Contemporary Australian Jewellery & Holloware at NAFA - 23 Nov 2007

The best of contemporary Australian jewellery and metalwork art by the country's most celebrated practitioners known for their innovative use.

Curator lecturing on the different types of materials used and design development.

Vanessa Raimondo
Neck Piece - 'Stranded'
PVC plastic, polyester
The white piece is a necklace. See above pic - the slide which showed how the neck piece looks like.

Demonstration by one of the artiste on how she makes her items without fusing or soldering.


She draws out the design on computer and have it cut out with grooves so that she can fit it together - like lego bricks.


Rowena Gough
A necklace made of mother-of-pearl shell buttons
Sean O'Connell
"Pink Glow Worm" bracelet made of acrylic, stainless steel, spring sheet.

A close-up look of the buttons necklace.


A close-up look of the bracelet.




These bags are made of silver!
It looks translucent and flexible.


Robert Foster
The tall one is a vase made of stainless steel base with anodised aluminium wings.
The short one is a Swan Coffee Pot. So cool!


Daehoon Kang
Such a cute teapot - made of copper, brass and mokumegane.


Karl Millard
Bet you can't guess what these are.
Gave up? Its' pepper-grinder! You twist the horns to grind the peppers.


Chris Mullins
Bowl made of anodised aluminium(green), stainless steel cable.


Vicki Mason
'Commonwealth Native Wreath"
Commissioned for the Commonwealth Games 2006 Hand-dyed PVC(tree guard sleeve), silk, 9ct yellow gold, 22ct yellow gold plated sterling silver (below).
I thought it was made of feathers.


Andrew Last
The 3 coloured baskets.

NAFA Jewellery Designing/Drawing Assessments

 Re drawing : I have no formal study on drawings, that is how to sketch and shade etc. 
I searched online and bought books to research. All the drawings and ideas that you see here are self-taught with no outside party inputs.

Most of the students in my class as well as from another class were already very good in free hand drawings. I don't know if they had already taken drawing classes before or natural talent.

I felt down as I felt that I was not up to par. I then searched online as well as bought books on how to draw perspectives and colour to make drawings more 3D, like how to highlight and draw shadows.
I figured that if I had to show my drawings, at least it's presentable and not be a laughing stock.

I was so surprised and happy when my drawings were deemed the best among the two classes - it proved to myself that if I put in the hard work, I can do it !

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Final assessments of students' drawing abilities and our idea/design development today.

I got the top score in my jewellery designing class!
I am elated cos I don't expect to be the top scorer as there are other students who are good too.

Jewellery Designing Class - 2007

Drawings all lined up to be judged.

Mine on the table.

A close-up look at my designs :

2nd Assessment - 20 Nov 2007Fine/Gala Jewellery Set :

Contemporary Jewellery set :

My 1st assessment on September 2007 :

Contemporary Ring

Wedding Ring

Singapore Art Museum (SAM) - 17 Nov 2007

"INDIAN ART"

Oops, it's not hubby.....

These figurines are made of paper-mache!

"AFFANDI - A PAINTER OF GENIUS"
One of Indonesia's most celebrated modern artist.


It's called "Erotic".


"Three Moods"



"RE-WOVEN" by Benny Ong
Buddhist-inspired silk weavings.

Buddha portrayed with angel wings - Buddha and Archangel Gabriel as one.


Meditative hands

Mercedes-Benz Exhibition at NAFA - 17 Nov 2006

Table showcasing product development.


A Design Modeler.
She demonstrated the techniques of using clay to model a car.




Went to this exhibition showcasing MB and how they create the essence of a MB - that is when you see the car, you know it's a MB.
Sadly, in my opinion, the new range of the MB are now looking like any other Jap cars externally. When you go to a car-park and see the rows of parked cars, frankly you can't pick out which is a MB car unless you get closer and see the insignia.
I prefer the older MBs range - when you see it, you know it's a MB - it's more distinct and have more character.

Jewellery Fabrication Assessment - 12 Nov 2007

I did not realise that making a piece of jewellery takes so much time. It was rather tough for me as I had never done any sort of technical stuff before. Learning how to saw, hammer, polish, filing, soldering etc was really an eye opener for me. Especially for sawing, my whole arm were aching. Some jewellery items that I had made (with a lot of help from my instructor).

A bezel to put the 'cat's eye' stone.


A seahorse pendant. Wah, so much work - sawing, hammering, filing, polishing.


My favourite piece is the square ring with the dome on top filled with sprays of beads.


During our 1st assessment. Everybody taking a look at each other's work before the assessment.


Desmond showing us the techniques.


At the polishing machine next to instructor Desmond.

Jewellery Fabrication Class

Front:Daphne, Instructor Desmond Chin, Chai
Back:Adlina, Ginny, Nisha, Kelvin, Donna, Joyce, Pauline, Nicholas

Marina 1 degree 15, Sentosa - 04 Nov 2007

Hubby and I got invited by an associate to visit his house-boat at the marina at Sentosa.
The house-boat looks small from the outside but it is actually rather spacious inside.
Owner said that it is especially beautiful at night and also it is so quiet and peacful.

The upper deck :
Click to see video :



The lower deck :
Click to see video :

Rotary Jewelry Design Competition

Had enrolled at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) to do part-time jewellery design since June'07 and will be ending in November'07. It's twice a week for 3hrs - one class focusing on the technical aspects of making jewellery items and the other class on idea development and drawing it out.

I had decided to take part in the Rotary Jewelry Design Competition which is organised yearly by the Rotary Club of S'pore East.

It is a competition for students to apply their design skills. Students from Thailand, Hong Kong, Philippine and Singapore will be competing in it.
The most outstanding design will be selected and made into jewelries by Larry Jewellery and marketed alongside with other jewelries of leading jewelry retailers.
If the pieces are sold, part of the sales will be offered to the winner.
Students were given the requirements of the designs and for this year the theme was "The Modern Man".

Not much colour here, allowed to use white and black gold only.

French Apple Tart - 09 Sept 2007

My couple of attempts to make the French Apple Tart which I had tasted before in France.
Managed to get the top right but I still couldn't whisk up the right texture and consistency of the fillings.
Will try again one day - hey, a lot of work to do this ok.

Indian Dance - 08 Sep 2007

Attended my ex-neighbours daughter's wedding. It was a buffet styled Indian food. The emcee was very funny and the Indian fun dance was absolutely hilarious.

Click to see video :

DragonFruit Farm, Malaysia

21 July 2007

Hubby and I went for a short trip to Kuala Lumpur.

We were going to a place on the outskirt of KL and came across this dragonfruit farm.
We tasted one first before deciding to buy or not and boy, were they sweet! I am not a 'fruit' person but these fruits were really really sweet.
I've tasted the ones that hubby had bought at the supermarket here in S'pore and they were so bland - they were from Vietnam - so when I saw some from Malaysia thinking that it will be just as sweet - wrong, it was bland too. So I think that maybe, the fruits are being plucked even before they are ripe in order for them to be just nice and ripened when it reaches our shore - conclusion is that the fruits are not being allowed to ripen and sweetened naturally before they are being plucked.


I didn't know that dragon fruit trees look like this.
Looks like a stump with cactus growing on top.


Should have bought more!