Salt Lake Temple
Lee Shu Hui
Pencil on Paper
2010

I felt moved upon to sketch this because of the lovely architecture of this building, which is in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the United States. Moreover, it is a symbol of my faith, built in a painstaking 40 years in the 1800s. Its architecture is full of symbolism, which I enjoy.

I've never been there, but people say it's a beautiful place. I did this piece of work with the thought in mind that I want to go there one day.

I referred to a picture of the temple. I did this with pencil on paper.

I think that this is a refreshing change as I hardly sketch architecture. I am satisfied with the precision of the sketch, which I achieved through using a ruler to help me sketch the straight lines.

My Coursework Progress

This was my progress. I made some changes along the way. Eg I originally planned for streaks of colour (Affandi-style) in the back ground, but ended up painting water. I don't have photos of the final- what it is right now - but here are some thoughts.

This coursework marked some firsts and seconds for me.

-First time using acrylic on such a large scale and so realistically!

-Second time using oils, first time on such a realistic basis, another first in terms of scale. (my first time painting with oils was that failed 18" by 24" experiment of that boy standing in the same pose as Svena (before I asked around for people to model in place of that boy) which I included in my prep boards, it's there for all to see how failed it was... That first left me very discouraged and kind of took away my motivation to paint with oils, so I happily took the challenge of painting with acrylics.) (By the way, the different lightings in the photographs are because I took them at different times of the day, and I leaned them so sunlight fell onto them, so naturally they'd look different on camera.)

this is the failed experiment. my very first time using oils. turned out so bad T T. I think it's because I had the wrong approach. So because I got discouraged I started doodling on the canvas.

By the way, I was attempting to jump straight into trying out a traditional painting technique - and probably that was too big a task I sought to undertake, which only led to disappointments and realisations that perhaps it wasn't as easy after all.

This failed tryout led me to realise I needed a model. Else how would I know how to paint the skin tones?? So then I started asking around... people said no... and finally Svena agreed.

Acrylics made it hard for blending. I didn't think it would be so hard with the Extender, maybe it was my technique. But after I switched to oils the change was so great - I could do a lot of blending easily and quickly, as opposed to the frustration of rubbing furiously trying to get tacky paint to blend. This made it easier for me, allowed for more versatility in the facial expression which consequently did not appear so stiff and dull as it had with acrylics.Oils gave the face a life that is unequaled by acrylics (at least for my abilities when I use acrylics. It just looked dead...) So yes after this liberating revelation I realised that oils, for portraiture, are much easier to work with.

One good thing about using acrylics as my base layer was that the oils formed a very smooth layer with minimal application of paint. And oils are more expensive than acrylics.

Portraiture calls for very serious and in-depth observational skills. Throughout the whole course of making this work, I had to constantly analyze what went wrong - constantly scrutinize the photograph and compare it with my painting and search for the problems. A very slow, very tedious process that took me weeks to muster - weeks of adjustments, adjustments and more adjustments, before I was able to understand how to paint Svena's eye properly in a way that made it look real enough. I hope my powers of observation have been honed slightly more through this vigorous mental exercise...

I wish I had more time to work on my painting, but since it's over, well that's my effort and I'm just glad I can finally concentrate on studying after all this.

Restoration
Lee Shu Hui
Photography
22 September 2010

I took this using my old Nokia handphone. It was a Classic 3120, but don't let the name deceive you - the camera was really good. I took this photo at Sharon's house during the hols or after school, I can't remember, because at that time I was really passionate about choir and I went to her house after school a couple of times to use her piano and we'd practice our choir songs. The sunlight looked really beautiful, and I felt awed staring into the sky which was before me, which stretched on and on and I couldn't see the end of it. So I ran and got my phone. During that time I was really into photography, really passionate, always using my phone to snap pictures around me whenever I thought something would make a good photograph.

This makes an inspiring photograph, don't you think?

Sunlight gradually distilling upon the tops of the buildings in darkness, like heaven opening its doors to reveal an endless outpouring of light.

95th Anniversary Birthday Card

Nanyang 95th Anniversary Birthday Card
Lee Shu Hui
Mixed Media
2012

To celebrate Nanyang's 95th birthday anniversary, we were tasked to produce some birthday cards for the school.

I thought that incorporating the school colours into my artwork would be pertinent, so here I included the school colours: blue and yellow (NY uses it in her school logo), and red and white (the colour of our hongzi uniform).

I did this work with colour pencils and poster paint. I was confident with colour pencils, as I'd spent countless hours working with them in Secondary 3 for my SIA - the kimono with the realistic pictures on one side and the abstraction on the other side, complete with Jackson Pollock-esque splatters against a black background. (It's one of the first few posts in this blog, so, to the reader- if you're interested, you can go search for it). So yes, I was quite in my element there. Although I could have improved it a lot better if I'd spent more time on it.

I first sketched out the slice of strawberry cake. Next I coloured over my pencil markings with colour pencils. I then diluted my poster paints in water to give the background that nice blue hue. However, I realised my birthday card looked too dull. I needed something more vibrant. So I turned to my poster paints, and surely enough the red of the strawberries turned out so much better. The sponginess of the cake was brought out so much more after I added some yellow ochre (by the way, prior to doing this artwork, I didn't know poster paints came in the same colour names (like Titanium White, Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre) that oil paints do!).

I then did the watermark style NAN YANG 95 with diluted red poster paint. I think the font could have been improved on. The Nan Yang was written rather crudely and was rather squarish like it is on our uniform, so I think I could have had better planning and honed my calligraphy skills... Like at least practice before I did the actual thing, like what Beilin did. So yes. Learning points for the future.

I actually decorated the back of the card too, but because I suddenly had this burst of artistic passion, and started working like an Abstract Impressionist, somehow things didn't turn out quite so nice-looking. -sigh- Thankfully it got covered up because that uglier side of the card is the one being stuck to the white standup board. Some of my friends had quite a laugh out of it.

Here is my preparatory work.

Igor Mitoraj
Dormiente (Sleeper)
2002

This was exhibited at ARTSTAGE Singapore. I think this is a lot like my style of drawing. Sharon also told me so, citing how I like to draw Grecian-like guys' faces from my imagination when we saw this work at the exhibition. However, I'd just like to clarify that I don't just always draw Grecian-looking guys.













Igor Oleinikov
Kunstrauber (Art Thief)
2011

This artwork also struck a great impact on me. It was one of the guiding factors (along with Chuck Close) that inspired me to produce my coursework on the human form being depicted realistically.

Sharon told me that this was a lot like my style of art. I just was very much attracted to this piece, staring at it for a long time.

It is not a perfect face, not an idealistic Golden-Ratio face as the ancient Greeks would have liked it; it has its flaws and imperfections, with the frown lines and the sunken eyes peering out from behind shadows and the eye bags. I admired how it was so impactful, so unfinished, yet so striking - there was a tinge of color that appeared to be spreading across his forehead in the shadows. He looks like an apparition of light, like a faraway dream, all solemnity, like a twist in the plot of LOST. The blurred sides of his face makes him look like he is receding into the light, or swallowed up by it.

I wanted very much to do something like this for coursework - an impactful view of someone, a face, looking up into the viewer's eyes. I did incorporate that idea into my coursework.

2nd Basketball artwork

Untitled
Lee Shu Hui
Pencil on Paper
June 2009

This was the second sketch I did in 2009 that was realistic and was about basketball.

This was done because firstly, I enjoyed sketching realistically. This was also because I had kind of failed in my attempt (see previous post) to depict Kobe Bryant playing basketball back on 27 May, so I had that urge to better myself and to try again.

This work looks better than the one done of Bryant in May. I think that this work shows a lot more comfortable, natural pencil strokes, compared to the 1st basketball artwork I did.
There is a sense of movement in the picture and I love how this work is unfinished, with the central focus on the NBA player with the ball as he is the one who looks the most complete and finished. The fact that it's unfinished as a whole also provides a sense of rhythm to the sketch - yet these figures are caught in time, still and frozen.

I think this piece of work shows how I improved in my rendering of the human form. I disagree that in order to learn how to depict the human form you have to look at the bare body - I think if you have an eye that is discerning enough, you will understand the form even when you analyze and draw the body with clothes on. I dislike the way in which certain professional artists opt to study the human form.

I decided to include this, among my other 2 basketball sketches which i have already posted, to show my progress from the first artwork to the second then to the 3rd most developed one. I think it charts my growth. Though it doesn't sum my whole journey, which hasn't ended yet, I think it helps to show one segment of how I improved artistically.

I think I should say sometimes some spark just comes to me and that helps me a lot. Sometimes the spark isn't there and I get an uninspired piece of ordinary work.

1st Basketball artwork

Kobe Bryant
Lee Shu Hui
Pencil on Paper
27 May 2009

This is the first of 3 series of basketball sketches I did in 2009. I felt quite dissatisfied after finishing this piece of work. It was one of those works where after you're done with it, you feel like you could do better and you feel like changing it but you feel like just taking a break from it for a while because you've spent so much time on it and you're pretty discouraged - the feeling is just not a nice one.

I was spurred on to sketch this picture of him from the newspaper that day because there was a nice long article about him and the previous day's game and how he was the star of that show. That kind of kick-started my fandom for Kobe Bryant, because all along throughout my childhood I had a passion (sometimes waning, sometimes strong) for basketball, although not necessarily having the talent nor spending enough time on it. I think I spent more time drawing than playing basketball. Let's just say I'm an amateur who's liked basketball most of her life.

This artwork does have its good points - I like the way the folds in his clothes were depicted along the chest area.

After this, I wasn't willing to give up so easily, so I did a 2nd sketch in June 2009 of an NBA player I didn't know - but Kobe is challenging him for the ball and failing. Will upload it soon.

3rd Basketball artwork

Kobe Bryant
Lee Shu Hui
Pencil on Paper
approx A3
14 November 2009

Kobe Bryant is awesome!!!!

This piece of work is meaningful to me because I'm a fan of Kobe Bryant. I started reading about him in the sports column of the newspapers in 2009. So this was done when my fandom was at its peak. I still admire him a lot though.

One point I'm not satisfied with is how I drew a very resolute thick line near his shoulder, which to me kills the realism of it all. But i can't change it anymore - considering how my sketchbook got thrown away.. and all that's left are the digital remains of it... ): r.i.p. One thing I struggle with is - when an artist has signed the date on the work, wouldn't going back and changing it later on compromise the integrity of the date written there? But then again, doesn't the artist have the discretion to change the work if it belongs to her and her alone?

I think I have a deeply rooted strength in sketching. But very humbly I acknowledge that there are still points for improvement in my technique, and perhaps I may never attain to the greatest perfection in pencilwork in the near future but perhaps practise may help me.

I remember depicting the muscles on his arms were tricky, because in the picture there wasn't really a distinct line - yet there were faint lines on his arms that were slick with his perspiration. (this sounds gross) I didn't really want to colour his arm and erase in the highlights, so i just used lines to represent the muscles on his arm. If I were to do this work now, I would approach sketching the arms in a different manner - I would be making softer side-to-side brushstrokes into the paper.

This piece of work was exciting for me because this was the first time (I think) I'd ever sketched in such a delicate style before - like a milestone I'd reached in artistic achievement. (Usually, in those days, my style was rough, hard pencil strokes. Sketching anime guys helped me with learning to sketch softly) Prior to this - or during this time - I was really into manga, so I didn't sketch realistically for a really long period of time. Instead I sketched manga guys. Before attempting this work, in May and June (this artwork was done in Nov) I sketched Kobe Bryant from pictures I found. The growth in my ability from then to here in November is astounding. I'll upload them to show the change.