the laptop skins from Magnolia and Birds is a bit gray red color. 

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The Gardener and Humming Birds Square Magnet Set

 

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These two magnets are made from the The Gardener and The Humming Birds paintings. They are a really lovely sweet pair.

I have been busy with processing the orders accumulated during the Chinese New Year break. Hope to do some new paintings next week.

Have a nice weekend to everyone!

Chinese New Year 2010

 We had a great break during Chinese New Year in my another house without Internet and TV. We spend whole time to play with my daughter and celebrate the new year with friends.

 

Tiger Year with Tiger Mask

 

Lion Dance in the Neighborhood

Happy Spring Festival and Shop Announcement:

 

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Happy Chinese New Year and Gong Xi Fai Cai to everyone! Wish everyone has a fantastic tiger year!

I'll be away till 17th of February. You can still make orders in my shop and I'll process them after I come back.

Gorgeous Bird and Rain Flower Abstract Artist Laptop Skin and Glass Pendants

 

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I have spent most of the working time today to process the orders. The newly printed bird and rain laptop skin is really gorgeous. 

Order the Glass Pendants

These are the glass pendants that I have started to make two days ago and they are ready now. I am sorry I am a bit tired and didn't arrange the photo to be taken nicely.

I still have some more to process tomorrow. The post office will be close from Chinese New Year Feb. 14th till 17th.  I would like to send all the orders before the Chinese New Year.

The Gardener Girl Flower Glass Pendant, Chinese New Year and Most Popular Member of Dawanda

 

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This is the glass pendant made from The Gardener.  After I listed it in Dawanda few days ago, I sold 2 of them and many people put it in their pin-board. I am glad that so many people like it. I love it very much. You can also check the Dawanda Special Product page designed with The Gardener. It is very lovely. I hope the English version is up soon!

Chinese new year is closer. I feel the crowd everywhere. I guess people are taking leave to buy new year staff. I just bought these new year cookies and gathered some Hongbao. The Hongbao or Red Packet is used to store money to give to relatives who are still single. For me, mostly they are the children of my friends or neighbors because my relatives are all in China.

I know many other places are freezing now, but Singapore is getting hotter and hotter when the rainy season is almost over. Baby got her new swimming suit today. How lovely she is in her new swimming suit!

I just found that I am again being the most Popular Member in Dawanda. You become a popular member when many people put you into their pin-board. In Etsy, it would be people heart you. If you click again and my owl is not there, it means someone else becomes most popular. It is changing all the time.

Humming Bird Glass Pendant, Chinese New Year Preparations and Chopin Music Concert

 

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This is a photo from Jan Irving of the Humming Bird square glass pendant that she ordered from me. It is so beautifully taken. As I said before, I love all her photos in her blog. The another photo is taken with the pendant and a matching cord. You can check it here. It is really beautiful. Thank you very much Jan!

I spent much of my time doing shopping for the Chinese New Year. It is on Feb. 14th. I'll be away to spend it in my another house. The flowers is ready for the house. Most of the flowers are Chrysanthemums. In Chinese, Chrysanthemum is called "Ju Hua". The sound of "Ju" is very nice. It means auspicious in Chinese. Thus, we must have "Ju Hua" in Chinese New Year.

 

The baby cloth is also ready. She will be wearing it on the first day of Chinese New Year and say "Gong Xi" (congratulations) to everyone she will meet. She looks absolutely gorgeous with the cloth. I'll post one after the Chinese New Year. The little cloth is decorated with "Ju Hua" and Peonies.

 We just found out that there was a Chopin piano concert at the Singapore botanical garden on Sunday afternoon. It is to celebrate Chopin's 200th birthday. The pianist is gorgeous looking  Polish pianist Leszek Mozdzer. He must be very busy with the performance because after he finished the concert he immediately needs to go to take airplane to somewhere else.

We sit with many people on the grass land and  the weather was fantastic that was cloudy with gentle breezy. It was a really enjoying afternoon with great music and weather.

The Gardener Gril Flower Garden and Dawanda Banner

 

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In the Spring special product version of Dawanda, they use my new The Gardener painting as the banner. It's very pretty. Currently it is only available in German version. You know Dawanda has three plat forms which are German, English and French. The banner will be available in English version later. I like how my design is used as banner in this way. Do check it up.

You may wonder how your lists work in the three platforms. You just need to list your product in the three languages and it will appear in all three platforms. 

For the laptop skin lovers, you can check out the laptop skin here:

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The Loving Palms Flower Garden Tropical Plant Drawing

I like lines, shape and patterns very much. One of the things that I want to do more in the new year is to do more drawings.

I found these loving palms in my Singapore Botanical Garden trip few weeks ago. They are very cute.

Have a nice weekend to everyone! I'll be doing some more new year food and cloth shopping. My baby needs a Chinese traditional baby cloth. I love to do some visit to those shops.

The Gardener Flower Garden Female Lady Whimsical Print and Laptop Skin

 

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The normal process of creating a print for me is to make a drawing of the whole painting, scan it into the computer and digital color it there.

When I about to erase the redundant drawing and found that it is actually quite nice to leave it there on the girl's face and the path. The rough drawing makes good contrast to the nicely traced flowers at the back. This also solved the problem of adding something in the front. I am not sure how you feel about it. You can check the details below:

The girls face detail is as the follows:

 

Girl Detail

As the print is in portrait orientation, for laptop skin, I made another design. Of course, you can order this as print as well.

 

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 The laptop skin is very cute and whimsical:

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Big Laminated Print Samples

 

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Order the Print

I was very happy to have these big laminated prints produced. They are printed on paper with pigment ink. It can be used outdoors without fading. 

They measure 12 x 18"/30 x 46cm. But I added one cm on both side for framing. Thus the actual prints are 31 x 47cm.

The surface is laminated and they are protected against dirty or finger prints. 

These prints means to be framed. If you like to have some prints that can be mounted on hard board, you can try the Large Laminated Prints (LLP). They have sticky side that can be mounted on a board to hang. 

Philippine Art

 

I went to the Barrio Fiesta held in the Singapore art museum last weekend. Barrio Fiesta is a street fiesta held in Provincial Philippines to commemorate religious occasions.

 

We enjoyed some of the Philippine food there and visited the art exhibition as well. I like many of the work.

 

I also get to visit the Wu Guang Zhong gallery. Wu Guang Zhong is a Chinese painting master. I bought many of his books at home and this is the first time I saw the real big paintings. I like his line works.