Art byTing: Beauties of Borneo

During the annual celebration of Harvest Festival in May, I would visit the Kadazan Dusun Cultural Village in Kota Kinabalu, State Capital of Malaysia. There are many ethnic beauties in their best traditional costumes, and they are the models in my paintings.

I like to portray their soft features using charcoal and graphite. Next I tint the skin with a light wash of the local Tenom Coffee. And the background is often done wet in wet or according to the atmosphere I want to create.
Coffee painting has been existing for a long time.
But when I started using coffee for my ethnic maiden, dancer or musician paintings, I waited 5 years after they were created to approve of the medium.

The tint didn't fade and the paper has no fungal or moldy appearences.
Here are some of the works exhibited in the Wild & Beautiful Borneo Exhibition at the prestigious Shangri-La's Tanjung Aru Resort & Spa, Kota Kinabalu.

The Borneo beauties coffee painting series was a hit and received so much praise for the native beauty it portrayed.