My watercolor dialog 水彩故事

• Main Author: Ng, Woon Lam
• Other Authors: School of Art, Design and Media
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Ng Woon Lam 2024
• Subjects: Arts and Humanities; Watercolor; Painting
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/174856
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

My early art journey began with extensive involvement with watercolor painting. I was so fortunate to have the opportunity to learn about watercolor. It was economical as a starter kit for a less financially fortunate kid like me. I remember that I would save 10 cents per day from my 30 cents for pocket money for about 1 month when I was in my primary school so that I could afford to get an additional watercolor set for my casual painting exploration. Without it being so affordable, I would not have such a wonderful journey of art. That’s why I would tell all beginners to purchase materials that they can easily afford so that they could carry out the most fearless experiments and learn the most out of it. Along my journey of watercolor, there were so many unanticipated ups and downs that have truly enriched my life a s fine artist. While it has not been a smooth ride along the way, I still regard myself as a lucky one to have chosen watercolor as one of my major art media. My first mentor was my high school art teacher Mr. Chan Teck Kee who truly provided my with remarkable guidelines. His mentorship opened the gate of art to me. While I was trained as an engineer, my long-term goal was to be a fine artist and watermedia served the purpose when I could not set aside significant amount of space to store my experimental pieces. Watercolors are painted on paper and take up probably the least amount of space as all the finished pieces can be stacked up and stored in packs. In 1992 I had the opportunity to meet my long admired watercolor master Mr. Gog Sing Hooi. He was the late founding president of the Singapore Watercolour Society. While I only had a short period of mentorship of slightly more than a year from him before his unfortunate passing in 1994, his experience and great understanding in color application and calligraphical brushwork in watercolor have very significant influence of my learning of watercolor art and comprehension of painting language. Through master Gog’s recommendation, I continued to meet many great artists locally and internationally even after his passing. The 2 very active local art associations, the Singapore Watercolour Society (SWS) and the Singapore Art Society (SAS) have provided me with great exchange opportunities with their pools of experienced artists. Through one of the SWS’s invited talks, I was very fortunate to meet one of the American Watercolor Society master artist associate professor emeritus Chee Cheng-Khee. Coincidentally, professor Chee was a recipient of the Nanyang Achievement Award in 2008 presented by Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He is another influential mentor of mine who not only has guided me along my art career development, also regularly served as my recommender for my higher education in fine art and art academia career till today. There are small stories that I would love to share with all art enthusiasts together with my recent favorite watercolor artworks. I have this great opportunity to work with the Chinese Heritage Centre (CHC) at NTU to showcase my humble watercolors and the stories. I am very grateful to both both CHC’s invitation, especially associate professor Yow Chuen Hoe, director of CHC and Dr. Luo Biming, deputy director of CHC, who have provided various aspects of support for my watercolor solo exhibition at CHC exhibition gallery. 水彩画是最早和我结下渊源的绘画媒介，我很幸运在很小就有机会接触水彩画；作为一个经济条件不太好的孩子，水彩是一个经济实惠的入门绘画工具。我记得在上小学的时候，我会从三毛的零用钱里省下一毛，到约一个月的时间，就能够买盒额外的水彩画颜料，让我的随意探索绘画。如果水彩画不那么实惠，我就不会有如此美妙的艺术旅程，这就是为什么我常告诉初学者得购买较实惠的材料，才能进行最无畏的实验，并从中学到最多的知识。 在我的水彩学习过程中，有许多意想不到的挑战和惊喜，它丰富了我的艺术生命，尽管一路上并不一帆风顺，我仍感到庆幸能选择水彩作为我艺术创作的媒介之一。我的启蒙老师是我的中学美术老师曾德基先生，他为我提供了扎实的基础指导，并为我打开了艺术的大门，尽管我先选择了工程专业，但我长期的目标一直是成为一名画家，而水彩画作为一种媒介，帮我解决没有足够的空间存放实验作品的问题，水彩画都是绘制在纸上，所以成品很容易叠放和储存，初期不需要很大的储存空间，让我学习上无后顾之忧。 1992年，我有幸遇见了我长期仰慕的水彩画大师吴承惠先生，他是新加坡水彩画画会的创会会长，虽然在他1994年不幸离世，但我有幸得到了他一年多的指导；他丰富的水彩画经验和高明的色彩应用及水彩书法用笔的深刻理解，对我的水彩画学习和理解产生了非常重要的影响。 在吴老师的引荐下，我继续与本地和国际艺术家保持了联系，这也得益于新加坡水彩画画会和新加坡艺术协会等积极的推动艺术所致，通过这些活动，我有幸结识了美国水彩画会大师级艺术家徐靖沂副教授，巧合的是徐教授也是2008年南洋理工大学的南大成就奖的获奖者。 我也很荣幸能与南大华裔馆合作，展出我的水彩近作和分享我的水彩小故事；在此衷心感谢华裔馆的邀请，也特别要感谢馆长游俊豪副教授和副馆长罗必明博士提供了各种方面的支持和协助。 我特此诚挚地邀请所有艺术爱好者来参观我的第八次个展，并给予批评指正，谢谢！ 南洋理工大学 艺术、设计与媒体学院 黄运南 副教授