Story of a Painting - The Bottle Collector in Saigon

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‘T' The Bottle Collector on the Saigon River in Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam’

Whilst out walking one Sunday morning in the downtown district of former Saigon, we came upon the River, it’s docks and the rusty hulk of a large ship. Some way up stream through the tangled mass of weedy vegetation, on the fringes of this fast flowing River, I spotted this old lady and watched as she strained to pick her way slowly (and with great effort) through the weeds. She had to keep stopping to bale out her leaking and very old craft. In between she stopped to carefully fish out plastic bottles from the weeds with her home made net. When she made it into clearer water we noticed that she paddled with her feet ! She eventually turned around, and I commented what a great picture it would make if she were in the shadow of the massive rusty container ship dwarfing her beneath. The lady duly obliged and the scene was complete. She looked curiously at me several times as I kept cropping up at various places on the River bank, stalking her with my sketch pad and camera. Another title for this painting was ‘Recycling Saigon style’ but I felt that the elegantly dressed old lady deserved a more dignified title.

We can only assume that her efforts were worth the rewards for the bottles.

I hope it brings as much pleasure as I got from painting it.

Martin x

The Colourful Street Sellers in Saigon - Story of a painting

The Colourful Street Sellers in Saigon

This painting evolved, over the period we were travelling in Asia through the Winter of 2011/12 and I guess was influenced by street sellers everywhere we went.
The photographs and reference sketches were cobbled together to give this finished work.
Whilst in Malaysia and then Bali I was influenced by an artist called Chang Fee Ming, who I hope to meet in May. I discovered that Chang Fee Ming had painted, very beautifully in Watercolour, many of the scenes and subjects I was working on at the time of my own Asian painting journey. His book 'The Visible Trail of Chang Fee Ming' is now a constant companion and source of comparison. The influence of his paintings including those of colourful Sarongs can be seen in this painting, and the more detailed rendering I now include in hopefully all of my paintings to follow. 

My Original Sketch

 
WHAT DID I WANT TO RECORD IN THIS PAINTING ?
I started with a yellow base coat covering all of the paper except for the main character and her baskets, as I didn't want anything to dull the colours of the fruit or her bright clothes. I overworked the sky area on purpose because I wanted to emphasise the poor air quality in Saigon, due to the 5 million motorcycles found there. 

I was amazed at the weights that these sellers (mainly woman) could carry, and exaggerated this by the bend in the bamboo pole over her shoulder.

In contrast to the pessimistic atmosphere I created, I wanted the fruit, the flowers and the people who sold them to be bright and cheerful; adding distance to the finished painting, with the under painted city scape in the middle and background.

I hope you like the painting which, all being well will be featured in my forthcoming "Asia Experience" Exhibition in July 2012 in Burgas, Bulgaria.