Drawing sessions continue throughout 2012

After a long break for Christmas 2011 and Chinese New Year in January 2012,  our Friday Drawing Sessions started again in February.

We now have 8 volunteers who come and help whenever they can.  So drawing sessions continued throughout 2012.

Most of the regular artists featured in this blog are still coming almost every Friday without fail.  Philomena Rangel is still painting her delicate flowers, plants, birds with decorative balloons and other features.  Siew Yoke Kam has become more interested in painting different animals. Lim Noey, Ong Say Lean, Khoo Seang Sim,  Chow Sai Lin, Hua Kam Lan, Wong Sweat Jong, Cheng Ah Ngor,  Chong Poh Sim are still with us, each of them drawing or painting whatever they fancy.

We have some new artists, including some men, who have become regulars in 2012.  Each Friday, there are at least 20, sometimes as many as 30 elderly persons at the drawing tables on the 3rd Floor of the Penang Home.  And, whenever Matron Leow pays us a visit, we will have some new recruits as she makes it a point to draw out more participants.

A selection of the drawings done at the Friday sessions is featured in the Southern Steel Group's 2013 Desk Calendar.  To see their paintings in print has made many of the artists very happy.

Our last session for 2012 will be on 14 December.  We look forward to continuing in 2013.

Here are some pictures taken in the last few sessions in 2012.

Lee Chun Huat

Lee Chun Huat was one of our few male participants. He came quite regularly from July until September. He then stopped coming as he was having problems with his eyes. After stopping for a few sessions, he refused to come back again. When I went to specially invite him from his bed, he said his eyes were too weak and his legs felt too tired for him to come from the first floor to the second.  It was sad to lose him as a participant as he took great delight in drawing different kinds of objects and telling us about them.

Here are some selections from his drawings:-

To see more of Chun Huat's drawings, visit his web album at:-

https://picasaweb.google.com/liokee/LeeChunHuat?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCL6dguG5xPvPCA&feat=directlink

Cheng Ah Ngoh

Cheng Ah Ngoh is relatively younger than most of our other participants and more physically able. She usually walks in to our drawing sessions a bit later.  Like most of our other participants, she insists she cannot draw and would prefer to just observe what others are drawing. However, after a bit of persuasion, she will usually sit down and do a drawing, just to humour us she says!  She is quite meticulous in washing her brush and getting distinctive bright colours in her paintings.

Above is Ah Ngor's first attempt on 16 September 2011 and below is what she drew the following week on 23 September.

Below are a selection of her colourful paintings in October and November 2011.

Leong Chew Ngoh

Leong Chew Ngoh is wheel chair bound but generally independant.  She is chatty about her past, telling us that she had been a cook and household help most of her life. Once, she told me, she worked for a family in the Bahamas, "a place so far away I have to take 4 airplane rides to get there".  An enthusiastic member of the drawing group, she has been present practically every week since she started, usually doing 2 or 3 drawings each session. 

Below is a selection of her drawings from various sessions.

To see more drawings by Chew Ngoh visit her album at:-

https://picasaweb.google.com/liokee/LeongChewNgoh?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKK0otjP55S6IQ&feat=directlink

Lim Poh Bee

Lim Poh Bee joined our sessions only in September. She is a quiet calm person with a ready smile for us when we help her with paints and brush to start the session.  She sits in her wheelchair for many minutes as if lost in her own world. Then, when she is ready she will lift her brush and start on drawings that have a distinctive use of lines and patterns. 

Lim Poh Bee's first drawing.

Some of Poh Bee's later efforts

In this drawing, Poh Bee tried superimposing one layer upon another.

To see more of her drawings go to:

https://picasaweb.google.com/liokee/LimPohBee?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLii74LmtdLOuAE&feat=directlink

Lim Noey

Lim Noey is one of the most enthusiastic and regular participants in the Friday Drawing Sessions. She was there right from the beginning, has experimented with paints, crayons as well as colour pencils. In fact, she is enjoying the drawing process so much, she has asked for 3 extra sheets of paper at the end of each session so she can do more drawings in between. She carries in a little handbag her own collection of colour pencils which have become her favourite medium. Visit Lim Noey's web album to see her range of drawings. Below are a few examples.

Lim Noey's very first attempt on 8 July 2011

After she switched from paints to colouring pencils, Lim Noey begins by drawing her subjects with a fine red ball point before colouring them in. 

https://picasaweb.google.com/liokee/LimNoey?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPrO7qvE67XNPw&feat=directlink

2nd December Session

This week there has been re-organization in the home. So today our drawing session moved to the 3rd Floor.

This is a new participant who came today for the first time. It took a while to persuade her to join us. When she finally settled with a box of crayons, she worked slowly, quietly, putting in colours around the circle I drew for her as a starting point.  It was beautiful to see her getting absorbed in the shading and the colours as she worked for half an hour to produce this little piece.

Another new participant and her colourful drawing.

Here are some of our regulars with their drawings for the day.

 

And her colourful flowers