Saturday, March 31, 2012

Rollerblading madness

Hi Anna

I have decided that in the next two weeks of school holidays that I will be spending all of it in London rather than travelling around Europe and this is perfect right now because it gives me the chance to attend to my NY resolutions! One of them was to draw more. Second was more of a bucket list- to try skateboarding. Now the second one hasn't happened just yet, and I've replaced it with rollerblading.

I had my heart set on blading when I woke up this morning and I had a blast blading in Hyde Park this afternoon! I only fell once because I was going down a small slope and didn't realise that it was going to pick up speed so quickly ( didn't do too well in physics!) Apart from that no falls :) I was grinning away having so much fun whizzing around. I couldn't help but reminiscence  blading around as a kid along the corridor of HW's flat back on Christmas Island. I have HW to thank forever for lending me her blades all those years ago and giving me the time of my life today :) Memory is deeply embedded I tell you :)
THANK GOODNESS FOR SUNSHINE, Hyde Park
I shall call them my hot pink rollerbabies!
I was at the park for four hours believe it or not! The weather was beautiful and I met a small group of bladers/skaters. I bladed past this lady doing some fancy tricks on her blades and she smiled at me. On the way back I stopped and started talking to her and turns out Bonnie is a 58 year old retired lawyer originally from Singapore but lived in London since 1985 and spends most of her time practising in the park. She introduced me to a few others and I was awed at the background of all the bladers I met. I had the typical rebellious skater boy/ girl stereotype in mind but none of them were like that. I can't wait to blade around and meet a few more people. Apparently on the weekends, you get up to 40 or so! So long I don't go breaking any bones, I really think this could be my thing!!!
Tired and taking blades off to go home :)
This is one of the guys doing free style skating weaving in and out of the cones or what they call slaloming. I have never seen anything like it and next time I might give it a go if I'm brave enough and there is someone to help me.
 Ahh so they have been filmed on youtube.com. Check out this link.
I would LOVE to be able to do something like that! Can you guess what my goal might be?

Now what is really cool is that I bought my blades from a skate shop near Hyde Park and the "man" (I'm sure he's only 18!)  who served me offered to give me a go at skateboarding this Sunday. He said that skateboarding is a lot harder than rollerblading which is why I didn't invest in one, but I don't really mind as long as I step on that board and get my balance! I imagine it similar to surfing and it's probably nothing like it, but I think the feeling of moving and getting my balance would be exhilarating!  Woo.. I feel productive already. Something to tick of the list!

I'm relieved I'm getting back into drawing again. These are the two sketches I've done. One from yesterday and one today. I love using coloured pencils and layering the colours with precision. I find it relaxing drawing nature and capturing all the colours and if you look closely, you might notice that I never use black.



The flowers are drawn from the indoor plant I bought and the bird is a random picture I found on the internet. It makes me feel great when people like my drawings. I am a real perfectionist when it comes to my own work and I can look at it and criticize it endlessly. I'm surprised and happy when people tell me otherwise. My rule is to keep the sketching one hour max. I've done a huge project before and it's still unfinished back at home and I don't think I'll ever finish it off. By the end of the holidays I hope to have a neat collection of sketches to show my achievement!

My routine for the next two weeks will involve a morning hour sketch session and after lunch, followed by 2-3 hours of blading in Hyde Park. Currently I'm all sunned and bladed out but I can't wait until tomorrow!!! I felt like one of those 'cool'  people to have my blades hanging on my bag while I was commuting on the tube during peak hour. Forget briefcases when you have blades!


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