Sail away with me

Sometimes it would be nice to just sail away from it all....

Sunday Sketches - playing around with backgrounds

Cool blondes

My inspiration for this little sketch was January Jones from Mad Men and the lovely Naomi Watts.

Sunday sketches - 33 degrees and rising

Sunday sketches - rainy days

Sunday sketches - come on dive in!

Sketch before I coloured the tail in

Sketch with tail coloured in using water colour pencils

A new direction

I've desperately been trying to combine my love for portraits, life drawing, fashion illustration and strong women. And I think I'm getting there. I've a long way to go but I hope that this is a start of a new direction for me. I hope you will join me on this journey.

Sunday sketches

Not really the weather for this woolly hat! But I like it.

It's getting hot in here

It's hot and humid and the rainy season is upon us. It's hard to keep cool. This sketch illustrates how hot I feel just now.

It's been a tough weekend

Here's hoping that next week is much better!

Sunday sketches

The original scanned-in drawing - looks much lighter than original

Colours adjusted slightly to reflect original

Colours adjusted somewhat more

Sepia toned

Colours adjusted to fiery orange tones

I am super busy during the week now building up my PR and marketing business, so only have a small amount of time each week to be creative. Yesterday it rained heavily, which was the perfect excuse to do some sketching and then play around on paint.net. Which version of this illustration do you like best?

Hong Kong Art Fair

On Thursday night I was lucky enough to attend a special viewing of this year's Hong Kong Art Fair. I was blown away by the works of art there, which was mostly contemporary art. The exhibition was enormous and jam packed with many different artists from around the world, including lots and lots from China including Yu Chen, Zhao Fang and Wang Yi-guang. Exhibits from Damien Hirst, Matisse, Avedon (photo above) and La Chappelle were also at the show. I felt completely spoiled to see this exhibition and hope to return over the weekend as three hours were not enough to see everything. Apologies for the quality of the photos - I took them with my iphone.

Below is a video about the show. The show runs until Sunday.

On and around Lamma Island

A masterpiece in Pak Kok

This table is missing some good food, wine and great friends

Incredible colourful orange and pink flowers

Lamma seafront

And the sun setting

These are just some of beautiful sights from Lamma Island, where we live.

Roz's sketchcrawl appears on Lammazine

Photos by Lamma Gung

A story about our recent sketchcrawl, organised by Roz Keep, appeared on one of the best blogs ever - the Lammazine, the online magazine for Lamma Island. Click on the first image above to read more about our wonderful little island and the sketchcrawl!

Sketchcrawl 15 May 2010

Today was sketch crawl day on Lamma Island. Five of us met up in the Green Cottage, Yung Shue Wan Main Street before heading off to sketch this lovely island. Today was 30 degrees and 95% humid so we didn't stay out for long.

The top two images are of one of the pagodas on the island, this one is just behind the fishermen's village. And the bottom image is Vicki, one of the sketch crawlers. Her legs aren't as wonky in real life. I will post a link to everyone's work later this week.

Let them eat cake!

I am on a diet, so instead of eating cake I am drawing cake. This is a little orange sponge cake with lemon icing.

Serves 12
150g unsalted butter, softened to room temp
150g caster sugar
200g self-raising flour
3 eggs
Grated zest & orange juice of 1 large orange

For the icing
Grated zest and juice of 1 large lemon
175g icing sugar

• preheat the oven to 180c. Grease and line the base of 20cm cake tin
• in a large bowl, beat together the butter, caster sugar, flour and eggs until light and creamy. Stir in the orange zest and juice, then spoon the mixture into the cake tin and level the top. Bake for about 30 mins or until risen and golden and it feels firm to the touch. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 5-10 mins, then take it out of the tin, peel off the paper and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
• to make the icing, keep a little lemon zest back for the decoration, then beat the icing sugar, lemon juice and the rest of the zest together to make a smooth, runny icing. Using a palette knife, spread the icing over the top of the cake and let it drizzle down the sides. Leave to set. Scatter over the reserved lemon zest and decorate with Easter decorations.
  

recipe from Tana Ramsay's The Market Kitchen Cookbook.

Inspirational quotes

Never a week goes by without feeling inspired by something I see online or in the street or through my friends actions. This quote is from a fashion campaign that is currently running in Hong Kong. I changed the font and colour. It reflects how I feel just now about someone that I am collaborating with - she is dedicating her life to fundraising and raising the awareness of the desperate plight of women and girls in crisis across Asia. More to follow about this project. Meantime, here is the quote.

What's your favourite inspirational quote?

Delicate

I love the delicateness of this face. There's a real sadness to it too. I sometimes feel bad for the models we draw. As no one engages with them. They come, they pose, then leave. I sometimes wonder what they do, where they come from, or even what their names are....

To bob or not to bob

I just love bobs! I did this sketch on Wednesday night and then digitally coloured it to make it look more Asian. China's favourite colour is red. The model's hair was unbelievably shiny and straight and fell perfectly over her eyes. Unfortunately my hair is fine and frizzy and would never fall this beautifully thus I will always desire the perfect bob but never attain it.

Back to life!

I'm ashamed to say that I haven't done any drawing for nearly two months! I have been busy setting up my new PR & marketing company, which has been both exciting and exhausting but I I have had no spare time or patience to either draw or paint. But last night I forced myself to go to a wonderful life drawing class at Art Live in SOHO. The class takes place every Wednesday in a large photography studio overlooking Hong Kong's famous escalator. The results of my work are above. The model was amazingly pretty with the most fantastic bob that just hung perfectly in every position.The results of everyone's work on the night