One World: Themed Graffiti at ACS International

Anglo Chinese School (International) had us conducting a graffiti workshop cum competition with the theme ‘One World’. The theme was chosen by the school to reflect the multi-nationality of its students. This workshop introduces the entire level of secondary two students (134 attended) to the art of graffiti. It is also a competition to identify the best crew that gets to work on several designated walls in the school.

The feedback received is most gratifying.

“Thank you for holding such an engaging and fun-filling workshop for the students. They have enjoyed themselves tremendously and from the feedback gathered through the evaluation forms, they have indicated very positively that the workshop was a success. Most importantly, they were able to point otut the difference between Vandalism and Graffiti art. I think most of them are able to appreciate Graffiti art better. It is not something that is done randomly to be called art. Other students from the higher levels even lamented that why they did not get to do Graffiti art.”

Ms. Chang Hung Tho, Art Teacher

Graffiti artist/ instructors: Kamal Dollah, Dino Hafian, The Killer Gerbil, Antz, Kelvin Tan, Glenn Koh, and Rosman Mohd Sahid.

Caricature Drawing Workshop at a Buddhist School

We were at Manjusri Secondary School to conduct post-examination workshop for their secondary-one and two students. Exams just over, so this workshop is a light hearted introduction to the art of caricature drawing. Besides having a hands-on experience at drawing exaggerated features, students were elated to receive their caricatures by either Ruoshi, William Tan or myself during our drawing demonstration. Together, we taught more than 400 students over two mornings.

Post note: We established a website specifically for our caricature drawing services in January 2008 at: WWW.CARTOON.SG. More caricatures for viewing, please click here.

Doctors and Nurses Caricature

Ruoshi and I did a gig for Singhealth‘s Dinner and Dance. One of the doctor being drawn compared the way we draw to how he worked at the polyclinic – Long queues, so no longer than five minutes per patient! There were even some familiar faces from where we send our son for his medical check-up. For making them happy, we are assured of a priority number at our next visit to the polyclinic – Like Real.

Post note: We established a website specifically for our caricature drawing services in January 2008 at: WWW.CARTOON.SG. More caricatures for viewing, please click here.

Graffiti Wall at Outram Secondary School

Outram Secondary school has a legal graffiti wall created by 25 secondary-two students for their ‘Art Alive’ programme. The wall located at the 5th floor atrium was ‘bombed’ and ‘buffed’ repeatedly for 14 weeks and this is the finale. It really brightens up the school. The principal, Mdm Choy Wai Yin, the school staff and other students are very supportive of the programme.

Those students in this programme, they’re nice kids and I really enjoyed working with them for the entire semester. So much so, The Killer Gerbil and I left behind a little reminder of our presence in the school. We also got a nice testimonial:

“Students really enjoyed the course. It was good that values were imparted to the students as well on top of the curriculum. The trip to Youth Park gave students a good experience and was an eye-opener to some of them. They have learned that graffiti is not just a form of vandalism but can be a form of art as well.”

Ms. Chan Hean Mei, Teacher

Click here to view the entire wall and earlier postings of their excursion to *scape Skate Park and artist demo session.

NCN convention 2007 in Reno

Mistaken for a homeless in Reno (hmmm… that’s another story).

I was in Reno, Nevada, USA from 30th Sep – 6th Oct 2007 for the National Caricaturists Network (NCN) convention. An annual gathering of professional caricature artists from around the world. The awesome experience is still fresh despite having travelled 25 hours to get back home (going there was just as trying). I am happy to have met and befriended other caricaturists from around the world and learned from them. It was my first exposure to the NCN convention and I really did not know what to expect, nevertheless I was well received. Despite coming from all over, I observed that we are all surprisingly similar. We don’t remember names yet we love working with people and have outstanding devotion to the art of drawing caricatures.

There were seminars, competition and awards to be won at the end of it all. The awards recognises the best, the fastest, the most colourful, etc. As Roger Hurtado the outgoing NCN president puts it, “this is the olympics of caricature and there are no prizes for the middle of the road”. Yet the atmosphere was very friendly and there was a lot of sharing and experimenting. The convention hall was open to us 24 hours and we drew one another around the clock for 4 days until the time for judging. The over 200 participants are the judges so it is indeed an esteemed recognition from your peers if you won anything. I did not win anything but have learnt a lot by looking and listening to my new found colleagues, all of them are among the best caricaturist where they come from. The whole week was so inspiring and rewarding at the same time. Plus I had a nice collection of caricatures done of me by other professionals.

This my favourite by Yuta Honma – a Japanese Caricaturist.
It won the Guest of Honor Award for Most Disturbing Dentistry and Freakiest Forehead Anatomy

On the last day of convention, I went to Lake Tahoe with Lee Jackson (my room-mate from Oklahoma). The trip was worth it because I experienced snow for the first time in what was said to be the most beautiful part of the United States. We went up the mountain by cable car and when we got down, walked to the lake. It was beautiful!

Workshop by caricature master Jan Op De Beeck from Belgium.


Beat this. The Likeness competion was hard to judge with more than 200 participants. All participants were given 8 minutes to caricature the photo shown.

My caricature of the ‘Professor’ a.k.a. Mick Cusimano

Mike Hasson was inpired by the fact that my hotel room no. was 666.

Benjamin Vincent was a nice fella and great illustrator.
He did a nice caricature of me too.

My wall #204.

Me and Lee Jackson (from Oklahoma) caught in the snow at Lake Tahoe.

The grand prize is the highly coveted Golden Nosey.
It goes to Kage Nakanishi from Japan.

 

Post note: We established a website specifically for our caricature drawing services in January 2008 at: WWW.CARTOON.SG. More caricatures for viewing, please click here.