My Virtual Gallery

I love beautiful things. Instagram has helped satisfying my desire of collecting beautiful pictures. I browse it everyday, letting myself lost in the cyberspace. I discovered there are so many genius artworks published by names I never heard of. I started following them, people who are completely strangers, but whom I fell in love to because of their passionate works. "IG artists", I call them. They come from different countries, age and professions. Some of them are photographers, designers, curator, florist, and calligrapher. Some others are simply collectors of handicraft, kawaii stationary, and fancy fashion.

Just by seeing their collections of artwork, my heart would settle in peace. I love seeing perfect composition of colors, either it come from photography shots, water color selections, flower bouquets, or even food presentations. I feel like strolling in a live gallery, filled with thousand collections I'm willing to stay and stare at it for hours.

My most favorite artist is @emteemte. As far as I know, he graduated from Jakarta Institute of Arts, now working as freelance illustrator. He's talented, I notice he's the most persevering one among other artists. The mood in his drawings always at stable, especially when he draws comics and storybooks. Unique characters combined with amazing colors that he created, seemed like casting a spell, igniting imaginations.

Perusing drawings on Instagram won't bore me, it contagiously revives my imagination. I've felt like I want to draw too, I've bought a pocket-size drawing book to fill my spare time doodling. And I realized that my drawing skill has dropped to kindergarten level, lol! When I was in school, I could draw a complete human body, but now I spend at least 30 minutes practice just to draw man's face. In school, I had lots of time to daydream and doodle while listening to the teacher, which benefited my drawing skill. But since I graduated and started working in a company, I seldom use pencil, my hands seem reluctant to draw.

I used to draw anime at third grade. Seeing my peculiar hobby, my mom sent me to private drawing course. The teacher was an elder, a naturalist painter. His house is full with large size paintings. The biggest one was put in the living room, a portrait of orang utan, rumor has it that the painting was sold for 40 million rupiah. I never knew that a painter could become a millionaire.

I went to the course every Wednesday afternoon, the class filled with 4-6 kids from my neighborhood. The classroom was placed at the attic. It was a beautiful attic! There were a ceiling fan, large window, a big shelf filled with painting equipment, stack of best quality canvasses, four tripod easels, and piles of work-in-process painting. As I stepped into the attic, typical odors of Rembrandt oil wafted around the room. My favorite part was the north facing window, it gives diffused light at a sane color temperature, afternoon breeze would gently stroke the wind chimes. Then we would sit on tatami, started painting in soothing mood.

I still remember the first lesson was to draw a panoramic view with crayons. Then I learned how to draw with water colors. Continued learning to draw with charcoal pencil, and eventually I learned to draw with oil paint. Of all the mentioned tools, in my opinion, the most challenging one is water colors. It's difficult to get the right mix of water and colors, I had to wait it dry and it cannot be erased from paper. I would prefer painting with oil paint instead of water colors.

The course was eventually closed down when my teacher suffering strokes. I could see tremor in his right hand. We brought our last paintings home, considering to continue painting at home, but I missed the attic. If you come to my house, you will see my paintings hang on the wall, most of the objects are flowers and scenery, not much. There's one painting I haven't finish it to date, a picture of two robin birds. The coloring was all done except one spot, the feet. I had no idea how to draw bird's feet. I feel sorry for the robins, I wish I could draw their feet. I wanted to start painting again, yet haven't got time to re-collect my old painting tools. Or perhaps, I should buy ones, because I totally forgot where the last time I put my oil tubes and palette and things, lol.

Meanwhile, I really enjoy browsing beautiful works uploaded on Instagram. I suppose God must have created two kinds of men. Ones are destined to capture beauty, and the other ones are meant to enjoy it. Here's a few of my favorite collections from Instagram feed. If you want to discover tons of more creative people, follow @joshjohnson. The curating team posts impressive collections and writes review about it under hashtag #JJ. It's not just about connecting, it's about inspiring each others and making friends :)

@tulipinadesign

@moonlightice

@thedailyroe

@ayangcempaka

@parisinfourmonths

@mattglastonbury

@emteemte