Emila Yusof

Datuk A.Samad Said or better known as Pak Samad or Bapak is having his 2nd solo exhibition entitled Kata Luhur at Balai Seni Lukis Negara, Kuala Lumpur. There are about 100 drawings (ink on papers) being exhibited.

The launching of the was held last Friday (9th April 2010) to commemorate his 75th birthday on that day.  I was there amongst hundreds to celebrate the special day.

The exhibition was launched by YBhg Datuk Syed Ahmad Jamal.
From left: YBhg Dato’ Hj Mohd Rozali Isohak (BSLN), YM Tengku Elina Tengku Azidin (Pelita Hati) and Datuk A. Samad Said.

The exhibition will be from 9th April until 10th May 2010 at Gallery 2B, Balai Seni Lukis Negara, Kuala Lumpur. Opening hours of the gallery is 10am to 6pm (Monday to Sunday).

More pictures of the launching can be seen in Bapak’s Facebook Fan Page.

One of my drawings for my Little Guardians Series. My agent/publisher, Linda Tan, is under discussion with a leading bookstore in Kuala Lumpur to promote Little Guardians. If everything is ok, we’ll print out some as postcards, bookplates and notepads.

Watch out for the announcement come May or June.

My publisher, Linda Tan, and I will be at the Art for Grabs!! We’ll be selling books, prints, notecards, notepads, calendars and many more!!!

Please come and rock our booth:

Dates: Sat 6 & Sun 7, March 2010
Time: 12.00 noon to 8.00 pm
Venue: The Annexe Gallery, Central Market Annexe, Kuala Lumpur.

Went to visit the National Crafts Day (Hari Kraf Negara) today at Kompleks Kraf, Jalan  Conlay, Kuala Lumpur. Made appointment earlier to meet with Rizal (RestNRileks), my blogger buddy, who is happen to be a Craft Lecturer/Instructor with Institut Kraf Negara. Rizal accompanied me to visit the whole exhibition and it was fun discussing about the latest trend of local crafts while looking at some new craft designs.

These are some of my favourites:

And my top favourite is:

Rattan orca lamp!

I am very sure this will be Yassin’s favourite too!!! Yassin couldn’t make it as he has to attend school but maybe I’ll bring him during the weekend.

Rizal has contributed a lot of effort in bringing his team to work on this Rattan Orca Lamp design. You can read the detailed process at Rizal’s blog.

It was really a great festival and if you happen to be in Kuala Lumpur, do drop by and see our many beautiful local handcrafted items.

Location:
Kompleks Kraf Kuala Lumpur
Seksyen 63, Jalan Conlay
50450 Kuala Lumpur
Telephone: 03-2162 7459
Fax: 03-2161 2622

The National Crafts Day will be until March 8, 2010 but the overall Malaysia Crafts Festival will be until March 24, 2010 at selected locations as below:

Shopping Complexes
- AEON Alpha Angle
-Great Eastern Mall, Kuala Lumpur
-Central Market, Kuala Lumpur

Hotels
- JW Marriott, Kuala Lumpur
- Prince & Residence, Kuala Lumpur
- Istana, Kuala Lumpur
- Hilton, Petaling jaya
- Royale Chulan
- Grand Season
- Best Western Premier Seri Pacific

Amongst activities currently going on at Kompleks Kraf are:
- Craft sales
- New Design Exhibits
- Exclusive Souvenirs
- Traditional Musical instruments Craft
- Crafts Technology Exhibits
- Buyers Meeting
- Design Workshops
- Craft Demonstrations
- Interactive Activities
- Entrepreneur Advice Counter
- Cultural Shows
- Tradtional Games

Before we leave, Rizal and I exchanged goodies. I only gave Rizal few small things but Rizal on the other hand, gave me beautiful goodies! Thank you so much Rizal!!

And before I end this post, I would like to promote craft books published by Institut Kraf Negara that I already have in my hands! Yippee!!! Been looking for these type of books for quite sometimes already! Thanks to Rizal for telling me about it, I own 6 of them!

If you are looking for elementary reference about our local crafts, do look for these books:

Books included in this series are:
- Seni Kraf Logam (Motif & Teknik)
- Seni Kraf Kayu (Motif & Teknik)
- Seni Kraf Batik (Motif & Teknik)
- Seni Kraf Batik ( Pewarnaan Asli)
- Seni Kraf Tenunan )Motif & Teknik)
- Seni Kraf Seramik (Motif & Teknik)
- Seni Kraf Rotan (Motif & Teknik)

All books are in Malay Language. The hardcover is RM80 each, while softcover RM39.90.

For enquiries/order please call:

Institut Kraf Negara
No 1, KM 20, Jalan Ipoh Rawang
Taman Rekreasi Templer
48000 Rawang
Selangor.

Tel: 03-60915322 ext 103/151
Fax: 03-60926072
E-mail: faridah@ikn.gov.my/shamsheila@ikn.gov.my

Oh, I almost forgot, here’s a picture of Rizal and me!

One night (it was Christmas night), my husband and I got bored, so we went out to take photos. Here’s one of the photos I like.

Angle spot: Road divider, Jalan Ampang 4-Junction near traffic lights: straight heading to KL (to BSN and all), left to Jalan Pinang, right to Jalan Yap Kwan Seng.

So what do you do with a bunch of twigs?

You can do wonders if you want. Like these:

Although I have two big trees at my front yard but there wasn’t enough supply to make the above. So what I did was, went to the park, KL Lake Garden to be precise, and collect dry twigs. I am very sure that DBKL wouldn’t mind as I was doing nature a big favour; recycling.

Cool projects, right? I bought the plain frames from Ikea (3 for RM5.90) and made the pencils stand out of tissue tube. Covered the bottom part with layers of masking tape. I don’t think you need instruction for these projects as you can already figure it out by looking at them pictures.

Although a teacher has been complaining about him walking around in class and not wanting to write, Yassin has been a very good boy the first two weeks at school. We rewarded him with a visit to Petrosains. After the visit, Yassin for the very first time, requested to see a movie. We fulfilled his request and took him to see the 3D version of Avatar show at the TGV.

Yassin and his dad enjoyed the movie so much as they both are big fans of science fiction. I, on the other hand, is the opposite. I don’t really like sci-fi (given exception to Spielberg’s Taken miniseries and ET) and as for Avatar, I don’t like the storyline but I must salute the CGI special effect team (Industrial Light & Magic, Weta Digital and James Cameron the director himself)  for a job well done. ILM and Weta worked from extremely detailed templates given to them by Cameron.

Do you like music? You do, yes? But do you know anything about the science of music? Not really, yes? My answer is ‘not really’ as well and that triggers me to learn more about it. So, yesterday I went to visit the latest exhibition in town: Petrosains Muzika at Petrosains, Level 4, Suria KLCC, Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur with my husband and son. The visit was great and we had tons of fun! Petrosains Muzika lets us mess around with music in ways we probably haven’t before; we can listen, see, touch, create and learn! Among exhibits we enjoyed include Speed of Sounds, World Music, Digital Piano Multi-Touch, Sound Spaces, Air Guitar, Never-Ending Piano, Vinyl Scratching, Giant Panpipes and many more.

Strum away the invisible guitar like Yngwie Malmsteen or Man Kidal!

Listen to World’s music by putting on the earphone and point the listening device to white spots. Can you guess what song represents Malaysia? Go and find out ‘coz I am not going to spoil the fun ^_^

You can listen to the panpipes humming by pressing your ears onto the mouth of the panpipes as well as play to the notes given by hitting the mouth with a club.

Vary the sound by just playing the strings instrument, or add woodwinds or brass or percussion to the Lahti Symphony. Better still, combine all together.

Listen to different quality of music samples from phonograph, gramophone, turntable (vinyl record) and CD.

I was lucky to be born in the era of turntable; my father had one. Funny thing is, as I recall it today, it was playing Boney M, many times over, to the extent that I could really remember the song by heart. Really.

Interactive information about Music & Seismology.

Virtual drum.

Do visit Petronas Muzika to experience all the fun. Below are details about admission hours and rates.

Admission hours
Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri – 9.30am – 5.30pm (last admission is 4.30pm)
Sat | Sun | Public Holidays – 9.30am – 6.30pm (last admission is 5.30pm)

Rates
Children (4 years old and below) – Free
Children ( 5 – 12 years old) – RM3
Adults – RM6

Booking Line
603-23318181

Logon to Petronas Muzika and join the on-going contest. Answers can only be obtained by visiting the exhibition. Prizes include PlayStation3, Nintendo Wii and iPod Touch. All winners will also receive a 1-year Petrosains Membership. Closing date of the contest will be on March 31, 2010.

p/s Have you been to Petronas Muzika? Let me know what you think about the exhibition and what exhibit do you enjoy most.

I wish I could just sit and draw away directly but having a very active son, it is impossible because I have to tail him all the time. I am hoping to be able to do that when he grows up a bit. For the time being, most of my sketches are drawn from photos I captured intentionally for drawing purposes.

Below is a view from AKLEH (Ampang-KL Elevated Highway). Picture was taken by me while driving. Can you imagine holding steering with my left hand while snapping pictures away with my right hand? Do not try this in your car, ok?

Whenever I passed any beautiful buildings, I would stop and snapped pictures. Below are two of my favourite neo-classical buildings (Clock Tower of Sultan Abdul Samad Building & Textile Museum).

I could not resist drawing the modern glass and steel Petronas Twin Towers because everywhere  I turn or look, the building is there. Even from where I stay I can see vivid image of the building.

One of my hobby is watching and snapping photos of old windows and this particular window from one of the preserved buildings at Jalan Doraisamy did not escaped my eyes.

Even when I stopped at the traffic light, I would capture any scene that caught my eyes. Below is a view from Jalan Raja heading to Jalan Raja Laut traffic light.

Beside capturing scenery and buildings, my objects of interest are people; people doing their things, for example: ahem, Rashid Salleh…

…or this cute little girl in red…

…or my son smooching the totem pole…

…or my best blogger buddy, Yoon See posing with our evergreen singer, Kak Salamiah Hassan…

…or a tourist observing KL from the top of KL Tower…

…or three uncles having chicken rice at Central Market food court.

I also love watching animals. Below were monkeys having fun at Tanglin Hospital during weekends…

…and three permanent winged residents of Sentul Park lake.

Ducks or birds have always been my favourite subjects. Below are some drawings from my other sketch book.

Here is a couple of ducks from Lake Garden cleaning their feathers…

…and a beautiful black swan from KL Birds Park swimming gracefully.

If you’re at Birds Park, please look for this handsome peacock; I couldn’t exactly bring out all the details of its plumage, it’s too magnificent.

Beside animals, i love to draw nature too. Below is frangipani from KLCC. There are quite a large numbers of frangipani trees at KLCC Park; somewhere from the fountain leading to the pool area.

Last but not least, here is a creepy tree situated somewhere between the Convention Centre and KLCC Park.

I think I have put enough loads on your browser with my drawing images. You, should by now get the idea already that Kuala Lumpur never ceases to offer great subjects for you to draw.

Just look around; your drawing subject might just be few inches near you.