The artist effectively illustrates the tranquil nature and steady rhythm of village life. House With Pots 1 is a rustic scene portraying traditional architectural styles that are gradually being lost. The drawing sketch (watercolour) and the final outcome (painted with oil on canvas), a perfect combination set for collection, illustrating the process of how an idea / inspiration / theme to paint is captured, and realized. Kuo Juping (the name was taken after a water plant) was in the pioneering batch of students at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art in Singapore but had to return a year before graduating to tend to his father’s import-export business, Sing Guan Thye & Co. He was a founding member of Thursday Art Group and Penang Chinese Art Club in 1936. He was one of the first artists to paint the ordinary people and places such as rubber estates, oil palms / cocoa plantations, paddy fields, kampung and make-shift hawker centres. He was a mentor of Tan Choon Ghee (1930-2010) who became a legendary watercolourist. Kuo died of a stroke in March 1966 at the age of 58.