last Friday's class:23rd April 2010...art is a therapy

1. Good interaction with my artist this week.

2. I get to learn alot from one of my artist, Dr. Carol Lim, lovely person.

3. My opinion, the exercise was a success: artist mastered how to plan before putting pencil on paper. strokes are better from last week. More confident.

4.The drawing on top is a work from one of the artist, Fernandez Thomas @ Kevin..Good job Bro..

5. also, well done to the other artist: Dr. Carol Lim, Willibrord Thimothy, Rozita Ronnie and Romenjoy Majinin @ Joy. (all other works are as great too, artworks will be displayed during the exhibition...soon.

6. No class next week, as I will be in Sarawak to attend Easter Rally 2010, so class will be held on 7th of May 2010 and we'll do something else then. I'll keep you guys posted.

keep me in your prayers and you I will keep in mine.
Till then...

Fridays with Reagan: Week #2...Still Life

What I can share when you're working on Still Life artwork:

1. Think Realistically, draw what you see, not what think you see.

2. Never exaggerate, this artwork is a form of communication, so be honest, present the artwork as it is.

3. Always keep pencils sharp, keep 3-4 pencils handy, so you don't have to waste time sharpening them.

4. If can, try to use various types of carbon grade, for instance, 2B kah, 6B kah, 2H kah.... so you can maximize your toning work.

5. Paper selection, if can, get 'acid-free' cartridge paper or art block, it won't get yellowish in time, or at least not as fast as conventional paper.

6.... more tips in the next class kay..

keep me in your prayers and you I will keep in mine
till then..

The 'before' test

I Officially Have Students!

I came just on time for the class to start today, all together there were nine artists, some youths and some working adults.

I have to thank EJ and the rest of the youth for helping me set up the place for me to start. Seriously the youths in the centre are very helpful.The centre was converted into a studio in a matter of seconds. Caya lah geng!

These are some of the artists in action, semua pun concentrate tu.

It's good to have people who would make an effort to gather like this, even though with their busy schedule. masih sempat hadir juga, saya salute kamu yang datang... thank you very much.

Some of them are still malu-malu. But thats normal bah, especially the younger ladies, everyone sat in clicks. the girls with the girls, the boys with the boys.

There was this guy who came a bit late and sat alone in a table at the end of the room, I handed him a piece of cartridge and a pencil, and his magic began.

His hands flew across the paper. He finished his sketch in 20 minutes, the rest took about an hour. Well, his accuracy wasn't sharp enough, but I admired his confidence in his strokes, very brave. Oh, he's the one in red (right pic), something tells me this artist here is gonna go far.

This picture on the left shows the 'subject' of the day.
Everyday objects, biasa nampak. But when they start drawing them, they started to really made the effort to 'see' the object's details, the curves on the table's stump, the shine on the ink bottle, one of the artist even drew out the door behind the table, very observant!

I told them earlier when we were about to start, to 'draw what they see, not what they think they see.' and for some, they really followed what I said. Bagus sekali anak-anak saya ni.

The result: I'm just gonna show you guys one lah kay. The rest of the art works will be shown on the exhibition, stay tuned for more updates gang! and keep supporting our local talents guys, these people can generate new hope for us Sabahans.

Not bad for the first day kan? This one is by Nickey Jonius.
I enjoyed myself teaching ( I didn't really said much though)
And I believed the artists enjoyed their time in the studio as well.

That's all for the first Friday, see you all on the second week...

keep me in your prayer and you I will keep in mine.
till then...

Daddy wants to see you happy!

For sure it's not easy to carry up your cross, to be of service to our Father.
But remember this;
Jesus said "My yoke is easy, my burden is light."
Matthew 11:30.

There you go guys, it's time to surrender to the Father,
surrender and everything, I said everything,
will be all right. Some of you might say,"kau pandai cakap saja, cuba kau buat?" or
"cakap senanglah..."

Guys, my life has it's up and downs,
bills to pay, work to rush...macam macam lah.
and I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed,
but the Father always gives me eveything that I need.

In the office, I always pray hard that my bosses will be patient with me,
I'm a very slow learner. And I'm sure He listens to my prayer,
I thank God for Kalvin my engineer and Sally the architect,
who seems to have an impossible level of patience.

I'm sure one of these days they're gonna give me a piece of their mind,
but before the day comes, I'll make sure and pray I'll show progress.
God be with me....pleeeaaase!

My point is, since I have surrendered my well being to God,
it seems that everything is 'not that bad'...
I will always have enough of everything, a bed to sleep, friends(lotsa them),
enough money to get by.... everything!

I always thought it was wrong to pray to God for stuffs.
Since I was a boy, I always relate money with bad things,
"money is the root of all evil"
But a friend told me something that changed me.

"money is a good thing, if you use it for good things"
and it's okay to pray for money,
if you wanna pray for money, pray to God for tonnes of money!

Our earthly father will give of money when we say we'll buy books with the money,
when he knows you'll use his gifts for good, he will give... non-stop!

hebat kan! "Daddy saya mau beli baju christmas"....and he will give!
"Daddy, saya mau beli extra short skirt to go fool around with guys"...Maybe not!
you get my point bah kan?

our heavenly Father is a Gazillion times more generous!

When you're sure of what you want, provided, the things you want are for the glory of God:
it's only a prayer away baby.

"Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened"
Matthew 7:7

need I say more?

Keep me in your prayers and you I will keep in mine
till then..

Fridays with Reagan: week #1... pencil 'before' test.

this is not my drawing okay, I got it from flickr, forgot he's name, cantik kan?

Okay gang, basically what we're going to do in the first week is a simple introduction session, whats your name, how old are you, bla bla bla...

Then we'll start sketching... I'll bring a bit of 'subjects' for you to sketch, and by the end of the session, who ever sketches the worst will be burned at the stake...main main ja okay. In this round, I give you the freedom to be yourself, approach the work in anyway you can imagine, however you like your drawing to be.

There are no rules to what you can or cannot do, but all of your creativity is limited within the four side of the paper...okay bah kan?

So, with you armed with the 2B pencils and the provided art block, I give you permission to 'go crazy'. kau punya tau la tu.

Remember that these artwork will be presented during the seventh week which is the exibition, so do try your best to produce something that has some form of quality. who knows one day you'll be a famous artist, and this first artwork of yours will be worth a trillion ringgit. so think about that kay.

Okay, enough about the first day, I hope to see you guys tomorow... Keep me in your prayers as I will have you in mine..

Till then ...

The Pillars

body parts

"there is one body and one spirit,
just u were called,
one lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and father of all,"
Saint Paul's letter to the Ephesians 4:4-6

some of my artworks

falling

pieces

Jesus

holy spirit

The Youth Prep Art Class

This 'wierdo' will be the teacher of the "Youth Prep Art Class"... Mataiilah!

Okay folks,

I've contacted the Youth prep Centre (actualy Anne works there, so it wasn't hard to get in touch with them) and This is what we've got:

The art class will start on the 16th of April 2010, thats next week's friday, class will be held at 12.00 noon, thats gonna take up my lunch time, but what the heck... I need the diet anyway.

Confession, I'm not a pro in this field, I think the people who will be attending are better than me. Here's the thing, I have a bit of knowledge and also a bit of experience and I believe you guys have a bit of those stuff too...

For those who are interested in this stream, for me it's great if we can gather and exchange perspectives and opinion, because I won't be 100% teaching. And it's not nice to be "kedekut" with your knowledge, sharing is caring maa!

I'm doing this because I want to learn myself. So there you have it, let's learn together and teach together..aiseymen, that's sound nice lah.

The duration of the so called "semester" is 7 weeks, the first week being the introduction, followed by the classes, which I took the liberty of arranging what and what to learn (and teach)...

On the seventh week we'll have our "graduation" in a form of an Art exibition, nice kan? we'll invite our families, our friends to witness this event, its gonna be cool...

So, anyone interested? I won't promise that you'll get super rich with art, but I do know that you'll get a chance to express yourselves in your own way, provided you don't "conteng" the walls of the youth prep centre.

Bah! Enough talking, those who are interested, contact me (via facebook) or The Youth Prep Centre Alamesra (Anne Baltazar). I'll see you next Friday.

Keep me in your prayers and you'll know what I'll do lah.

Till then...

The Bandung Proposal

Last year, me and a few friends went for a trip in Bandung, Indonesia. I'd post pictures of the trip, but most of you have probably seen the site in Bandung, so I guess one picture of us would be enough, besides you can see the pictures in my facebook account.

That's Anne by the way, she's my fiance. The picture was taken after we left the church where we went to celebrate The Eucharist that Sunday morning.

About a month before the trip to Bandung, I had this foot reflexology session with Derek Chong, the youth coordinator of Sacred Heart Cathedral. Derek loves his foot massage, and I thought it was a good idea that I got one myself. little did I know that this one hour session would be the longest, most painful, most tortured one hour of my life.

Derek was the first victim, I meant patient. He made it seemed so fun, chit-chatting with me as the blind masseuse rubbed his oily feet. Derek asked me a question

"can you imagine a life without Anne?"

That got me realizing that Anne has been always there for me. She laughs at my stupid jokes, she will always be the one who will give very good advice when I'm dealing with my daily problems. and so much more, for Derek to asked me that question, the guys gave me this revolutionary vision and that I must do something with that state of relationship that we currently have. If not, there will be no more Anne.

I'm a very visual person, for me to imagine the "Anne-less" life was easy, but when I do see the that thought, it's very lonely, and painful, so painful the foot reflexology we had would seem like a joke.

The thought remained in my head for a few weeks, and every time I get to meet Anne, I asked myself "If she's not here today, how would the day be?"
The more I think about it, there more "nuts" I became. Till one day I decided to pop the big question to Anne, but first, I had to get myself a ring.

Picking up jewelery is really not my specialty, so for that occasion I brought along with me Brenda, Mark and Jill. Jill had no idea where we were going when we picked her up from her campus, she stopped breathing for a few seconds when all of us walked into a "kedai emas" "jewelery shop", She realized I was going to pop the big question.

After a few days of searching, finally we got the perfect ring for "The Proposal".

I didn't have a clue what kind of diamond was on it, what carat, what clarity,what market value..... all that was important to me was it was the right size, and it is shiny. So with that, I came, I saw, I paid... Then I went, hoping that I will Conquer.

So the Big day came, we were celebrating mass in this cathedral called Katedral Santo Martinus, which was actually the first cathedral in Bandung, Indonesia. I want to tell you how great mass was there, but we can do that in another time.

As the priest gave the final blessings, my heart was pumping like mad, I was more nervous than anyone in the pews, I had two photographers ready to document the event: Rayner and Cynthia, both armed with their cameras.

I needed a pick-up line to start the momentum, trying to come up with a line for a chick to go out with you would be hard but pick-up lines for a proposal is impossible. no one in the right mind can come up with sweet words in a matter on minutes. It's a good thing I'm not in the right mind. And also the priest was giving a homily about the movie that was currently showing in the cinemas around town, 2012.

He asked the congregation "What would you do if you know the world was going to end?"

So, I borrowed those lines from the priest,I waited for mass to finish, I heaved a great amount of oxygen, I grabbed Anne's hands, marched to the altar, Anne thought we were going to just take pictures at the altar, she didn't have any idea what was going to happen in the next few seconds.

At last we were at the altar (at the side to be exact, there were tourist taking pictures at the front of it) The walked to the altar took a thousand years. I turned to Anne and repeated what the priest asked a few minutes ago, "Sayang, what would you do If you know the world was going to end?".

She replied "Go home lah". It wasn't the answer that I was expecting, I thought she'd say something like "I pray that we'll be together when we die." Then again any answer would do I really didn't mind what she was going to say, then came then next question, the big one.

I got down on one knee, held her hands in mind, I asked "Mary Anne K Baltazar, if I knew when the world will end, I only want to know one thing from you...." By now she knew what was I up to. So, she looked at me and whispered,

"Egn, not here, there're lotsa people around looking at us!"

Again, not the answer I was looking for, but the thing is, I haven't asked the question yet. that was it, I couldn't wait any longer.."Anne, would you marry me?"

Rayner and Cynthia were clicking cameras by then, and I was trying my best to have a good post for them, so hard, that I didn't even heard that Anne actually said "yes". Foolishly I asked the second time. she answered

"Egn, you didn't hear what I said, I said yes bah!" oops..

So there, we're now officially engaged.ever since that day, I've been appreciating every moment that I have with her.

Yes, we fight...alot. but it doesn't mean that we can't work things out, I believe that both of us are still in the process of maturing. If you asked me whether we are ready for this, I'd say we'll never ever be ready for this if we don't face it head on. We all need to be a bit crazy to live life.

Keep me in your prayers as I keep you all in mine.

Till then...

The Question

I love art.

I love painting. I love sketching. I've been in this craze ever since I could remember.

about a week ago, a lady, whom I call Poh Choo from "Alamesra youth prep centre" came up to me and asked,

"Egn" which is my nickname,

" You want to teach art to the youths?...

Then she gave me a book on oil painting by Mike Chaplin, which I thought was so cool, I wanted to say yes jumping, but I kept it cool just like a 'real' man would do. I said to the lady...

"hmmm, I'll think about it okay." Slick.

If I say yes, I'd have lots of fun teaching these youths what knowledge I have gathered all these years.

And what a feeling it would be to bully these students, haw haw haw (that's my evil laugh by the way). I always wanted to know how powerful Mr. Jaminol, my form 3 science teacher always felt when he pushed us around in the lab, 'sigh'...

But I'm not Jaminol, besides, I met Mr. Jaminol two weeks ago in the local fish market, his a cute old man now, no more death stare, no more Mr. Cane.

I kind of felt pity for the old man carrying a bag of fish in his hands, must have been heavy for him, if I could, I wanted to give him a hand with the groceries, but I was so far. "kesian tu orang" "that poor guy". May be I'll cross path with him again in the future.

Anyway, I'll keep him in my prayers, while I think and discern about this new voluntary work that is in store for me. I'll let you guys know as soon as I make my final decision. Keep me in your prayers while I keep all of you in mine.

Till then...