Man chose to believe the things he wants to believe. So wrong was man and his sorry world that he brought upon. The bird so wronged an evil bird. Thus to this troubled world, the counting rhyme goes; One for sorrow, two for joy, three for lass and four for lad. Five for silver, six for gold, seven for truth and eight for lie. Nine for heaven, ten for devil and next, I can nae tell you.

A crow.

Today, I’m experimenting on what I could have used in the past, which is acrylic instead of watercolors for the dinosaurs that I did in the past. But due to time and the environmental limitations, I chose the software simulation for real medium. With little time I could spare for this one, I got away with the environment by creating a lake as the behemoth waded, carefully through the shallow bank. I would have added the bank on the opposite side of the lake along with coniferous forest.

So what’s the fun thing about painting dinosaurs? Well, most artists will invent their own dinosaur skin colours and most interesting of all, are the camouflage patterns on them. Like for example, stripes or spots as people believe, like any creatures in our modern world have protections against being seen by their preys or predators. And like most animals, they have distinctive marks or colours defining their genders as well.

SpitFire Prelude

SUBJECT – Supermarine SpitFire. These war planes of the RAF (Royal Air Force) were the marvelous designs that soared the air squaring up against Adolf Hitler’s great armadas. They were the advance fighter planes in the battle of Britain, that became part of propaganda machine that heralded hopes to the people.

MUSIC – A film “First of the Few” was made to honour and commemorate the work of R.J Mitchell, chief designer at Supermarine. The composer was Sir William Turner Walton, whom I regard the master of pomp music who wrote the scores for the prelude and fugue. The same composer for Crown Imperial, Orb and Sceptre and many more. The music for the film “First of the Few” opens with the SpitFire Prelude. That sounds like this, SpiteFire Prelude music

This is one that I had contemplated long enough to the state that I almost forgot about it. I can paint all kinds of aviation scenes but to paint music that affects me the way I feel it, is something as close to touching the intangible. To the point that I can hear the piece of music from my artwork. And this very day, I stumbled across this photograph taken by someone (Carolyn Lim) in FaceBook whom I have to credit for my success in this piece of work. Now, this is a normal snap-and-post photograph of a rainy day that at first I had a feeling for it. Revisiting that photograph for several days, which I knew it carried a message that seem to be reminding me of something until I realised, that the photograph sounds like a piece of music. Soon enough, decidedly, it’s “SpitFire Prelude”. Her photograph of an impending storm with sun ray became the perfect composition to emerging strength. The ground created a slow advance of something from the rain clouds. There is a lot of strength in that photograph, not victorious neither over glorifying. There is courage in the photograph that carried a slow, passing sense of pride. A sense of hope coming from and amidst the troubles. The last touch perhaps, should be achieving an old vintage look with dirt brown washes.

NOTE: “First of the Few” derived from quoted speech by British wartime Prime Minister, Sir Winston Spencer Churchill and it reads “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” However, the Hawker Hurricanes, the older fighter planes shouldered the equal contribution to the fight against the Luftwaffe crossing the English Channel.

Mdm Tia Boon Sim

This is Mdm Tia Boon Sim (Founder of the Urban Sketchers). To be the very first in my august collection of people illustration. By accident through a paint experiment, she is now part of the repository after painstaking salvage work, meticulously. Blinded by impatience, the important features such as her cheek, chin and mild wrinkles were done with lacklustre effort. But these constituted the Mdm Tia grin and thus far to me, this is the person herself I have achieved as compared with the one that made appearance in FaceBook was someone who resembles her in a picture that is to me contemptuously failed, a horrible work. Ashamed of my own work hence, I sat back, some rumination over the flaws and do justice to this piece. And overcoming fear of painting freckles and wrinkles.

Well, with grit and surmounted, it’s done and succeeded. A heavy load off my chest, and I know it’s good work when I can look at the picture again and again without a single pang of shame anymore. Most unbelievable was that a paint doodle that became serious painting. The next important people for my portrait venture might be Emeritus Professor Lee Seng Lip of the Department of Civil Engineering. He is part of the fond memories in my childhood.

Rain

So, if life is a journey, I travel on the darksome alley of life. As I realised, they were never my friends.