CNE Booth 2012

Today it is the day before Canadian National Exhibition's [CNE] opening in Toronto.  I woke up early this morning to gather my artworks and drove down to the Queen Elizabeth Building in CNE. My guild, Ontario Porcelain Artist Guild, set up its own booth every year there and the members take turns to demonstrate the painting technique there. This year I won't do any demonstration there and I only went there today for putting up other members' artworks in the glass cabinets.

This morning, around 10 a.m., the ex-OPAG president, Elizabeth Fry and her husband showed up at the booth. Joy was burst out from my heart all of the sudden when I saw her.  I haven't seen her a while.  Later,  an another member,  Jayne Paradiso showed up.  Jayne is the co-ordinator this year for the CNE event.  They set up the booth with me together.  This time it took us about four hours to finish setting up. After I finished it, I felt very hungry, then I realized I hadn't had my lunch yet.  So I said bye to them and drove back to my home. Anyhow, it was so pleased to see them.  With fingers crossed, I hope people will like our booth.

For your information, our booth will be opened from August 17th to September 3rd 2012 at booth #171 of the Queen Elizabeth Building.

My Studio

Tata, I finally put on all the shelves onto my studio. I feel so good while seeing all the porcelain wares piled up. yeah!

Trinket Box

Hellooooo, how are you? How is your day? I feel energetic in these recent weeks, probably because it's  summer time.  

Here is another porcelain painting I started to paint around the end of this July. The study is from Gigi Branch's French style porcelain painting.  The box was fired about 4 to 5 times.  Honestly I cannot remember exactly how many times. 

Everyday I came to home after work, I quickly prepared a meal for my family and I started painting porcelain wares, not until midnight.  Then I woke up around six and refreshed myself a bit, going to work again!!  Luckily, I have a long weekend this week, so I don't need to wake up at six. 

This morning I collected my artworks from the kiln.  I was tremendously happy because my hardship really was paid off.  Each of the paintings turned out pretty and adorable. 

Top View

Front View

I haven't decided what topics I paint in the box. Any suggestion?

Rear View

Meissen Style Paintings

Last two months I received a set of four blank porcelain dishes in a meeting of Ontario Porcelain Artists Guild. These dishes were left by one of our senior members, who was passed away months ago.  I think it is good to make sure of them and turn them into some "nice things".

Behind each dish, it is marked as "Hutschenrzuther, Germany, Dresden". I think the plate should be painted in Meissen style to match the origin of manufacturing. This time I painted Uwe Geissler's studies onto these beautiful dishes.  The studies are Honeysuckle, Forget Me Not, Sweet Peas and Iris.  The topics are identified based on the colour tone, i.e. red/purple and blue/purple.

Vivid yellow red stands out the contour of splitted Honeysuckle flowerings. 

Nice red purple flower petals

Tiny blue florets - Forget Me Not - how can I forget?  

Beautiful English Iris standing tall and high

La Sagrada Famillia Part III - Cryptogram

One of my friends asked me what a 4 X 4 number board hung outside the Basilica was.  When I bought my admission tickets and walked up to the entrance, I saw it with the geometric statues. I didn't pay much attention, until I visited the Basilica museum.

The museum introduced this cryptogram which was invented by Josep Maria Subirachs.  It is a board with multiple combinations of numbers that always add up to 33.  This is the age of Christ in his death.

If you take a close look, there are two sets of repeated numbers i.e. 10, 14;  When they are added to 48, the same result as the addition of the letters of JNRI [Jesus Nazarenus Rex ludaeorum] according to the numerical order of the Latin alphabet.

La Sagrada Familia Part II

A church is the only thing worthy of representing the feelings of a people, for religion is the highest thing in people. 

Antoni Gaudi

When people is talking about religion, they find it's another way of nagging them, another way of lifestyle or else.  On different perspective, those who devote themselves to their religions or even their church, are really into it.  I am talking about into it, it isn't just into something like a new technology gaget, TV program, gambling or else. These people are really involved wholeheartedly and even express their gratitude in diversified ways.  Antoni Gaudi, an artist? an architect? He is a historic persona who I have recently started to know.  He used his expertise and knowledge to design a church with all the elements relating to the Mother Nature.  His imagination is beyond most people's.  While I still think the classical look of the Catholic churches should be built with nice marble, mosaic and perfectly carved gigantic sculpture.  Antoni's style - La Sagrada Familia is a blast.

One of the Antoni's design is the columns amazes me. Inside the Temple, there are many columns supporting the ceiling. These columns are designed from the inspiration of trees.  They all standing inside the area, form a forest surrounding.  You will see [in the following photos] a round shape on the tree's trunk, which is a scar form by cutting off a branch.   This design is amazingly corporated into the Temple.


In the ceiling, it is full of round shape with zig zag edges. They represent leaves. A canopy of leaves, the branches and the trunks create a natural yet organic environment for believers to shelter us from the sunshine and rain.

Once upon a time, God creates plants, trees, ocean and human beings, basically the Nature. Vice versa, Basilica reflects the human beings create this church figuratively by the use of the Nature [e.g. tree-like columns]. Is this a way of contributing to God back?

Another amazing thing makes me fallen in a deep thought - the building has been continuously built since 1882 along with difficulties and challenges. Nowadays the society has been encouraged with the conception of “multi-tasking” and “efficiency” and finish tasks in a limited of time. It leads us to be less patience, less persistent and less focused. Sometimes an old perspective may not be a worse thing, it may inspire you in meaningful way and appreciate what we have in this moment. 

For more details, please visit at La Sagrada Familia Museum website. 

Please feel free to visit the album of my Facebook page.

La Sagrada Familia Part I

Hi all, I haven't written any post at Blogger quite a long time since two years. I think it is time to start again.

I just came back from Barcelona, Spain at the beginning of this month.  This is my second trip to Europe and it can be called as my journey of art exploration.  Almost each of tiny rock inspired me. [excuse my exaggeration] 

I want to introduce one of my favorite masterpiece, Sagrada Familia (Basilica I Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia) in this trip.  Before I visited the Basilica, I wasn’t motivated to get in there after seeing a long line up outside the entrance. Then, with my husband’s persuasion, I revisited there another day, very early in the morning!  The line up wasn’t bad, just about ten minutes wait.  Once we got inside the entrance, we crazily took pictures to the building as any tourists.  At that time, I still didn’t have a big feeling about it. Compared to Vatician in Rome, there were some figurines of unusal styles and shapes.  When I got inside the church, the columns, stainglasses and altar were really varied than what I saw in Paris, Florence and Rome. I kept telling to myself there might be a reason why the church was built in this way. So, I started opening up my mind to the story behind this creation.

The construction of Sagrada Familia was begun in 1882. Then Antoni Gaudi became involved in 1883 and took over the project & adopted his own style.  It combines Gothic & Art Nonveau forms. Until 1926, Gaudi was died and the construction wasn’t finished.  At that time less than a quarter of the project was completed. Even though Gaudi was died, the building of the church still followed his original idea.

Supported by private donations, this project was going on slowly. Intermittently, Spanish Civil War was broken out, along with other challenges as well. It was expected to be finished until 2026, i.e. the centennial of Gudi’s death. [For more details, please visit at La Sagrada Familia Museum website. 

Please feel free to visit the album of my Facebook page.

[to be continued]