Last week as I was sitting pondering about the future. I usually do my pondering while waiting for my videos to be processed into videos and also when they are being uploaded. You might think that I am straying or not focus on my work, but hey thinking about something else during work can help to think about new ideas. My days at work are almost ritual like, edit this, this and this on Monday until Friday and then take care of child and husband and sleep. Andddddddddddd repeat.
So I thought about what I should do with my life, I thought about furthering my studies either formally or informally. We are always studying informally each day, new things have to be uploaded into our hard drive and tested out, each second of each day. Even learning to sleep in a new surroundings needs practice. When I often go balik kampung by bus, I had to learn to sleep while sitting up and waking up before the bus arrives at the bus stand or else I will risk being alone and expose myself to strangers if I arrive at night. Scary!
Anyway I decided to contact Kak Benny of Bennylita.com and ask whether she is free on Saturday to have me for a class. I have met her twice before this. Once when she was having an exhibition at FRIM, but she didn't know me. Then years later I stalked her on Facebook and befriended her. Earlier this year she when to my work place to meet some TV and radio producer to promote her husband's artistes. Since she had to visit my office as a person she wanted to meet works just above my office, I decided to visit her.
Anyway, since a year ago I had my mind on learning how to draw on canvas: shoes, bags, drawing canvas. Since kak Benny knew how and she is an established artist, I decided to ask her for a tutorial. And she agreed on my suggested date.
So to cut the story short, I was the only one who could turn up. She asked me to donate the tutorial fee to a charity she supported but I haven't gotten the account number from her yet. So I hadn't paid anything yet. Anyway she said the less than RM200 fee is good for a few classes. Wowee, for me in a world where one pays RM200 for something which one enjoys for a mere hours, this is like priceless. And I can use her markers which comes in various shades.
Me left and kak Benny right.
I was half posing and half colouring the shoes. Those shoes I bought at a sale in Paradigm mall for less than RM30. It was stained from rain and mud and I had to wash it a day before the class. Luckily it didn't rain the day I washed it and so was able to be drawn on. Yippee.
I learned a lot about shading and colour combo. Those two things which comes in handy not only in colouring on canvas but can also be applied in other stuff like plain colour combos. She said looking at 24 kinds of colour at the same time and trying to come up with a combo is mind boggling sometimes. So she suggests starting with two and three colour combos for starters and adding supporting or contrasting colours along the way.
What I drew on the front.
The right side of the shoe.
The left side of the shoe. Kak Benny gave me ideas since I was blank that morning.
Basically for a start we should have white canvas shoes, markers, ideas and a white paper. A white plain A4 paper should do. This is as a draft of our shoe. I was idealess that day and so she said maybe I can draw an owl from a pair of baby shoes I gave her.
I made these for her the night before that. It is a generic shoe design, for 0 to 6 months baby. She said she is having a girl but I chose to be on the safe side.
Patterns for baby booties are aplenty in the cyber world. But to make sure these are actually wearable I compared it to my son's baby booties. I think he wore baby booties until he was 4 months old so this would last an average sized baby about 3-4 months hopefully. Having said that I haven't tried them on any baby since there's not one available for testing :P.
Totally hand stitched. The outer cloth is linen from Fabrics Fanatics, and the inner cloth is felt. The elastics are actually hair band elastics and the buttons I bought from Mr DIY. Totally doable. I only use jahit kia and insang pari.
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