BenchArt day 1

It all started with the A3 pieces of paper handed to us Year 1s as an assignment.
It was then explained that this was to be entered into a competition- to design a bench.

Initially, I saw those two pieces of paper as nothing but an assignment and a trouble to complete, but I tried to make most out of it at the very end when a design suddenly struck me at 11 in the night. I did whatever I wanted and liked, but little did I know, that the winners were to paint their designs on the benches themselves. And of course, I never gave a thought, that I really would win.

My design. I was inspired by stained glass art and included that element of the contrast between the black lines and bold, vibrant colours(which is the theme). I also added the topic of harmony in the design, depicting the bond of the different races and ethnicity in Singapore(represented by the meaning of the flowers in the background)

A meeting was held on Friday to explain the process of the painting. In addition to the prize money, two fifty dollar notes were given for the expenses on materials, transport and food.(I unfortunately had to spend all of it on materials) It was clearly impossible to finish the painting on my own, and I have the best assistant I can ever get- my father.

The time given to us for the completion of the benches were 9-7 PM, strictly from Monday to Wednesday. The plan for Monday was to meet at 10 AM at the venue. I headed to school first for my 9 AM lecture to pass my letters of excuse and asked for assistance from friends to hold onto work given by the teachers on my days of absence.

A secret photo taken of the tents with rain curtains rolled down and my father taking cups of paint from the supplied tins

The benches coated white, ready to be painted.

 (It's just perspective- my father's really not fat)

The photos printed for easy reference and the mess of materials.

Needless to say, the teachers and managers were pretty concerned about my design due to its complicity and work needed to complete the bench. In their words, I would have to 'work overtime'. I just knew that I had to try my best to speed up the progress.(seeing how I'm usually such an excessively slow painter)

I started out with a sketch of the simplest of the simplest. The basic pencil outline of the flowers and hands were drawn in less than an hour. We immediately started with painting the base colours and blended them in, creating tones and smooth gradations in colour.

The benches are stationed right in the center of walkways next to traffic, and with the bright tents, of course it attracted attention. In just a few hours into painting, where the bench only just started to barely resemble my design, a lady came to the opening of the tent to ask if she could take pictures. That was a surprise for me, as the bench probably didn't look like anything much but still she liked it enough to think about taking a picture.

Let's mix paint!

At the end of the day, the managers came and told me that she was impressed by how much work we've done- The base for the top was almost complete. In contrast, the teammate beside me barely had the first quarter of the top complete. Perhaps she wasn't very familiar with paint, so this makes me even more appreciative of my exposure and experience in paint from secondary school.