Urban sketching is not only enjoyable but also serves to relax my mind, prompting me to engage in it as often as possible. Additionally, gathering with fellow NYC urban sketchers is always a delight, fostering connection and mutual inspiration among us.

Sketching the Fleet Week, New York habor 

The dip pen and ink have great fun because they give me a variable thick and thin line weight depending on pressure, compared to felt tip pens/marker pens. The advantage of the markers is that they are compact to carry and easier to use. 

A Guide to Dip Pen and Drawing ink

The Bannerman Castle, 9"x12" Pen and ink on Bristol board, 2020. 

Between 2000 - 2011 was my abstract period, in which I did some abstract paintings. I mostly sketched out my idea using oil pastels and later painted them with acrylic on canvas. The subject of those paintings reflects the contemporary social-economic situation in Burma at that time. Some of them are about my personal life and marriage. 

Colorful Nostalgia.
acrylic on canvas 24x36 inch ( 60 x 91 cm) 

I was born and raced in Mandalay. I studied painting at the State School of Fine Arts in Mandalay in the 1990s. I mainly study under late artists U Khin Maung Sann, U Mar Lar, and others. Mandalay was a quiet city back then, with many excellent subjects to paint; such as the old palace from the last Burmese Kingdom, pagodas, monasteries, and Mandalay Hill to paint.  

This painting is from the South East corner of the old palace, painted in 1994. The palace wall and the roof terraces are in the background, and the dried moat is in the foreground. The water from the mote was drained out for restoration, which was never done in a century. 

Mandalay Palace walls and dried moat,
en plein air. monochrome study, Watercolor, 1994