Country Cottage Arts

Friday 30 September 2011



I attended a 'Hari Raya ' lunch do ' at Tengku Norashikin's house recently  and came away rejuvenated and inspired by her decorative art paintings.  That lady sure finds time to paint away despite her many family obligations.   Of course, I couldn't stop myself from click  clicking away like a mad woman when I saw her whole kitchen/studio filled with her works.  ( Urgghhh ! I felt so guilty for not  painting any new pieces myself  after feasting my eyes on hers and have resolved to buck up.................... soon !. )


The pictures below are some of  her paintings;  I'll be uploading the rest at regular intervals, so have patience ya !

A beautiful piece of Hindeloopen ( Dutch)  strokework  on a stool.  The basecoat was Jo Sonja's Red Earth.  Don't forget to note  the little bird amongst the floral motives. . An inspiring piece, I should say.




                                            A door stand with fluffy  pale red   roses





                                                  A door stand with berries and daisies





A door stand resembling a wooden barrel filled with bunches of hydrangeas with bows..........




                           lovely bunch of pansies  on a barrel themed base with olive green bows




                                                A welcome sign with poppies, poppies, poppies






A  lovely  bouquet of   roses in  a basket weave design  and red ribbons  to match .......... simply gorgeouso !





                  This is Zuliana's  piece.  Couldn't stop clicking even though she was still painting....



                                   Hmmmm..., wish I had this  hanging in my house........





This is really a change from the florals..... way to go Shikin  ( and thanks for letting  me loose in your beautiful house  ! )



Oh, by the way , Shikin, I thoroughly enjoyed myself with your delicious feast of '  ketupat and satay ' , my absolute Malaysian favourite.  Next time I come, please make my other Malaysian favourite ' nasi lemak ' ya !

Happy reading and painting



Lakshmi

Thursday  22 September 2011



I simply have to upload this one for all my friendly readers .......... they are too beautiful  not to be shared  with everyone . The person who created this really has a  beautiful  heart .  I hope these words move your heart as it did mine. 



Thanks, Gouri, for sharing this with me.

 Happy reading and painting



 Lakshmi


 Ps:  Went to Tengku Norashikin's house for lunch yesterday.  have lots of painting to upload.... be patient ya !!

































































































 

Saturday 17 September 2011


My decorative painting classes are slowly regaining momentum as the fasting is over and the reason I have not posted any  painted pieces  is simply because most of the paintings are the same .  As painting is but a hobby, most of my ' student ladies  ' are often bogged down with  office work and/or housework and thus  often times are unable to continue on a regular basis. I think  this is a common phenomenon in most, if not all hobby/craft circles.  

Also heard that students have become teachers in a short span of time and that further complicates the situation , I suppose. In light of the many comments and  opinions that I have been privy to and also having browsed through countless number of blogs,  I have made the following observations.  Note please, that these are my personal observations and thoughts only as I do not like to pass  judgment . Neither  can  anyone else ! 

  I would thus now separate the decorative painting enthusiasts in 3 categories.

The First group being those  who became teachers after years of painting  because of their commitment, dedication and passion for Folk & Decorative Painting .

The Second group being those artists who  paint for the love of painting and their paintings are an extension and expression of their feelings . They  don't mind painting  and working on a single piece of work for a considerable length of time and would not want to part with some of their work. They don't want to be tied down teaching the craft but do take  on commissions when requested and time permits.

The Third group  who take up painting because they like it but within a short span of time render themselves as Decorative Art teachers .  Their lack of experience and confidence is often obvious to both their  students and  other artists soon after  and that's when comparisons start to be made. Their limited exposure and skills, despite their basic  understanding  of decorative painting,  are often  comically  ( albeit disastrously)  portrayed  as a collective   benchmark  for all decorative art teachers.   They are in a hurry to recover their ' investments'  and see painting as a form of money-making venture .   Enough said.



 We are free to make our own  choices.. that's all I can say.


On a lighter note, the article below is an interesting one which I received via email. Thought I would share it with my readers....


 The Green Thing
 

In the line at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.  

The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today.  Your generation did not care enough to save our environment."

He was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day. Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over.  So they really were recycled. 
 
But we didn't have the green thing back in our day. 

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.

We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. 

But we didn't have the green thing back then. 

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. 

 

We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.  And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint. 

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

 

 

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.

 Please do !


Happy reading and painting


Lakshmi

Thursday, 8 September 2011

The children are away attending their classes and I can now have a breather to sit down  and organise my thoughts.......


Well, the Raya festivities are over, at least the official 2 days of celebrations , that is, and I was also informed by my Muslim friends that the festivities do last for a month.  If that is the case, the Raya  celebrations in Malaysia must be the longest in the world.  Ha ha, now I've got another excuse to go all out to visit my Muslim friends for their sumptious spread.

Of course, my family was invited to Puan Sri Sabrina's house without fail.  And as was expected, there were about 125 varieties of cookies and about 30 variety of cakes, chocolate fountains and about 10 stalls  of food variety- the tosai/chappati/puri stall, the briyani stall, the lamb rack, the satay stall, the cold drinks/"ice kachang" stall, the western food stall, the barbeque stall.....the 'can't remember anymore stall '   ( too many lah !)

As readers would know by now, my way of having a good time at these functions is to first avail myself of the  mouth-watering deserts and then go for the main meals and I did just that.  Came away almost walking like a penguin .

I did attend other 'open house' functions and did have a great time but I think I can safely say that no one else  ( and I mean even hotels ) have put in so much effort and time to make the mind boggling variety of cookies and cakes as Puan Sri Sabrina does, year after year .  Hmmm,  perhaps the Malaysian Book of Records should be notified, ? 




The next  thing that I was busy doing was going for several cake baking/decorating courses.  This, of course, was nothing new to me but then again,  you know me, I like to keep on learning and updating as I go on in life.  ( personally, I think everyone  of us should go for some or any  kind of class updates periodically  or go for further studies whatever the age )   .

Anyway, I found myself in a Wilton Cake Decorating and Designing course, 1, 2 & 3 and also signed up for the Wilton  Cake Decorators Instructors' Course and the Advanced Squires Kitchen (UK) Cake Decorating Course.  Yup. I don't know how it happened and why it happened but it just happened.  It only dawned on me when I was back home that I had to figure out some kind of time schedule for my Decorative Painting classes which I am very much into also.


Todate, I finished Course 1 and am into Course 2.  The pictures below  show some of my new found cake decorating friends with our handiwork.






One of the Wilton cake projects that I had to do on my own.  Gave it away to the primary school students of SRJK Ladang Midlands.


Didn't know what to do with this cake either.  Took my kids on a drive with the cake and spotted one of those low cost apartments in Section 7 Shah Alam which was formerly called Midland Estate. The palm oil estate  had been cleared off and low cost apartments have been built for the former estate workers.  We waited at the car park and spotted an elderly lady sitting alone.  Upon asking if she had any kids, the lady replied that she was unmarried and alone.  ( No point giving a sugary sweet iced cake to her at her age )  We spotted a very elderly looking man standing a few metres away and I walked up to him and asked if he had any grandchildren I could give the cake to.  He just shook his head and mumbled something which I could not understand.  We ( my son and I ) waited for some more and finally saw these 2 children running around with their grandmother, I think, Quickly hollered out to them and gave the cake. 







I'm sure they would have had a jolly good time - told them to share it with their friends too







This is a Wilton rose which I piped and had the whole gang  ogling at mine because I did it first !
And if you notice, I'm wearing my painted rose T shirt blouse. ( another oogling and 'ahhing' session )  Aiyaiyo ! It was a totally boastful day for me, allright !!!(lol)























One of my cupcake designs



                                          
                                             







a chocolate cupcake design which I did




 



That's ll for now,


Happy reading and painting



Lakshmi