Nectar

Feather

My first Crayon piece in a long time. Somehow, I feel, my photos do not do justice to the startlingly vivid colours oil pastels can produce. The inspiration struck late at night and the rendering was quick if iterative.

Mermaid

This is one of those pieces that you can't quite rationalize as an artist. I had been working on the negative space in this painting for a few days and then took a break for almost a month before I got back to it. I'm not sure if I really intended for her to be in this picture but she is :)

Fashion; agony or ecstasy

In Collaboration with Vasu Gandhi

7 Zen steps for digital fitness

Let me begin by admitting outright that I'm a geek and lazy and probably have medium-to-extreme attention   deficit disorder. I can pretty much do anything, I set my mind to, as long as I feel like doing it (usually way past when most sane people would move on) but can't even so much as finger curl a remote button without solid motivation. In short I have zero will power (zilch).


For the past fifteen years I've been spending 8-12 hours a day in front of some screen of some type. My work alone involves 6-8 hours sitting in front of a computer (coupled with approximately about  3-6 hours daily entertainment and infotainment screen time).


Its this digital life coupled with my flawed to begin with personality that almost made me hopelessly fat, slow and sloppy. It couldn't go on, I didn't like what I saw in the mirror and more importantly couldn't afford the ballooning insurance premiums. (the final straw was when my Doc told me to give up sweets, cheese and alcohol) 


I also started feeling (almost) that all this tech was some how constricting me.


Since I couldn't give it all up I decided to figure out ways to make all this "connected" time and technology work to get me fit.


I call this the "Zen of Digital fitness"

'Zen' because most of it is a collection of really simple ideas but it helps shed stress, burns calories and makes you feel a lot better about yourself while you are at it.


Note: It has worked for me (I’ve shed inches, regained stamina, fixed my cholesterol and had loads of fun and can eat and drink what I want :D) but you may need to tweak it to suit your own pace and lifestyle. Also be smart and ask a professional if you have medical conditions or special needs etc.


Now finally presenting; 


The 7 Steps to the Zen of Digital fitness:

1. Get some pumping Music
2. Change the way you watch TV
3. Kit up with the latest tech in sports and exercise gear
4. Find great tips and techniques online
5. Use your smartphone as a personal trainer 
6. Use your body to play video games
7. Go social with your  effort and progress 

Reading Sheet Music (Mnemonics)

If you are beginning to learn to read sheet music check out my quick-and-dirty articles about getting your feet wet.

Once you understand the basic layout of the notes you can start reading a score. You will soon notice though that like any other language getting fluency in reading music takes time.

Often you will find yourself counting lines on the treble or bass clef to figure out which note to play.

Here are some simple mnemonic devices to help you quickly recognize the notes on the grand staff.

A truly scrumptious noon

I don't usually write about food but my meal this afternoon was good enough to change that.

I believe that being vegetarian in Singapore is harder than being vegetarian anywhere else. Not because there aren't enough options for vegetarians (far from it) but rather because there are too many alternatives.  In fact, Singapore is the foodie capital of the world with a mind boggling array of food choices for any palate.

This afternoon after a long and tiring meeting at the Central Business District I headed out to hunt for a quick bite. (technically, being vegetarian, I should say I headed out to 'gather' rather than 'hunt'). Deciding to try something new I eliminated all the joints I frequent whenever I near the CBD  at meal time.(in one fell stroke :p)  

Today I was rewarded (for my effort and patience) with a delightful meal that was quick, delicious, economical and refreshingly healthy.

I proudly present to you Vegan Berg: http://www.veganburg.com/

I had a Grilled Satay Burger with Seaweed fries and the spinach and potato balls and a apple & passion fruit cooler. (It was simply gorgeous what more can I say... I am writing this blog post aren't I)

After the meal, completely obscenely stuffed I decided I couldn't eat another savoury bite and began to look for desserts (sheepish grin)

The CBD of Singapore, being the centre of the foodie capital of the world, as I was saying in this self same post a few paras ago, didn't disappoint by delivering a second gastronomical gem in the same afternoon.

http://latteemiele.com.sg/

Latte E Emiele is a Gelato place truly run by Artisans of the Gelato making craft. I had the Orange blossom and Honey flavoured Gelato in waffle cone and it was sooooo good that it made my knees weak. I tried a bunch of the other flavours and would recommend any one of them without reservations.

Since I have no idea how one gracefully ends a blog post so obviously about gluttony 'bye!'  

 

Reading sheet music made easy (Part 2)

This is a continuation from Part 1

The aim is to get to a point to be able to read the following piece:

Seeing how written music maps to the piano extremely well, leads me to believe that modern sheet music was invented first for the piano (or maybe the piano was invented with sheet music in mind... Who knows???).

This sheet music to keyboard mapping is so intuitive that it is the logical place to start (at least in my opinion :P)

Step 2 (Marching forward)

Reading sheet music made easy (Part 1)

The above is the opening from "Für Elise" ('For Elise' in English) which is one of Ludwig van Beethoven's most popular compositions. The above lines contain all the information required for a pianist to be able to render this well known extract of the timeless melody written more than 200 years ago in April 1810. 

The skill required to render this music as a balm for the soul, takes years of practice. However, getting to a point where one is able to understand that these unfathomable glyphs are  part of the tune is easy. 

The ability to read music allows us to start practising and play the millions of scores from Pop, Rock, Classical, Jazz etc genres which get published as sheet music. 

This is the first in a series of tutorials (and by series I mean 2 maybe even 3) about the basics of reading sheet music. At the end of these tutorials you should be able to make sense of most of what is written on this opening lines from For Elise. 

A note of caution for everyone! I like to figure out most things myself and am not classically (or infact even otherwise) trained. So whilst this is an easy way to learn reading music it might not be the correct way of going about things.  

Step 1 (Lets start from the very beginning...)

Pizza is a Vegetable!

Shucks I wish my mom had known this! I had to eat carrots and peas!

No one is saying this yet but I've taken the liberty to carry that argument to its logical conclusion.

PIZZA is everything!!!

Nevertheless this is a fascinating debate to follow:

Pizza is a vegetable
Pizza is not a vegetable
Pizza is a vegetable
Pizza is not a vegetable
Pizza is a vegetable

and so on (all different links btw)  :)