[Violin Score] Braveheart

 

original source: 简谱网

[Violin Score] Back to the Future

original source: 简谱网

Frozen "Let it go" Violin Solo

[source]

Vater's paintings

Even though we ended up with engineering degrees (against our Vater's advice - sometimes children have to make mistakes in their own way), Bruder and I have exhibited some little artistic interests and aesthetic growing up. Bruder favored clean lines and streamline designs in his artwork, and I always thought that he would study furniture design (though that didn't happen. I guess we are too practical somehow. I did not pursue cooking as a career despite my Home Econs Teacher's advice). As for me, I dabble in 三分钟热度 interest in arts and crafts. My brother no longer draws in his free time, what with my Neffe and acquiring his Masters, but you can definitely observe the difference in  his and my aesthetic in the way we decorate our apartments.

Bruder's chic and simplistic. Mine is... Bobo suggested that we call it "Shab Shack" when I was thinking of making a sign to hang over our front door. Probably because I always whine "why is our house so shabby?!" whenever we watch Amazing Spaces, Tiny House Nation or some other home renovation program.

Anyway our interest in art had to come from somewhere. Mutter is definitely the practical one in the family, not given to creative outlets so I had always been puzzled who my Bruder and I inherited this from. Didn't think it was Vater, even though it was obvious by process of elimination.

Vater was the typical distant Chinese father when we were growing up, slogging in harsh environments to put food on the table, leaving most of the upbringing to Mutter (except when special forms of discipline has to be executed on more stubborn characters).

Now that he was retired, he has started dabbling in watercolors, taking lessons from YouTube instructional videos.

The children and parents in this family are each other's harshest critics (refer: sardine can). We are also not a family given to praise either. Though I didn't tell him, I like the mountain scene the most.

[10 Aug 2014] SSO @ Botanical Garden

Ms Bear msged me saying that there was a SSO event at Botanical Garden's Shaw Symphony Stage to celebrate National Day. This time the conductor was the heavily accented sexy bunny Jason Lai  who is very engaging, compared to his colleagues (*sorry* Lan Shui).

I thought I would carpe diem and try to buy the Garden Festival tickets as well. But so dumb, the guy wanted me to bring my mom's IC as well (excuse me, it's not "MAY bring your IC when buying tickets"). Since we are going on a weekday, I guess I am ok with it. Didn't appreciate the Customer Service counter staff's attitude though.

While I was trashing things out there, the girls set up the mat on a very steep slope (sacrifices must be made at a popular event, especially if you want to see the stage), where we proceeded to enjoy the performance (for me, ogle others' bentoes and picnic baskets at the same time). It was really the sweltering afternoon heat that was the killer, because we were facing the sun.

afternoon sun

SSO played a medley of National Day songs, which went down with the mostly local crowd (the usual crowd is the ang mo and the arty farty wannabes like me). They also played some movie themes, like the Pirates of Caribbean, which Ms Bear liked a lot.

After the performance, we walked to California Pizza Kitchen (not like the other time, where we spent the entire evening performance watching an uncle eat his porridge so happily, and decided to walk all the way to Taka's Crystal Jade - service bad - for porridge too), where we got to enjoy a National Day discounted meal of appetizer, 1/2 salad, pizza, and a pasta for SGD49++. We had a really head banging (literally) great meal full of gossip (the best kind).

The perennial favorite, Peking Duck pizza (really, it is the hoisin sauce I love, since I no longer eat duckies)

Fried tortilla in the background, miso tofu salad in the foreground

Very yummy, luckily Ms Bear stopped me before I ordered Gongbao chicken spaghetti, because when the dishes came, we realized that the miso tofu salad came with fried wanton skins, the peking duck pizza came with fried wanton skins. If we had ordered Gongbao... well...the deep fried tortilla reeked of wanton skin smell. I'd running screaming if I encountered a wanton skin in a dark alley.

As it was, between the three of us, we couldn't finish the pizza, and I brought it home for breakfast the next day. Reheated pizza still tasted better than cold pizza. Yumz.

Present from the Bloke

My agreement with the Bloke for a painting of Mr Bear were books on painting flowers in acrylic and mixing colors. The latter arrived, but the former went missing between the two of us, so the Bloke said he would send again.

This time I received a card from the post office to collect the parcel for missed delivery. I was already puzzled why the expected book was so thick it couldn't be stuffed through the mail, so when I saw the actual box, I dropped jaw.

It was massive.

Opening it, I was very surprised to find the following items after I opened the box from the back (the front was too secured).

the book

It came with a disc.

There were pretty stickers and paint brushes! I especially like the flat brushes!

Bloke even got me a box of paints. How thoughtful!

But of course the piece de resistance was....

Grumpy Fynn! "Why did you stuff me in ze box?!

Here is Grumpy Fynn next to his older brother Blond German Fynn

The Bloke explained in a letter that he got me the other stuff because of the disappointment over the previously missed delivery. Wasn't it fantastic of him to go to this unnecessary but totally awesome expense? :D

*sobs* Art Friends Takashimaya branch closed down

I really think I am jinxed. I moved to my new place thinking it would bring me more conveniences, only to experience what could be accessible places disappear on me. Now Art Friends Takashimaya bite the dust, ostensibly because Ngee Ann City wanted to renovate the floor (Bullshit the Art Friends uncle fed me). I noticed the other shops on the same floor didn't move or close down.

Worse still, the other accessible branch at Buona Vista also closed down. Instead its replacement was now at Clementi. Who the F is going to go that far to buy paint and canvases? Luckily I had enough to tide me by. I asked my two favorite uncles where were they going, they both said they were heading to the Clementi branch. I asked the Chinese uncle if he was coming back to the new promised Orchard branch, he laughed bitterly and said "if I am not replaced by younger people". I certainly hope not. How many staffers do you know can know the lay of a huge branch so well they can tell you where is a certain item located?

Nonetheless the branch had a "sort of" friendly deal where you get larger discounts depending on your expenditure until Apr 20. Since we happened to be celebrating Miss Bear's birthday at Sun & Moon, I called Mrs Bear who is very into decoupage now, to go to Art Friends and maximize the discount.  In the end, three of us spent more than S$150 (shockingly but thankfully Mrs Bear spent more than me to make up the total, as Miss Bear only bought S$15 of materials) to get a S$30 discount.

My inspiration

Inspired by a wooden picture that I saw on a travel blog, I bought some pieces of wood, wooden letters and some ready made wooden animals to make my own version.

Before

After

I decided against using the colored letters after conferring with Misses Bears and my English friend (let's call him the Bloke). Majority voted against letters, though I think the ladies wanted to know why was my artwork so kiddy.

Updated!!!
There is a branch at Plaza Singapura now! Just take the super long escalator to B1 if you are coming in from the MRT underpass.

Mr Bear for "sale"

I was talking to my new penpal about painting, and at some point of the conversation, I showed him some of the paintings I did. He liked the Mr Bear one and asked me to sell it to him.

Since my Mr Bear is kinda of old and dented (from falling off the wall because of the lousy putty I used to stick him up), I suggested doing him a new one. In lieu of $ (despite my love for it, it seems very crass), I suggested my friend get me a book on mixing paint. I have a lot of yellow based paints due to my love for painting flowers, esp yellow flowers (the gardening committee might have a point), so it will be good that I can save some money by learning how to mix paint.

I tried to do a new version of Mr Bear, and showed the WIP (the background was not WIP) to my penpal. He didn't really like the style. So I did the same as the old Mr Bear.

It's been oil sealed since, which gave it a nice sheen. Once it is dry (I think should be ok by tomorrow), I will mail it to my penpal.

[12 Jan 2014] Acapella @ Botanical Garden

We went to watch the acapella concert at Shaw Foundation Symphony stage. It was a massive pain in the ass to walk from Botanical Garden. Btw smarter bears do not walk up the red brick path thinking it is a shorter path. Yes, it saves distance but it brings you way past the stage. The lower road path is a better idea, though it is longer. It does reach the stage by going past the Au Petit Salut.

Despite my bad directions, we managed to reach there in time and set up our mat to watch the concert. We were a little worried by the dark skies. The rain kept playing tricks on us, by raining then stopping then raining again...we were only drenched a little, but the umbrella did get away from Bobo at one point.

We picnicked on Pringles and sushi. Eaten rather hastily thanks to the unreasonable weather. We saw a Chinese family eating chicken rice and porridge, which sent us to hunt for a porridge dinner after the event.

Micapella

And enjoyed the sounds of GoodFellas, Micappella, and Key Elements. My favorite was Micappella. I especially liked some of their covers, e.g. Lorde's Royals (oncore piece), because they did recent songs. I was a bit confused by GoodFellas using instruments. Wasn't it a acapella performance? I wished their music was louder, and they seemed to play very country music style, which I didn't like. I thought Key Elements was not bad too, and felt a little bad that we didn't yell encore for them. Their music was more soothing (jazzy after all) and good for a sleepy wet afternoon, whereas Micappella was more rousing.

Key Elements

For the children, who found fun by rolling down the grassy slopes, going down the stone stair rail like a slide, and running around, there was distraction in the form of wire art, sand art and face painting. I told Bobo the makeup artist was pretty, but he was too lazy to move.

Wire art

While coming out of the Botanical Garden, LKY passed by us in a buggy. Cool right? We only realized when someone coming onwards, said "thank you sir for everything". ??? We were naturally nonplussed but after a while, it sank into our brains it was the LKY.

GoodFellas - they play @ Timbre

A little light music

I thought I would share some of my favorite classical pieces. I always play them when I am rushing a deadline or very stressed at work.

Elgar's Salut D' Amour (this is the version I like best!)

Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op 64


Dvorak's Humoresque


Schubert's Ave Maria


Smetana's Die Moldau

Transposed violin sheet music

I came across this blog Musical Mania while searching for sheet music. This blogger has transposed some interesting contemporary music pieces, like 1D's "What Makes You Beautiful". I thought he/she was quite impressive :)

Cats' "Memory" Violin Score

[original source (pdf)]

"一 千年以后" JJ Lim Violin Score

[original source (score is available in pdf, but link is in Mandarin)]

[20 Jan 2013] OpenHouse at MBFC [Part 2] - MBFC

When the tour started, the guide introduced himself as Phillip and gave us some background on the events. He also said that the tour will last 2 hours and we would be covering different areas in the Raffles area culminating with a visit to the DeutscheBank trading floor. I was glad we got Phillip as a guide because he was very informative and took pains to explain everything clearly to us, even about the Custom House (I posted about the Oyster Bar there before).

We saw 4 of the 12 exhibits/performances at MBFC itself. Just walking out of the makeshift waiting room (which was a function room), we saw Mintio's photograph exhibit capturing all the colors and shapes that local shopping malls and office buildings make against the Singapore nightscape in a sort of giant film-roll.

Phillip looks for a Shelf Help buch... just kidding

Then we took a lift to the cafeteria area where we saw studioKALEIDO’s “Shelf Help”. It pokes fun at our love of self-help by having a hilarious display of self-help books which all have blank pages within.The Pièce de résistance is all on the book cover. You laugh at the title and then you turn to the back and laugh some more. My favorite is naturally "How to Accept That This Shit is As Good As It Gets" because its advice captured my favorite catchphrase... "Suck it up..." I wanted to buy that book. Seriously.

Book Cover of My Life

Inside the Book

My Life Philosophy captured in the book. Couldn't be better described than "Tiny Plasticine Penis"

I loved the display so much that it was the single artwork that got the most fotos from me. Enjoy the next few fantastic "Shelf Help" books.

Important life skill I should learn

Another one I should learn...suffice to say, I am better at cutting them.

WTF is an armchair general?

Moving on, we walked to the windows where we saw Joy Ho drawing onto her display with the Marina Bay Sands as her backdrop.  As the rest were happily clicking away, I eyeballed the strangely large number of cleaning aunties and even an uncle hovering nearby on a non-working Sunday. Weird, then I too became super involved in trying to capture Joy's artwork against the city backdrop nicely when the cleaner aunties and uncle suddenly broke into dance to "Bengawan Solo".

Joy Ho drawing away

Das me?

Their cheerfulness and enthusiasm were definitely heartening, and we cheered them appreciatively. The idea is that usually most people would be busy going about their lunch and work and ignoring these (really working there) cleaners who fade into the background while clearing dirty dishes and wiping down tables. 

"I am going to kill the cockroach with this dishcloth!!!"

"我要代表月亮惩罚你" Sailor Moon style

"I caught a fish this big"