Experimental Tee Design : Penang

Would you buy them?

Filed under: Art + Design , Malaysia, Penang, T-Shirt Design, Tee

Journal, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 & 14 June 2009

On the dates I was traveling in Penang.

Pen : Lamy Safari Charcoal fountain pen

Ink : Noodler’s Ink – Polar Black

Colours : Derwent Inktense Watersoluble Pencils + Staedtler Karat Aquarell Watercolour Pencils + Daler Rowney White Acrylic

Pen : Lamy Safari Charcoal fountain pen

Ink : Noodler’s Ink – Polar Black

Colours : Derwent Inktense Watersoluble Pencils + Staedtler Karat Aquarell Watercolour Pencils + Daler Rowney White Acrylic

Filed under: Food, Illustration, Journal, Personal, Sketch, Travel , 2009, Diary, Drawing, Georgetown, Illustration, Journal, Malaysia, Moleskine, Penang, Sketch, Travel

Faces of Penang 1

I am going to start off the Faces of Penang photo series with this batch which was shot on an over 30-year old Kodak slide film which was then cross processed with C-41 chemical. Surprisingly the results turned out beyond my expectation. I thought I was going to lose them from this roll of Kodak Ektachrome 160 Tungsten when I finished shooting I realised the ASA dial on my Olympus XA was mistakenly set to ISO200, which normally in such case of shooting on any old film I would step down the ASA one or two stops to get more exposure. But in this case it did ot ruin the whole roll, which is really good news! So here they are some of the shots of the people in Penang which I picked from the same roll of film.

Stylo old man with a ‘tongkat’
He was very accommodating when I requested him to across over from the opposite side of the street where he was originally standing despite of his limping legs which I did not realise at first until he started walking. This man was just so amazing! He stood right there against the textured wall and let us took pictures of him without saying much.

Notice that blurry brown patch on the right side of the photo? That’s my finger accidentally covering part of the lens of the camera which happens almost every time when I am too engaged with the subject and unaware of the placement of my fingers on that little rangefinder. I have no complaint about it as XA is such an amazingly lightweight, handy, yet powerful little tool! My favourite traveling camera thus far.

Break time
Three men chatting away. A scene I shot while walking in the streets with my friend. I quite like the background.

Man outside a barber shop
What first caught my eyes to capture this shot was not this handsome man but it was the blue talcum powder bottles in the window display behind him. The talcum powder is called ‘Holiday On Ice’ which is very commonly used by most Indian barbers.

Stay tuned for more photos of the Faces of Penang series to come.

Filed under: Cross Processing, Photography, Travel , Cross Processing, Film Photography, Georgetown, Malaysia, Penang, Travel

Picking up Watercolour again

I did some shopping on art materials recently and I got myself some books on drawing and watercolour painting, a watercolour pocket set, a water mixable oil colours set and a Moleskine pocket watercolour notebook. The desire within me has clearly told myself to pick up watercolour painting again after abandoning the skill for more than 15 to 20 over years. The only vivid memory I could recall myself painting with watercolour is when I was a primary school student. I cannot remember if I even did watercolour in college. But here I am giving a good start again. I find it very inspirational indeed to look at some of the watercolour artworks posted on ’skine.art website. It is totally motivational to me to once again rekindle the passion for painting with this medium!

Here I have done the first attempt of a watercolor painting after so many years. This piece was painted with a reference from an old building photo I took in Georgetown, Penang during my trip there recently.

Watercolour painting vs photograph.

Although what I painted may differ from the original picture from the photograph in terms of the proportion and scale I am quite happy with my attempt. Is not it a wonderful thing that with painting we are able to alter a picture by our own hand and make it unique according to our own style?

Passion for painting needs a lot of patience, I think.

Tools / materials :
TomBow 2B recycled pencil
Daler-Rowney Aquafine watercolour pocket set
Moleskine pocket watercolour notebook

Filed under: Illustration, Painting, Travel , Georgetown, Malaysia, Moleskine Watercolour Notebook, Painting, Penang, Watercolour

Me is Grandma

Trying to create something surreal…

At the last day of the KL Photo Awards 2009 Finalists Exhibition at Annexe Gallery, Central Market, Kuala Lumpur when the photo exhibits were taken down on the 24 May 2009. Photo taken by Yip who was also one of the finalists.

Another shot of me caught is action, click here.

Camera & film : Olympus 35DC, F Zuiko 40mm f/1.7, Agfa Vista 200 (Expired)

Filed under: Exhibition, Photography , Film Photography, Finalist Exhibition, Grandma, KLPA’09, Kuala Lumpur Photo Awards 2009, Me, Self-Portrait

Drawings of Georgetown, Penang

Beautiful architecture of the old buildings had led me to compile them in this 2-page piece of drawings when I walked around the heritage site of the city of Georgetown, Penang during the period of 4 days. They were sketched out with pencil on site. Composed one by one as and when I spotted the right kind of building structure and sight each time during my walkabout. They were later redrawn in waterproof black ink with a fountain pen.

@ Georgetown, Penang, 9–13 June 2009

Drawing tools :
Moleskine Watercolour Notebook (Large), TomBow 2B recycled pencil, Lamy Safari Charcoal fountain pen (extra fine nip), Noodler’s Ink – Polar Black

Posted also on ’skine.art website.

Filed under: Illustration, Sketch, Travel, Urban Sketches , Drawing, Georgetown, Heritage Building, Illustration, Malaysia, Moleskine, Old Building, Penang, Pulau Pinang, Travel, Urban Sketches

Self portrait with Olympus 35DC

Why did I do it? I know it is a cliche as most photographers do the I-shoot-myself-in-the-mirror kinda thing these days. Yea, I just wanted to have a picture of myself and a newly acquired rangefinder Olympus 35DC which I purchased end of last month and another shot with my grumpy camera-resistible cat, Bebe. Managed to capture her pretty face before she started retaliating.

Olympus 35DC is one fairly small automatic rangefinder with a fast fixed lens F Zuiko 40mm f/1.7. Even though I may not be favourable of the automatic shutter speed and aperture that determined by the camera itself (which gives me limited control over it) I think it can be quite helpful and fast when I do shoot-and-run street photography. Shutter sound is quiet and lovely.

The film for these shots is an expired Agfa Vista 200.

Filed under: Photography , Cat, Classic Camera, Film Photography, Olympus 35DC, Rangefinder, Self-Portrait

Journal, 30 & 31 May 2009

Went to Cameron Highlands with some photography friends lately. On our way back to Kuala Lumpur we stopped by in Ipoh for a short coffee break. I managed to put my fountain pen into use onto my Moleskine on those two days.

Pictures of me drawing my breakfast at the Boh Tea Centre in Cameron Highlands.

Pictures of me drawing my toast with egg and sausage in Sun Yuan coffeeshop in Ipoh town.

The results after colouring.

Filed under: Food, Illustration, Sketch, Travel , Boh Tea Centre, Cameron Highlands, Coffeeshop, Colouring, Diary, Drawing, Food, Illustration, Ipoh, Journal, Moleskine, Travel

Kampar in Infrared Black & White

At least I tried. It was my first time shooting a roll of Ilford SFX 200, an infrared black and white which has been expired since 2003. It was given to me as a Christmas gift few years ago and was kept for a long time because at that time I did not dare enough to give it a try as I read that infrared films need special kind of care or shooting method whatsoever. Really? I do not know, and I do not like to follow rules, anyway.

So it was a trip to Cameron Highlands over the weekend with some photography friends when we stopped by in Kampar town in the state of Perak for breakfast. I had my newly acquired Olympus 35DC loaded with a roll of Ilford SFX and mounted a piece of red coloured kite paper on the lens by locking it with a normal UV filter. Seriously, I had no idea what kind of photos I was going to get by doing that. It was just an experiment.

The film was sent for developing today. It was processed the same way we process any pure black and white film, as what I was told by the lab. Got the negative back and had some of the photos scanned using my low-end flatbed scanner, just tentatively, before sending it out to a pro lab for proper scanning. I cannot really judge the effects of infrared from the scans, though, but I just like the spocket holes in the pictures.

These are some of the selected shots of the Kampar market.

From the images I scanned I cannot tell if the infrared any different from the normal black and white but will wait and see til I get the film scanned by professional lab.

Anyone who has experience shooting infrared film please leave me some tips?

Filed under: Photography, Travel , Black & White, Film, Infrared, Kampar, Perak, Photography, Travel