My entry for the Braun Buffel Art Competition -- check it out at the Esplanade

Here are pictures of my entry in the Braun Buffel art competition that took place last Saturday at VivoCity.

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All the 83 figurines from the competition will be displayed at the Esplanade Upper Concourse Area from 16 May (Fri) to 15 June (Sun), and ION Orchard Atrium L1 from 24 July (Thu) to 30 July (Wed).

My entry is titled "Unwavering Spirit". The depicted curves symbolize the unwavering spirit of the Braun Buffel bull.

I used a thick impasto painting technique to create texture similar to Van Gogh's post-impressionist paintings. I used expressionism to convey mood and emotions with the highly distorted curves and some heavy colours. The red-orange cadmium colour in the front of the piece is inspired by Edvard Munch's The Scream. The colours found in the back of the piece are inspired by Van Gogh's The Starry Night. The front side shows day, the back side shows night.

I originally wanted to use oil paints that have creamier consistency and more subtle colours but they would take 5 days to dry, so I switched to using acrylic colours that would dry faster but look more striking. I only had 3 hours to finish up both sides of the figurine so I could only do so much, I didn't even had the time to fix some mistakes. I mixed almost all of the colours.

I just did a check today and saw that the figurines done by the participants of the competition are already displayed at the Esplanade, someone has posted a picture of my figurine at Instagram. I think I will go down one of these days to check them out and take some pictures.

Update May 22: I remember a song by Rihanna called "Diamonds" that was playing at the competition while I was painting the figurine. I checked it out on YouTube yesterday and found out that the images and themes of the music video so coincidentally fit with the ones of my figurine(I prepared my idea weeks before I heard the song on that day). The horses' figures in the music video are so reminiscent of the ones seen on my figurine, it was no doubt that I kept playing the video feeling amazed at the stark similarities.

Going to Compete in the Braun Büffel Art Competition

I just received word that I have been approved to compete in the 3-hour Braun Büffel art competition set to be held at VivoCity on May 10. I can't wait to paint on a white Braun Büffel bull figurine and try my best to win the top prize inclusive of a trip to Germany and $2000. My $20 participation fee would be donated to Very Special Arts Singapore(VSA Singapore). I follow a vegan diet and I don't use animal products so I would not be using the complimentary leather accessory given to all participants.

There would be an auction for the contributed pieces from various regional artists and I hope they would receive high bids as all funds would be donated to VSA Singapore. My father used to heavily support disabled mouth-and-foot artists by buying their greeting cards so the competition would give me my turn at supporting a similar cause.

I will keep my choice of art technique a secret for now until the competition is over for obvious reasons. Completed pieces will get to be displayed publicly at the Esplanade Upper Concourse Area from 16 May (Fri) to 15 June (Sun), and ION Orchard Atrium L1 from 24 July (Thu) to 30 July (Wed).

I am very excited to see how my art piece would look while being displayed at such prominent locations, it would be similar to having my own art exhibition. I think I would surely spend hours at those places and take lots of pictures. Getting my art to be displayed in public is worthwhile even if I do not win any prizes.

I remember once thinking of going to art school but gave up such thoughts because I felt I couldn't make a career out of making the kind of art I like and going to art school for years would be a huge waste of time and money. The cost of art materials to complete just one common size painting can cost up to $100 for my preferred type of art technique so going on the art route is definitely not cheap. But I still do not regret skipping art school because I have really found much more important things to do with my life. I don't mind making art just as a hobby.

Singapore Tourism Board's Ad Video: Many Singaporeans Cannot Perceive in Abstract

In reply to the people who did not like the Singapore Tourism Board's promotion video made for the Philippines, I have some thoughts that shed light on the behaviour of those overly-critical Singaporeans.

I actually like the video that was taken down. It is not so rushing like the other commercials. It is suitable for romantic people who like things slow. Fault-finding people are those who do not have an exciting social/sex life so they cannot relate to the romantic themes in the video. And I have made and edited videos before unlike unqualified people who don’t have such experience.

Ads have to be dramatic enough like a musical performance to catch people's limited attention to deliver their message and it is successful in doing so. I see people saying that this ad is too exaggerated in its speech and acting yet people don't call out on live musicals, live plays and movies for portraying the actors' 'over-acting', which only means that those people are hypocritical in calling out one thing and not the other.

The video is more realistic unlike most of the superficial advertisements on TV. If people want to compare it against those fake ads on TV then it only shows how fake they are and distant from reality. People who have unexciting sex would compensate by being overly-demanding because they need more superficial stuff to make up for the lack of excitement in their lives.

The ad uses many abstract techniques compared to normal ads in many areas such the portion involving the pregnancy test kit. Do we blame art for being abstract? No. If the message of the ad can be clearly seen then I don’t see how the ad has failed.

I think the people who find it hard to perceive information in abstract are heavily lacking in imagination and creativity, and perceive the world mostly in a superficial level. So to them, they would think that abstract works are ‘badly done’.

The populace in Singapore is not well-known for being artistic, creative, imaginative and innovative as compared to the Filipinos. Singaporeans depend heavily on realism to earn a living and they lack the artistic skill to grasp abstract information without finding it abnormal.

Most Singaporeans are just lacking in imagination and creativity but are uptight, constricted and small-minded people.

Singer Stephanie Koh explains why she thinks Singaporeans lack creativity:

Why I am not proud to be Singaporean 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydANJ5qLHG4

I am going to be very busy working on art

I am going to be very busy until the end of this month working on an art project to create 4 art pieces. I won't let the cat out of the bag on what the project is about but it should reveal itself in the near future. I would only attempt to make art if it is very challenging so the task is going to be very exciting and creative.

The Pictures I Took with an Artistic Toy Camera

This post is for proving that I am indeed as artistic as I claimed to be in a previous post where I wrote about Mac vs PC and why I still choose to use the PC even though I am an artistic person. So I am providing the proof(my burden of proof) in case some people do not believe in the existence of my artistic talents.

I decided to post the nice artistic pictures I took a few years ago when I had my very first camera that also happened to be a toy camera — the type of camera that artistic people often use to take artistic pictures. The camera was a Chinese-Japanese toy camera called the Yashica F521 that deliberately did not have the anti-motion control so taking clear pictures was a challenge. I have since sold it because I wanted to try other types of cameras with focusing lenses. Perhaps I will get a new camera soon to take new pictures since I have recently started blogging.

This is my flickr account.

Here are the pictures..