Natsu Matsuri 2008!

Weeee~ haha, went for the summer festival at the Japanese Primary School at Changi yesterday. Like the previous year, there was lotsa food, same old games and the bon odori, where we had fun doing an inpromptu mass dance! This year, wush joined dor, shaman and I for the event. Dor even got her bros there! Wen Ping came too, but she disappeared very fast with her sis....-_- And how small the design world is man... Saw Val, and even my current ADM classmate! Didn't know they've met in SPH, lol.



This was one of the stuff I've bought, really nice stuff (since I didn't take any pictures...). XD I was really interested in the portrait drawing stall, and was very tempted to move forward when I passed by it. The stall was pretty empty, the artist was an old man, and on the tables were a few samples of the drawings he will produce for the client. Somehow, they dun look very appealing, many from local art schools might say it's not worth the money ($20 for mine). Even when I took a peek there, I was hesitating to have my portrait done, cos it looked very simple and cost-wise expensive but heck, couldn't stand it. It was either a portrait or a t-shirt. I went for the portrait XD (side note: I've started an 'ask the artist to draw something for you and collect it' project this year :p)

So just sat there, while he look and draw, and gosh, his confidence with the brush >_< It's just mesmerizing. The thought of the result 'poof' disappeared, and all you see is one man using the brush as if it was his hand. Other than the times he stopped to take a look at my features, his brush never jerked or stopped while making a line. Within a minute or less, he did the drawing and asked for my name so he could write it there. I quickly scribbled my chinese name (could hear the jap stall ladies behind there making a little 'ooooo' exclamation at seeing the modern chinese characters, maybe the previous clients wrote english?) Guess what? He wrote it down in traditional chinese! I was really glad I got this instead of the shirt. The entire experience really reminded me of what the late art historian Gombrich proposed to call Art as while I was doing research for an art history presentation:

"It is a secret of the artist that he does his work so superlatively well, that we all but forget what his work was supposed to be, for sheer admiration of the way he did it."

How true.....XD Oh ya, the artist was Iwami Seiji sensei (いわみせいじ), a mangaka from Japan. He will be holding some event at the national library on 30th August? Starting to interest me.... XDXDXDXDXD but arghh... forgot I have sand sculpting that day at sentosa..... >_<