Miracle of Love

Model Reference: Xi Zhang from Texas, USA. Used with her permission.

This is created out of spontaneity. It may look to be symbolic of the merging of self into Love. A transfiguration, a sort of creative force, a 'miracle' of love so to speak.
Yes, love is truly magical. But it is not easy for the beholders to interpret what the artist is trying to convey. Most of the time it is based on their own belief system and how they see the world.
For me, I do not now have any grand idea of what love should be. I do not see myself as only an artist but also an imperfect human being, and I seek only to communicate what I see. This is not part of my life story, but it can be anyone's story.
I see love as a shade lower than what most will interpret as flowing from the 'Creator of the Universe', and its flow as an extension of the soul. For me, love exists only between human beings, but nothing more than that. It cannot be measured, it cannot be weighed and it is certainly indescribable. Maybe you know better than me on this, I'm sure. But one thing I do know is there exists a strong but real chemistry between 2 persons, and that's all there is....but its good enough for me.
Its true that my thinking has evolved over the past 3 years, but people do need to change for the better.

Peace

The Unstoppable Flu

I'm a little skeptical about the use of Rapid Influenza Diagnostic Test (RIDT) for detecting novel influenza A (H1N1), despite it being strongly advocated by the Health Ministry, probably as one of their desperate measures to contain the unstoppable pandemic, apart from liberalising the use of antivirals which hopefully does not get out of hand.



The above table (click to enlarge), sourced from CDC Atlanta, USA showed the latest finding that among the three commercially available RIDT kit, the overall sensitivity was low (40%--69%) among all specimens tested and declined substantially as virus levels decreased. Only QuickVue did quite well with detection rate of 69%, compared to using the more accurate rRT-PCR which is only available in certain labs in this country, notably Institute of Medical Research (IMR) but then they only run them on very ill patients who are admitted for complications of influenza.
According to CDC, a negative RIDT result should NOT be interpreted as indicating the absence of infection, especially since the sensitivity declines as the viral levels decreases.
More updates to come.

Reference source: CDC Atlanta via Malaysian Medical Resources

Contemplation

International model: Audrey Lai from San Francisco, USA
Photographer credit: Delmott Patrice from France - used with permission

My first painting on traditional Chinese costume.
100% painted - no paintover

Influenza-like illness: some important guidelines on self-assessing

Here are some important guidelines taken from a slide presentation by Dr Christopher Lee (no relation to Count Dracula!), a leading infectious disease specialist. It is important to know that this Influenza A (H1N1) pandemic will linger on for another 1 to 2 years with a global mortality rate of 0.4-0.6% (current statistic) in the most optimistic scenario.

The first slide Home Assessment Tool(HAT) is for you to observe, while the second slide Clinical Assessment Tool(CAT)is more for clinicians' reference of moderate to severe influenza-like illness (ILI).
The complete and comprehensive slideshow presentation can be viewed online

If possible please counter check with this excellent slideshow or have a consultation with a clinician as I feel there has been enuf misinformation regarding the role of primary care doctors in helping to prevent the spread of H1N1 in the mainstream newspapers.

Thank you for reading this.
I shall update whenever possible.
Images sourced from Malaysian Medical Resources

Elven Enchantress

Model photo ref: Anna Grigorieva from Ukraine
Used with her permission.

Apple

Model reference: Calista Liew from Kota Kinabalu
Used with permission
©2009 hiddenstream.blogspot.com

Outline traced. 100% painted from blank digital canvas.
Painted using Wacom Intuos 4

Thank you for watching

Up where we belong

Childhood fantasy stuff
100% digital painting from blank canvas.
FULL VIEW much appreciated

Inspired by the song of the same title