Hangzhou: West Lake

Up next, I will be sharing about my Shanghai-Hangzhou trip! It was really fun and there were a lot of crazy shopping! Six girls just love to have fun!

// All pictures are from the talented Eliza (the cool girl with pixie hair!). Thank you Eliza for the wonderful picture!

We arrived Shanghai at dawn and you can probably tell from our sleepy face!

There after we were dumped into a coach for a few hours of bus ride to get to Hangzhou. Midway, we stopped for our toilet break and chance upon their famous rice dumpling chain!

Then we were herded back to the bus and back on track towards Hangzhou!

Our first stop at Hangzhou was “Xi Hu” (West Lake) and it was a beautiful place with a lot of sad stories.

We went for a boat ride to bring us around the lake and it reminds me of Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan (but of course, this is nothing compared to Sun Moon Lake. HAH)

We also get to walk around the lake a little.

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Rheinhessen 2009 Kabinett

Tried one of the few German wines I bought at DFS and I started off with the less sweet one. This has a hint of sweetness and yet the taste is crisp, fruity and a little young. It was not liquid gold though. With only a Kabinett ranking I should have known.

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Lesson 5: Painting with Pigments

In my fifth lesson and third painting we finally get to add pigments and enjoy the real challenge of painting! It is still in the theme of monochromatic but this time we get to add white pigment to the dark pigment and use it for the tones and all! We scrap less and paint more! The real challenge is to avoid contamination of colour pigments!

After my class, he whipped out a lovely supper to fill my empty stomach! He is the real chef in the house!

Isabel & Polly

I love the fact that my office is so near everything! Including a library! During lunch I popped in and grabbed these two!

(1) A Vintage Affair. Isabel Wolff is well known in the chic flick readers but what really caught my eyes was the book cover! I’m half way through this book and so far it has been good! I love vintage and this book made me appreciates vintage even more! I think it’s really romantic to know that every piece of vintage has a story to tell and yes, I do wonder if the person wearing it was happy, married, or in love.

(2) How to be Married – by Polly Willams – was witty and oh so true! I picked this book immediately because Sophie Kinsella agree that it’s good! (Inferred from a note she wrote at the back of the book!) While reading this book, it makes me wonder if I really have to be the perfect wife (a little like the Stepford wife) to gain his attention and reduce the daily frustration! Even though the book ended with (spoiler alert!) the man telling his wife that he loves who she is (including all her mess and spontaneity), I think in reality, some man do love their wife to be just a little like the Stepford wife. Perhaps, just a little more domesticated. BOO!

Funnel on her Head

Barley chewed her fur bald at her back causing a huge bald spot the size of 3 fifty cents coin! We had to make her wear a funnel to stop her from doing that!

Barley was all clumsy and confused with a funnel on!

Read: Mini Shopaholic.

You cannot imagine that in all the messiness in my life right now, I read a book in three days. I’m an escapist. Becky’s life with Minnie in tow makes my life seems all peaceful and chill. If I have a child like Minnie, I’m sure I’ll put a leash on her!

Art Friend at Buona Vista!

Just a quick shout out to all my artsy friends! Art Friend just opened a new branch at Buona Vista Mrt! I love the fact that it’s so near my work place and it’s on the way to my painting class and on my way home!

Sorry for being out of action! It was a crazy week with all the moving and what not and I’ll quickly post up some entries to keep you entertained!

Marimo Photo Contest

A while back I bought a Marimo from a street store at Clarke Quay and I shared it in my blog here. I love Marimo and they have been cheering me up after a bad day at work and I happened to take this picture with my latest Squareroom magazine featuring Eco Chic design ideas! Me feeling all greens and eco-ly decided to take my marimo with the front cover and it turn out pretty well! These Marimos will be sitting at my bathroom in my new apartment and I can’t wait!

The store owner, Give a Plant, invited me to take part in the Marimo photo contest and winners will win the following.

• 1st prize – 2 x marimos in limited edition glass whale + 2 x marimos in limited edition glass apple worth $60.00 in total
• 2nd / 3rd prize– 2 x marimos in (choice of limited edition glass apple or whale worth $30.00)

I’ve decided that I will be giving out all the prizes (if I win them) to my blog readers! As I don’t need any more Marimos but I’m sure one of you might need one to cheer you up! So depending on how much you want it, you can start voting for my picture! Do drop a comment here if you voted so that I can randomly select winners for this contest. So this contest is not mine, but yours! If I got the 1st prize, there will be 4 to giveaway and if I got the 2nd or 3rd prize, there will be 2 to giveaway! Also, the owner will be picking 3 voters to give them one Marimo each! After all, good things must share! Haha! Do remember to vote for the correct picture though. Haha.

So vote here, if you need a Marimo or if you think someone needs a Marimo!

Lesson 3: Monochromatic Painting focusing on Negative Space

Yes, I’m back from Shanghai and it was a crazy trip! Alright, back to this post, we continue to focus on monochromatic painting (using 1 colour) but this time round, we focused on the negative spaces (black area) by painting the entire canvas black before scrapping off the black paint revealing the white canvas in the form of the white spaces! Cool yeah? But the scrapping part was rather tedious as it involves using either (1) water, (2) sand paper, (3) palette knife, (4) wet wipes, (5) wet cloth or a combination of all these! Haha. This painting is not done, there are 3 objects and I only managed to paint 2 and the second weird shape vase is not even done. Bah.

Shanghai welcomes me!

I’m flying to Shanghai – Hangzhou for our company retreat trip in a few hours! Excited, yes! And I’m still blogging now. Haha. I can’t bear to leave SbR too quiet for too long!

I want a bicycle like this!

Lesson 2: Monochromatic Colour Scheme

In our second lessons, we learnt to play with the lightness and saturation of a single colour! You should have seen the painting my other classmates did, it was really nice.

The angle is still wrong and the lines are still there. Heh.

Looks how well it looks against my brick wall! HAHA.