In November 2017 I embarked on a portrait challenge. I wanted to paint a portrait everyday for 100 days. For the first two months, I managed to do just that: a portrait a day. However with the holiday seasons and other unexpected events unfolding, the project morphed into just doing 100 portraits.

By January 2018, 100 days had passed and I managed about 90 portraits. The last ten proved to be most elusive. in mid January, I had just been accepted as resident artist at Settlers Cottage and moved into my new studio on 1st February. Immediately after, I also had to prepare for artist open studios over two weekends in early February to showcase my work. This kept me very busy and left little time to paint. I had also begun to do larger works in watercolour, including a couple of commissioned paintings. These took longer, too.

64 of my 100 paintings project

Final 36 of my 100 portraits project(no 100 partially done)

The final portrait took the longest time. I wanted to do justice to my muse who is a wonderfully skilled puppeteer. It was during the recent Perth Arts Festival that I came across a fifth generation master puppeteer Yeung Fai. He performed Hand Stories, a biographical account of his family. My grandparents had originated from the same region in China as Yeung Fai and his ancestors. In fact we speak the same dialect. Unlike Yeung Fai however, I was born and bred in Singapore. Yet as a child growing up in Singapore, I had watched similar hand puppetry street performances except these paled in comparison with what he could do. When I watched his performance of Hand Stories I was spell bound and also deeply moved. His father, a master puppeteer suffered persecution during the cultural revolution and Yeung Fai nearly gave up the art. Fortunately he persevered and today he passes on his masterful skills to the next generation. He is a consummate artist and I pay tribute to him in this work: