One15Marina

Hi Everyone,

    Our instructors say, “It’s okay; learn from your mistakes.”  I’m definitely learning a lot because most of what I do is mistakes.  This is very much the work of a beginner.

My Philippine supermarket dresses.  I had photographed them “having a party” on the boat.  But there is so much detail I was so far over my head trying to paint them. And I didn’t draw enough of the detail first and then I drew it so light I couldn’t see it when I started to paint.   And I thought we were supposed to finish the painting during the class time so I rushed which didn’t help.  It still isn’t done and it will be interesting to see what it finally looks like.  I will have to try a second attempt.  In these art classes each person does her own thing.  I use the pronoun her because there are only women.  Older, younger, locals and visitors like me.  They were all painting with oils, many pointing out to me how much more forgiving oils were because you can paint over areas to “fix” things.   Try that with watercolor, especially when the paint is still wet and you make a huge mess.  The teacher comes around and gives guidance.  There were times when I dreaded when he would come to me because though I don’t know how to do things right, I know when they are wrong.  But it is the point of taking classes and he just reminds me what to do and that helps me to remember hopefully preventing the same mistake in the future.   After class I had lunch with a lovely young woman from Manchester, England living here for several years because of her husband’s work.  She, however,  is having a difficult time finding work so she is taking these art classes and also volunteering at an afterschool program helping kids with homework.  She showed me how to get from our art class to the Chinatown MRT.  I had been taking the Tanjong Pagar MRT which involved changing trains and the Chinatown line is direct to Harbourfront.  Chinatown was jam packed with tourists.  It was hot and by the time I got back to the boat, I was pooped.  But it is a good experience and all of the women are very encouraging of each other.

  The studio.  Unfortunately they charge for studio time so you can’t just hang out.  It’s fair since they have to pay their bills too.

  You come up the really slow elevator to the 4th floor, walk out the double doors onto this balcony.  It would be wonderful to just sit there.  There is no charge for that so I might just do it one day.  Unfortunately this area isn’t open before class.  Our teacher comes about 9:45 to unlock the 4th floor and class starts at 10 sharp.  It ends at 12:30 so there is no time to waste.

The view from the balcony.  The long building across the street with the first floor archways was a “stable” for rickshaws.  More about that in another email. 

The ground floor cafe. Randal and I ate there when we came to find out about the classes. If you stand next to the tree and looked up you would see the balcony outside the studio. 

Not far from here people live and work in those lovely shophouses.  I could easily live in a neighborhood like this and am getting spoiled rotten the longer we stay!  Of course if we stayed 6 months I could have a library card.  And I like the area around Little India too.  So much to like about Singapore

Ruth Johnson

DoraMac