December is finally upon us this year. And while we look through our planners to consider which party to attend, it’s also the time where we start thinking of what Christmas present to buy for our loved ones. Well instead of buying things from the department stores, why not try creating one of your own?

My dear friend, Poesy Liang who is an incredible woman in many ways (you can read about her life story here, and here) has finally opened up her Pop-up Gallery, featuring all the artwork she has created over the years. I cannot begin to describe how proud I am of her. Her gallery will be featuring different private events with interesting themes (last being Cat lovers exhibition) until December 2015. Here are some pics:

For someone who has gone through so many traumatic life events (wow the psychiatrist in me just made a come back), she sure has a lot of strength and this is something that always inspires me, and no doubt many others too. Of many aspects of her life, I most want to focus on the giving part. You see, she is the founder of Helping Angels, a global volunteer group (now with over 2000 member worldwide) and she also spearheaded a community program Chowkids Angels, nurturing young artists amongst refugee kids in KL. This Christmas she has introduced yet another fantastic program: a one off mentorship program to paint with her.

Poesy has always said that we can find healing through all art forms, which resonates with me as I do too find healing through music. When she invited me to try a session with her, I wonder how I never asked for it before (maybe afraid she would be too expensive, haha). I have actually watched her work numerous times while I sat and just chatted with her, but never gotten involved myself.

I thought about what I was going to paint. I wanted something that represents my life at the moment. And Poesy suggested a musical instrument. Piano is too obvious a choice (and a little boring to draw) so I went for a guitar. So after a short discussion, we came up with a sketch. Some of the lines were drawn with a made-shift ruler, and the short ones were drawn free-handed. My OCD clearly came through here.

Red and purple are my two favourite colours, at first I wanted to go with red background and purple guitar but for some reason we switched the colours and now my guitar reminds me of few people… (looking at you Kelvyn).

Once the background acrylic ink dried, I moved on to the rest of the colours.

The finer details were actually done with silver and black sharpie. And there we have it! I finished this piece in about 2 hours (I’m a fast worker) but the session can go for 3 hours.

At first I did want to draw the strings, but then thought why not leave it as it is so I can have the perfect name for this: No Strings Attached!

I thoroughly enjoyed my session despite not picking up a paint brush for at least more than 15 years. The creative energy from Poesy really does help me channel mine too. Like she predicted, it wasn’t just an art lesson, it was therapy and more. Thank you for the wonderful opportunity!

For each mentorship session, you also get a starter kit consisting of 1 Canvas board (the one you’ll use to draw on), 24 good quality acrylic colours complete with a colour wheel for reference, 15 brushes and a palette. You get to take home your work of course. This only costs RM500 by the way, which I think is really good deal. To book an appointment, just whatsapp her on +60168886310. Her art gallery is located at Micasa Shoppes 368A Jalan Tun Razak.

Feel free to take a look and like her pages:

https://www.facebook.com/poesyliang
https://www.facebook.com/poesyart
http://www.instagram.com/poesyliang

You can also read about Jasmine’s experience here.