Country Cottage Arts

Monday. 25th October 2010



These two wonderful ladies came for their second class today.  Azeaina, a practising lawyer who is going to relocate down south to Johore towards the end of October,  wanted to learn roses .................... who doesn't ?    She had in fact, tried to paint roses herself through books ,( which I thought showed immense initiative and interest - a must have attitude for anyone wanting to learn anything ),  but found out , like all of us initial students and enthusiasts alike,   that,  you still need the practical wisdom of a teacher to make it work.

This is Azeaina's second class on roses  and I am happy to say that she has done justice to her rose.  Just goes to show that enthusiasm and commitment to your craft does wonders, as you can see from her beaming smile...............................................!

That's Azeaina on the left and Yuzz on the right, both are equally photogenic and beautiful  with a great smile, I would say................................

Wednesday,  20 October 2010

GOLD is the acronym for Generating Opportunities for Learning Disabilities. The centre, which is located at the 3 C Complex in Subang Jaya is a place where 'special ' school children and teenagers are taught practical skills like bottle painting, baking and cooking, ceramic and decal, handcrafts like beadings, papercraft, etc ,. By imparting such skills to them, these children who have varying degrees of learning disabilities, are encouraged to be independant and also become confident members  of our society, the secondary aim being they also get to earn a living  and  learn practical skills to occupy their time usefully and gainfully in future.   It is done purely on a volunteer basis and  parents and concerned individuals are part of the volunteers who conduct such classes.

As I am involved in 'you know what' , I volunteered to teach them painting .  My session with them has been fixed for Monday afternoons.

My first volunteer session was actually quite fun.  I handed them flat basecoat brushes and guided them in painting the basecoat for the various boards.  Some of the students were very very meticulous with the painting while others simply plonked their brushes in and out .  Some put in too much water and some didn't want to stop painting ! But the common thing among them was they were happy painting and had fun.  What I thought of as a monotonous and most bothersome part  of decorative painting ( the basecoating part !) was a happy accomplishment for these kids . It was a learning and humbling experience for me.

Puan Juairiah, under whose able hands the centre is managed , is a lovely lady with a big heart, for does it not take someone with a very big heart to run the center on a volunteer basis and not get paid for it? Ms Airene helps in the co-ordination  and managing of  the centre, volunteering, of course.













The GOLD centre will be having a bazaar sale at the Berjaya University at Times Square on Monday 25th October from 9 am to 3pm.  Members of the public are invited to visit and buy the handicrafts and cookies made by these enterprising students.  I will be there helping to showcase their painting  talents and will also offer some of my decorative art items for sale, a percentage of which sale will go to GOLD fund-raising. 


For those who would like to contribute acrylic paints, brushes  and such, please do email me at - luckylaksh11@gmail.com. ( As at of this moment, GOLD does not have funds for acrylic paints and brushes and I am using my own supplies to meet their needs.) 



Happy reading and painting


Lakshmi

Friday 8  October 2010

I've been doing bits and pieces of painting in the past month, some of which were given off as gifts during my Hari  Raya walkabouts and some which I had painted on requests. It really did give me immense pleasure when I gave away my paintings as gift items and now I am quite quite busy salvaging pots and tins and what-have-you and recycling them away as gifts.    I'd be very happy to give them away so do write me a line and invite me for a cup of tea.......... so simple ya !

                                                                                        


Some never get tired of roses.............................................



This is my recycled metal tray which was rusting away................................




Waiting for the next invitation ............................................................





A slight variation........




Even the birds like roses now !


Happy reading


Lakshmi

Sunday, 3 October 2010


It's been a month of feasting and eating..................... there were so many invitations to our famous 'open house' for Hari Raya that I've lost count......suffice to say that I over ate and am now paying the price -   batminton 3 times a week and aerobics in between and still struggling to get into my dress.... haiyo,  soooo susah la  !


Let me see,  I went to Puan Sri Sabrina's house on the first day and ate sooooo many cookies that I couldn't eat the other main dishes.   She had made about 107 or so different types of cookies and had them laid out specially, in rows at the dessert table, together with 20 or so different types of cakes.  One look at the long dessert table and I freaked out and  forget the main dishes..... stuffed myself silly and was groaning and moaning all the way home.........typical glutton that I was.................( luckily I had sampled a few of the varieties a week before so I had only 100 varieties  to gorge on at her open house!.)  The long long buffet table of main dishes courtesy of Concorde  Hotel Kitchen did not endear me after all the cakes, cookies and chocolate fountains

My kind of  paradise ..............................................  yummy...........




Ooooo simply heavenly



I went to Datin Suriaty's house located in Section 4 Shah Alam for her open house.   She had a fabulous house with a water pond, complete  with a wooden bridge, right inside her beautiful living room.   The 5 piece band played the oldies and the 'joget' songs much to my delight .  Michael Buble's 'Sway' sung by the band member made me want to dance too but as the place was so full of guests, there was hardly any room to walk, much less move my body!  The food was fantastic with real hawker style food preparation.  There was the 'ice kachang' hawker, the Chinese 'taufu bakar' hawker, the kway teow' hawker , the fried chicken hawker stall,  the roast leg of lamb table and the 'satay' hawker.   Glorious glorious food everywhere....... ...........................




A small gift for Datin Suriati........................... what else........


My good friend Roslinda and her jovial husband, En Ismail , invited me to their house at Greenville which is part of the Sultan Salahudin Abdul Aziz Golf Club at Section 13, Shah Alam. Ha, at Roslinda's house I was finally able to eat her homemade 'nasi himpit' with chicken 'rendang' and 'kuah kachang'( traditional Malay dishes of compressed rice cubes, spicy chicken and peanut sauce ).  Being a Johorean, she made 'asam laksa' ala Johore style.  I think she's one of the best cooks I know  - the chicken rendang  was absolutely delicious and the peanut sauce was really ' spoon lickin good'.

 Since Roslinda liked Indian cooking, I gave her a Premier  non-stick 'thosai' pan complete with a packet of instant thosai mix and my best  coconut chutney recipe, especially handwritten for her.


There were a few others along the same vein and since it might be boring describing similar events, I'll call it a day and say goodnight.


Happy reading


Lakshmi