Sketches

Haven't been drawing or painting a full picture lately, but trying to get back into the habit of sketching in the book again. Funny, but when I look back at what I've been doing in my sketchbooks so far, it seems to be drift from one phase to another phase, sometimes full of conceptual drawing, and at times full of life sketches. It just goes on-off. The only thing that never change is the amount of words in a page... It is most often a scrawny scribble of a few sentences, sometimes unrelated to the picture.



Random sketch of an old courtroom inspired scene, with some drama going on... and on the other side is just a random play of pose.



And this was when I brought Ann and Yang for a McDonald's breakfast one day after their art class. Done with a marker. Aye, it happened last year.



The lecturer of the Human Resource Management module...



And a random "I'm shorter than a flower" piece. The 'Aang' looking guy was a quick sketch of a shaolin monk featured in a kungfu video that I was referencing for my animation project. Just nice paused the video there and thought that the pose was quite interesting.





Two pieces drawn during Chean and Glory's trip to Singapore. I could still remember the scene clearly. Chean was kind of in a "I don't want to go anywhere but stay in my bed" mode while Glory was arranging the stuff in her luggage. It's weird, but it seems like my memory of an event is intensified after drawing them down. Maybe it's one way to burn things into my head as I'll need to look at the scene longer and in more detail.



An 'Avatar' (Zuko) inspired sketch. Really loved the way they melt 'magic' and kungfu into that animation. It's just beautiful for a weekly cartoon series.



No big idea behind this, just a random doodle that was done just for stress relieving...



Monsters...



Life sketching, composition practice...



Some re-collection practice... Trying to remember what I've seen on my long walk home from Lot 1. Seems like the clearest thing is still words.



And a quiet day at home... :) Think this shall be my last sketchy entry. Somehow,I have been wanting to keep this blog away from my personal life babbles and musings and make it a base for my completed works and thoughts about them. In a way, helps me keep track of the serious work I've did as compared to the 'ritual-ish' drawings/ paintings I do to keep myself sane.

...Start from 1 again

Random doodle of Deedlit after re-reading one Lodoss War book....



A portrait of Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) following a Lord of The Rings book I borrowed from school. Just sketching what I see....

...And yea... sian arrh. Idea kena rejected... As usual... I dunno what really interests me... Just like to stare into blank space and look around whatever.... Beautiful cos it looks nice to me.... Argh. Why is me head so empty...

Tired of Thinking...

Random painting, used a silver pen to do those lines. It didn't come out nicely during the scan...

Have been feeling very tired lately.... School homework has been squeezing my brain juices these days... Even though I had enough sleep, I still feel tired. I didn't like to think.... a bad thing yea.... but if no conclusion come out of it, I'd rather look at the trees and awe at nature's beauty with some paints ready. Which maybe caused my behaviour of 'not being able to find problems', as what the tutors in school have put it to me.... Since most of the homework requires me to create a problem and solve it, I got stuck, cos I couldn't find problems, hence I have nothing to solve.

I've always thought that dissatisfaction would make me become demanding of many things in life that I'll not see the good of what's around, but somehow, it's becoming quite a block... It's kind of a wierd dilemma in my view. The tutor asked the difference between animals and humans. He said that birds have nests as homes, but their nests doesn't have a roof. Humans live in homes with a roof above their heads, being able to create and all, innovations whatsoever. It got me thinking in another direction, other than his intended persuasion of the greatness of the human's creativity. I began to wonder if because of creating, we end up destroying more than create? All the bird wanted was survival, it builds it's nest, it fills it with it's offspring and what it needed to continue to survive. What about a human? We have created homes and filled it with things we need. But now, it doesn't sound so simple.... what is really survival now? Sure that creativity is a powerful thing, but I really wonder, is it really creativity or just plain stupidity, now that so many things created are just to compliment or add on to the things that were created earlier on. New stuff is adding to the rubbish heap. Or maybe I'm just not approving of the tutor comparing birds with humans? After all, birds make a home with fallen twigs on the tree, humans cut that tree down to make their home on the ground. Aye, creativity. Random....

...See la, that's why I don't like to think.

House Portrait

Original picture here

Yeap, finished this off last night after returning from Huiying's home. Haha, went to her house since she welcomed me there. It's always inspiring to go there, seeing all her works hanging on the walls.... It's now starting to be covered with more oil paintings than watercolors. What I really like was the set of 4 sqaure portraits of her family, lined up in the kitchen. It's really nice to have such stuff hanging around in the house, makes you feel cosy in the occasionally empty place. Yea, her mum works in the night, her father seems to be OT-ing that night, and her sis is away, summing up to only me and her in the house. I would have felt pretty odd, but she's used to it, I guess....

The conte used in this drawing was also given by her. She told me about conte a year ago when she used it during her foundation class and gave me two sticks to try. The tutor sort of told them to cover the entire paper with conte and work backwards with an eraser. It's pretty interesting, and being sick of pencil lines, I tried that technique out with the picture of Gregory House. It was messy at first, but the technique had some allowance to mistakes. The nose was initially too long and I wanted to shorten it, so covered up the entire nose and mouth in black and started again. Later went into details with a white pencil. Pretty cool :D he's got some eye problem there.... And it took the usual 4 hours....

Homework is taking a different turn...

2 hours... and this was all I managed to do for drawing homework. When Bridget said she wanted a fully rendered portrait, the atelier way, I kind of went '...okie' in my head. It's gonna take a long time to get it done nicely, and it's gonna overshoot 2 hours with my current skills.... What is atelier? I'm kind of wondering, and tried searching up google for that. Seems like it's all realistic and stuff... >_< Painful discipline there.

Anyways, it kind of balanced out with the other homework, cos at least this doesn't need any brainwork... 3D needs ideas for spoon designs, 4D needs ideas of interactivity, and the freeeeking logo for 2D needs ideas... Yea, think I need to think harder for that, if Ms Amy ever sees that logo I made now, she's gonna scream 'what happpppen??? Why liddat??' T_T (我没脸见你啊啊啊Ms Amy! >_< !!!)

Chinese Niu Year!

新年咯！（假期咯！XD）正月初一，到外婆家拜年，顺便把画册带上去，希望能早一点完成Bridget给的功课。。。画了四页（还需要一页！）开始时只用Micron笔，之后转换水彩。可能是因为自己画得有一点抽象，micron笔又无法画出铅笔般的粗细线条，所以换用毛笔画时，反而觉得画得比较理想。（哎。。。自己的功夫烂竟然还怪笔！）



表妹们和阿婷，阿姨玩“二十一点”。输得挺凄惨的。。。



三舅麻将打累了，躺在沙发上打瞌睡。趁机趁机！;D

吃喝赌。。。大年初一就这样过了。想着在澳洲的那位怎么样了？红包没得拿，会心痛吗？还是没关系啦！我们帮你收哟~

Friends?

Today's class was pretty fast with Ms Bridget. Gosh, she's the BEST drawing teacher I've met so far, her classes are almost as fun as Mr Calvin's sulpting classes. It's just one of those classes that you really look forward to going! And I confessed to her that I accidentally filled in the online feedback form with lotsa disagrees.... T_T Haha....

'you see? You can't do EVERYTHING ONLINE, this is what happens! Someone gotta do somethign about that',

man, just love her. XDXDXD

Some sketches from the latest drawing homework, kind of enjoy this work:

Done on the 180 bus, a 15 minutes sketch... The people are drawn at different times.


The living room on a saturday morning! Yea, my mum sleeps there with the two little fellows in the living room. Much cooler there.



After bringing the kids for art classes, mum and I went to have some breakfast at a nearby coffeeshop with my uncle and aunt. These two are done there.



Haiz... during lunch a fellow classmate just popped me a stupid question about the issue of friendship being degraded to manipulation and such. -_- Dunno, it's a wierd thing maybe, and I just told him about things people said to me regarding that before, that friends are just for convience? Haha, maybe at some point of a time, people need help from their friends and they will just gladly help. But to build friendships on a chess set basis sounds a bit too.... It's creepy when I hear people say 'make friends with those that has of use to you'. He replied that it is very real, which made me wonder perhaps it's just a shift of perception between helping and being used...?

On my way home, I recieved an sms from a long distant friend I've known for several years, saying she just broke up with her boy. I was quite shocked to see it again, cos the previous message regarding that from her was about 3 months ago. Although she's in China, I still made a call to her, checking if she's fine. Still the same voice, just a bit choked from the crying, I guess... There had been 4 years of silence since she left Singapore for studies overseas, but still, she told me about her love story and we chatted for quite a while.

It's wierd how friendships are, even if it's someone who was close and had not talked to for a long time, the sudden chats just feel good. It's quite like a door that is always open to welcome the other, and the other just pops in and make him/herself at home. Maybe that's just how friendships are...?

Yea, I've always been having an issue with friendships, but heck, the more I think of that topic, the more I ruminate and all... making no conclusions at all. What is there to conclude anyway... lol, I'm just glad that those who had walked the roads closely with me before are still somewhere on the road. Maybe we'll meet again...heh.

Istana trip

Went to Istana early in the morning with Huiying yesterday. She wanted to participate in the art competition held there, and the registration for the com was at 8am. When I got there, the queue to enter the Istana was so long... Kind of relieved that she came early (yea, I cut the queue :x). I thought that was all, but when we got inside, there was another queue for the registering for the competition, and we qued up again... so much time went by, and only about 2 hours left to complete the art competition entry (It was an on-the-spot drawing contest).

I backed out of the registration queue. Ying participated and went into her painting hastily. I sat there... look at the scenery and decided to do a small little sketchbook painting of the place. It was a really nice place to chill out and get away from the buzz of life (and to think that the Istana is splat in the middle of a busy urban district...), like some kind of countryside. Didn't draw anymore after that, cos I was too tired.

Freshmen Orientation Camp '08

Yeap, just back today, home sweet home at last after the 4 days camp in ntu. It was a nice camp, a lot of planning and effort from the host group and all... but I didn't quite get along well with my pan clan teamates... Haha, maybe I was really anti-social... dunno.

The team was made of four guys and four girls, including me. The guys were pretty hyperactive, with their hormones running a bit too high for the girls to understand, I guess... I kept an eye close on that, cos it's pretty normal for guys to be speaking horny. No matter how dirty it is, it's just a joke. However, the insensitivity and rashness of the guys kind of went passed my limit. It really bothered me throughout the three days since the amazing race. The guys sped in the front, while the girls tried to catch up. They wanted to win, which is understandable, but given the physical condition of the girls, it was hard. While the girls tried to cheer each other on at the back, it became clear to me that there was no pan-clan, just indeed 'lost' boys and girls.

After that race, it felt as though the barrier was wider. Even the erotic jokes started bothering me. I just asked myself, is it really them, or is it just me? I admit, I have an attitude too. I am pretty antisocial, a slacker. I don't loosen up to people easily, especially guys and I like to keep things to myself. During the paint bombing session, one of the guys tried to sneak behind me and drip some paint over my shoulder. I sensed him beside, and shove my arm across firm, giving a sulk to the ground instead of his face. I have my reasons to avoid getting into the paint mess, but really find no point to tell people I don't know well. Yea... my stupid attitude. Haha... Had to be called a bitch in the last day performance skit... Felt really uncomfortable with that.. but guess the guy who had to act as a transexual was even more uncomfortable. It felt as though he wanted to back out in the last minute, but he stayed on, a brave muslim.

Ah well... the camp ended with the erotic-joke performance which surprisingly fetched the 'best show' prize. Shocked... but I was happy that all ended... Stayed over at my granny's house for the night and hey, guess her house isn't that hard to sleep in after all.

This picture was the only pic drawn of the camp.. It was after the amazing race, when we stayed over at Aloha Changi Chalet, the girls' room.

From the Esplanade

Went for a painting exhibition yesterday with HY. It was an exhibition of winning entries of the anuual UOB painting of the Year competition. Havign heard of it for sometime, we decided to head down and check out what it was about. Went in the morning, and not long, we left. It was a really small exhibition, showcasing not more than... 10 works? Haha... Since it isn't lunchtime yet, we decided to settle down outside the esplanade and do some life drawing.



It's been quite sometime since I did some on-spot drawings. Realised I've probably developed a slacking attitude towards my sketches. Spent an hour on this one.

Changi T3

weeeee~~ Went out for a sketching session with my polymates today! It was supposed to be at 4pm, but majority arrived later, even the organiser was the last to arrive! XD Toured around Changi airport's terminal 3 (gee... i thoughtT3 meant the budget terminal...guess that's what happens when u dun read the papers...) Anyways! Did a few pages of gesture doodles... and headed to the basement with HY to grab a bit of food. While eating and slacking, she gave me a piece of colored paper, and we both started doing a colored piece. I tried out my newly bought color pencil set (fly fly $45 fly fly~~) and woooosh! It's really easy to blend, and I quite like the texture it gives compared to my old faber castel set.



The piece was unfinished at that time, so I went home and added in what I remember of that scene.