“Green Girl” (Final Look)
Watercolour and watercolour pencil on paper ; Letter size
Friday, August 12th (sketch and half-finished) and Saturday, August 13th
A commisioned painting for Indonesia Kreatif
The ‘green’ theme of this painting was inspired by the cover of an old GoGirl! Magazine and the fact that I was appointed to be one of Ganesha Hijau’s Agents of Change represents HIMASITH Nymphaea (a student council name of School of Life Science and Technology Institut Teknologi Bandung) that demands me to be a representative of living a ‘green life’ in my campus. Thanks to friends from Ganesha Hijau, especially my new boss, who’s given trust on me.
If you noticed the colours on the watercolour pad beside the watercolour cake, they were colour palletes for “Green Girl”. Just like colour palletes on Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw, they will be very useful if I’m going to make different painting with same theme.
“Green Girl” was made for a cover of Eid Idl Fitr greeting card designed special for Indonesia Kreatif (IDKreatif), a name of Ministry of Trade’s research division specialized in creative economy. I was among the other 4 artists (Faisal Azad of Salazad Papertoys, Rahmat Kurniawan of Rekarupa, Thom Dean the Cartoonist, and Beng Rahadian of Akademi Samali) who was appointed to make an artwork for IDKreatif’s greeting card. So honored to know that I was in the same job with my favourite Indonesian artists. If it wasn’t Mbak Mia who asked me to design a greeting card with a painting as its cover (and also agreed to have me as an intern for 2 months at IDKreatif), I wouldn’t have been this happy. I thank her so much (again) for giving me an opportunity to show my side-talent.
“Green Girl” says, “Marhaban Ya Ramadhan”. Many thanks to Deasty Imara as one who saw the final look of the painting at the very first. You know what your words meant for me so much, Dear :)
“Green Girl” was actually my second human painting after “Thinking of You”. Same with the previous painting, I used the face of an actreess as an inspiration to draw the face of “Green Girl”. Having Kate Bosworth as my reference for “Thinking of You”, I had Emilie de Ravin on the cover of old edition of GoGirl! Magazine for “Green Girl”. Though I didn’t really know her movies (same went for Kate Bosworth), I chose her face because it looked unique to me.
As usual, I did a painting with vibrant colours that Rara thought as my own way of showing the audicity and simplicity. Felt so honored to be given an opinion about my paintings from one of my favourite bloggers. Same like my mother, Rara’s thoughts on life was technically sarcastic, yet so adorably genuine!
“Orangutan”
15 x 11 cm , watercolour on paper
Wednesday, July 13th, 2011
As an Indonesian, a human being who live in a country with its second largest biodiversity, and a Biology student whose life’s been haunted by the figure of Jane Goodall and George Schaller since last year, I feel that I have an obligation to promote my own country to the world. I really am not saying this with uneasy feeling. There’s nobody forces me to came to this realization. Even my parents, they’re not the one who told me to take Biology as my major.
So, it all started when I saw a brochure on a download page of WWF Indonesia website. The brochure told me that the Javan rhinos were in danger because of their decreasing amount. I don’t know why, but the pictures of the rhinos somewhat inspired me to do something. Something that was interesting and could be important in future. As a I sketched the Javan rhino’s head, a very surprising thought came to me: this wildlife painting could be my own way in saving the animal, especially the endangered one like this rhino. So, right after I finished painting, I promised to myself that I’d continue painting wild animals. Just because I can’t participate in NGO activities (because of very tight schedule as a student) doesn’t mean I can’t do something different to raise the awareness of people of the animals in Indonesia.
One of my 2011-2012 resolutions as a painter is paint at least two endangered animals in Indonesia. Some of them I’ve known so far are Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), Javan rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus), Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), and Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii). I’ve made a painting of the head of Javan rhinoceros with same medium and tools (titled “Hello, Rhino!”) last December, so with this “Orangutan” painting, I’m coming to the minimum amount of paintings I should made according to the resolution.
The sketch
The final look of “Orangutan” painting. Honestly, it doesn’t look very real to me since I painted it with no hair. Maybe the most suitable title for this painting should be “Bald Orangutan” or “The Orangutan with No Hair” (reminds me so much of “The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo”) hahaha.
I’m looking forward to paint another endangered animals in future. How about… the Sumatran rabbit (Nesolagus netscheri)?
P.S.: My paintings are now available on postcards! Please kindly inform me if you’re interested in exchanging postcards with me. For you who don’t live in Indonesia, let’s do some pen-pallings. I have a Postcrossing account. How about you? :)
