Iskandar Blue

This set of Design Sculpture was done by Joe Chua..

What's most important for a Design Sculptured Nails is the shape, despite it's embedded 3D embossed art inside. If there is no control or skill, the entire nail would look like a swollen piece of "ice-kacang" on the fingers... I chose the Blue Gradient Color as the base as it allows the Pure White Roses to stand-out yet retaining its 3D effect.

During dinner... I realized that the blue on my nails matches the blue glaze on my Japanese Tea-Cup. So love this special shade of blue… Despite the popular belief that I am crazy about Pink color… bcoz everything around me happens to be pink or hello kitty (Handphone case, pens, diaries, calculators, etc.)

My favorite colors happen to be Turquoise & Deep Coral Blue… or to be exact the Greenish-Blue Glaze on pottery. It is the signature color glaze often associated with Mr Iskandar Jalil, he got his famous 'Iskandar Blue’ from the Blue Mountains in NSW.

He's a mentor and received the National Cultural Medallion for Visual Arts in 1988. His works are owned by the Sultan of Brunei and former US president George Bush Senior. His larger wall installations can be seen in Tanjong Pagar Railway Station and Changi Airport.Anybody who is a collector of pottery and sculptural pieces would be familiar with the works of Iskandar Jalil.

He was my mentor & fine-art lecturer during my days at Temasek Polytechnic School of Design. Those days, we need to be good in fine arts on the first year of school... although we are to become commercial art designers.

Everyone's groans & fear, of attending Mr Iskandar's lessons. He’ll go around class with a hammer & smash to pieces our works he feels is not up to his standards. He calls all of us “monkeys” and would not be shy to give you a piece of his mind about you.
It is with him that I learnt the true meaning of uncompromising perfection. Later on in my life, it helped me understand my tough days in living in Japan…

But, he is also very gentle & kind person… you can tell from his way of life and his compassion to pass on his knowledge to whoever is willing to find out your own individual strength & purpose in life.

I remember the days when I would go to his workshop after school. He just let me do whatever I wanted at his workshop; I started making numerous clay sculptures figures… glazed them & fired them in his kiln. Strange to think back, I never tried pottery. I still remembered him telling me that the most difficult item to master is the quiet beauty of a simple tea bowl…

Thinking back… I would love to have back that luxury of getting my hands dirty with clay and do nothing but just sit at the pottery work-stand & make art pieces to express my inner feelings… ahhh… the inner peace working at the back of his terrace house swamped by lush greeneries, numerous pots by the fish pond and the sunrays on my clay pieces as I sculpt them into my art creations.