This is what got all started, and I know as I’m writing the post a while after the fact.

In June 2015, a friend took me to a painting session on a quiet Sunday in Singapore and I – very clumsily – gave it a try. I picked a book about painting and tried copying the image of a boat from another artist, within the book.

It was totally messy, with oil moving things around, colours difficult to handle, and overall quite frustrating. Many tones were hidden in the original painting and I couldn’t see them even after receiving instructions.

After a few sessions I was able to slightly control the brush to make shapes, though the boat seems on the verge of collapsing 🙂

I did a few more strokes in the session, then somehow the café staff lost the painting (!) and I started another one. It was found weeks later, but I didn’t want to continue it – so I signed it as incomplete: