LIN RAN

 

This is beautiful, isn't it? You can hardly believe that it's a piece of digital painting. I almost thought it's a photo. Found it when someone posted in 9GAG. 

Apparently, the artist's name is Lin Ran, from China. I love China's artists. They're all so amazing and they're styles are just, so light and so.. Chinese. 

It's like, they  have this traditional Chinese style in their paintings and then blend in with the modern art. Flunyway, Lin Ran happens to be quite a famous artist (I think so, someone said that) and his digital art pieces are all mind blowing! XD So excited!

You could find his blog hereand here and his gallery here.

Mei Tu Xiu Xiu

This is most probably the most
bimbo post I've done. Was playing around with that Mei Tu Xiu Xiu just now ...

Seriously, sometimes I'm amazed at how the technology is developing. I remember just last 2 to 3 years, it was so hard to edit pictures because not many people know Photoshop. But then now, I can transform a picture within minutes. Makes the Photoshop obsolete.. T.T So everytime you see those beautiful pictures by the bloggers and in the magazines, don't feel so inferior. ALL edit one, can transform an ugly duckling into a beauty.

My Journey in Art

Today when I was cleaning my room, I came across all my drawings and paintings I did from Form 1 till last year. And there're so many ugly ones and pretty ones. And despite the fact that I always think that I suck (because many of my friends are so much better in drawing) in it, I think I did improve quite a lot throughout the years. Flunyway, those were really nice memories and I even took some pictures for you to see! :D

These are one of the first human figures I ever drawn. Haha, back in Form 1, when my drawing sucked like hell. Started drawing cos' I started watching anime and reading manga and inspired me to draw. Typical otaku. Anyway, this is my first sketch book, a DIY-ed one. I used A4 paper and cut them half and then stapled them. I named it "My Drawing and Sketching Book" on the cover but because the drawings were too ugly, my friends changed it to "My Laughing and Giggling Book"! So funny, they practically commented on every of my pictures. :D

 

And then as I progressed, my drawings got slightly better than the previous ones. And I started drawing a lot of full figures in Form 2. I still have a lot of drawings but I'm too lazy to take pictures of them.

 Then I bought myself the second sketchbook. It was big, A3 size and I bought it to school everyday so that I could draw and then my friends gave constructive criticism. Ahh.. sweet old Form 2 days.

 After that,I started experimenting with colours so I started off with coloured pencils. To be honest, all this while, I always prefer black and white drawings except for watercolour. But then, I needed to learn colouring too, so had to force myself. And started practising more inking too. And although I still sucked, but at least, i gradually improved. :D

 I bought more sketchbooks as I finished one by one. By Form 3, I could produce better drawings, with better figures and better expressions. But still sucked. Haha..

 I still remember this drawing! I drew it in class one day, and my Math teacher passed by and said it was so pretty, and I was so flattered the entire day (with a big smile plastered on my face). Now that I look back, not so nice also.. T.T

 I still have a lot more of my drawings from the sketchbooks in Form 3, but I'm just too lazy to post it up. Anyway, by the time I reached Form 4, drawing got even better. The body posture got slightly better and my pictures are more lively and natural. Foldings of the clothes also improved better (I remember struggling like hell with it) and shadings got better too.

And then I started painting with watercolour cos' I got inspired by a fellow Deviant artist, Shel Yang. She's one hell of a great artist and her watercolour skills are so amazing that I started painting in watercolour. Above are my first 3 watercolour paintings I did. Super bad, since it's been such a long time since I last painted a watercolour painting.

 

But flunyway, as I moved on, I gradually improved my watercolour skills too. I would say, it's pretty good. Still a long way from being great, but now that I think about it, I really did put in a lot of effort into these. My watercolour skills is one of the skills I most proud of. But then, it's been a long time since I actually painted, so I guess I've gotten worse. Gotta brush up again, don't let good efforts go to waste. By Form 5, my skills eventually got better and better. But I always have so many things that I'm not satisfied with. Like, until today, I still can't draw bird's eye view, perfect three quarter and other views.   

In Form 5 (more like towards the last 6 months of it), I also started to come out of my comfort zone by practising more on human figures, because I knew that was a big weakness for me. In Form 4 and 5, I think my figures improved more because almost every night, I was up in my room drawing comics after I'm done with my studies and my homeworks. :D It was pretty tiring but I enjoyed it a lot, to be honest. Didn't take pictures of my comics, I'm too lazy to do it but they're still in my drawer. But I never get to finish any one.. because the process is too long and I'm too impatient. The only comic I was able to finish was the comic I did for Gempak competition. It was only 6 pages long, and I think I took about 3 weeks finishing it. But flunyway, I didn't get anything cos I was too bad. :(

And then after SPM, I also started sketching. Tried to do more realistic drawings, instead of just drawing anime based stuffs everyday. The above sketch is one of my first still life sketches.

In the beginning of my A-Levels, I still did some drawings but instead of anime-based like in the past, it was all pencil sketches. All are either portrait sketching or still life sketching. Since college life was busy like hell, sketching is the most I could come out with. Using watercolour can be too tiring, as I'll have to take water, adjust colours, and make a mess everywhere. But then, I stopped entirely this February. Juggling my A-Levels and time for drawing is proving to be a difficult task. Hence, until now, it's been almost a year since I last completed a decent drawing. As it got pretty tiring after that, drawing most probably wasn't as fun as in the past. A-Levels pretty much sucked up all my other aspects of life, and I'm completely dedicated to studying the 4 subjects.

Like I just said, there's a whole load more of drawings I did but I didn't post them up here. Drawing is a big part of my life, and I don't know if there's anything that I'll be this dedicated to in my future life. But for me, it was all worth it. None of my drawings are perfect but when I look back, the improvements I made towards it is tremendous. Frankly, I think if I kept moving on and drawing non-stop, I could've done even better now.

So, here's a piece of advice to aspiring artists and those studying visual arts out there. Sometimes, you might feel like in the verge of breaking down, when you don't have an idea, when you're stuck and you feel like you're not good. But you know, each great artist you see right now, they were once in your place, and they kept moving on.

To set your future with creative arts, what you really need is passion and dedication. Screw talents, I tell you. At the end of the day, it's your practices that determine where you are. Because once you've decided to move on with it, there'll be no turning back. It's gonna be a tough and tiring work, so you've got to make sure that you can push yourself to the best. The only thing that ALL artists can tell you is to keep moving on and don't give up.

And for me, sometimes, I just got too tired. The holding on is pretty hard to bear because I've got to practise everyday, never give up. If you're willing to go for it, then you really have to go for it. If you're not willing to go further, the quit art, it will just ruin you eventually.

Eventhough I don't draw anymore now, but it's something that I feel proud of myself, because I really worked towards it. Maybe not the best, but at least, it was once so important to me. It's not that important now as A-Levels kinda changed my life perception on certain stuffs but art, is the best thing that ever happened to me. :D

P.S. Now that I'm more free, I could actually start earning some stuffs from my blog so yup, if you see ad from Nuffnang at the sidebar or below the post, please click. XD

Jennifer's blog: the chocoholic

A preview of a half done blog. It's for Jenifer, my kindergarten friend. Haha!  She asked me to do like, one year ago, I'm the queen of the queen of procrastination. Okay, this time, I'm really determined to finish them. I need to stretch my creative cells a little bit. It's been so long since I last design something, painted a drawing or draw a human figure. :(

I can't let my creative cells die (I have this believe that my cells are constantly dying if I don't work for it) because you can't be smart if you aren't creative. And really smart people have balanced brain on both sides. So, just because you're good in science doesn't mean you're smart. Smart is a very subjective thing. 

The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side

You know, if I were to compare with other people, I could have an incredibly low self-esteem.
To be honest, I see myself as a girl with no talents at all. Besides studying, I don't think I am specially good with other things. Even studying, I'm just above average, not a genius or whatsoever. And even so, if I'm not hardworking, my results will flunk greatly. I need to study more than what others do or else I will get bad results. I can't do last minute work and I need to make sure that I study really early just so I could get slightly better results than others. I don't think I'm actually good at anything else.


Let's see one by one:

1. Sports. I suck at sports. Anything involving sports like badminton, tennis or whatever, I can't do em' all. If you see me play sports, you'll most probably puke blood. 
2. Singing and dancing. I can't do both either. I voice sucks and my dancing is like robot. I'm not trying to joke or be humble. My friends actually laugh when they see me dancing. 
3. General knowledge. I'm not specially good in this either. I don't know any extra knowledge more than other people. I'm just okay okay, average that kind. 
4. Cooking. I can't cook at all, except cooking rice and frying eggs. Okay, and maggi mee. That's all. I can't bake either. I'm definitely not that kind of person who can enter kitchen. Die la, the guy who get married to me in the future. I'd better get married to a chef. 
5. Sewing. I can't do this either. Some people can do DIY and I don't do all this. I'm just not that interested and can't ge bothered to do it. 
6. Music. I don't play piano, guitar, violin and whatever instruments there are. I'm not really music type of person. 
7. Art. Okay, this is most probably one that I'm slightly better than other people. But then, it's a no choice since I've got to be good at this, if this is what I need to do in my life. If I compare with my similar peers, I still suck and have a loooooooonnnnnggggggg loooonnnnngggggg way to go. And if I don't practise enough (which I seldom do), my skills would decline a lot. 
8. Languages. Some people are more into languages like they're specially good in English or Chinese. I don't. I don't suck in English, of course, but I'm not that good either. I mean, I speak English since I was young, so I'm definitely good at it but I'm not great at it. I don't learn any foreign languages either like Japanese or Korean. I just couldn't be bothered to learn new languages and in fact, I kinda dislike the idea of it. I don't know why. Like, when I was an otaku, my similar friends would all learn Japanese eagerly and some are pretty good at it. I never do those stuffs. Despite the fact that I was into Japanese anime, I just couldn't be bothered to actually like learning their languages. 

Okay, so you might have read this and think it's not such a big deal after all. But I see my friends, they're usually interested in something and are quite good at them and some have more than a few talents. I just don't. I'm not interested in anything. I'm just not interested. That's why I actually think that I'm someone with no talents. True, if I want to be good at all these, I can. If I really work hard at it, I think I can do it. I can be good at badminton if I really work hard at playing it often. But somehow, I always feel that I've always got to work harder than people to just achieve the same level as them.


Just like drawing, I always feel that I've got no talent in it. I just don't feel that I'm BORN with this art thing. I'm not naturally good with it. Some people can just get ideas when doing something. They're just creative, the way they are. I'm not. I'm not creative. I need a lot of time to get an idea, and sometimes, it's not even such a great idea.


But then again, if I were to rethink again, the reason why I'm feeling this way is because I keep on comparing myself. I keep seeing myself with other people that I forget to realise that these people, might also feel the same thing. They themselves might also feel insecure and feel that they're talentless and yet, we're thinking that they're talented. Sometimes, we focus so much on what's good on others that we forgot to see ourselves.


So maybe, I'm not good at all those things listed above but at least, sometimes, I work myself to be better. It's also a sort of talent. Okay, maybe I'm not at hardworking ALL the time. I'm lazy sometimes. Like, I keep telling myself I need to draw today but then I procrastinate (.....).

But I'm definitely not a lazy pig. I know how much effort I put into my studies. My results are not exceedingly well. Sometimes, it's pretty bad. But I know I work myself towards it and I think that's what counts. Not the marks shown on the paper or my level of my drawing. I can screw up a drawing but for all I know, that drawing is my own work, and myself only.

Something That We Abandoned.

The other day, my Law lecturer was telling us that Prince Harry is not a smart guy. He failed all (or almost) his subjects in O-Levels and the only one that he got as A was his Art.


That, apparently, is a surprise (or shock) to everyone. Everyone was like, "OMG, really? Wow, so he's not smart..."


For me, it came as a surprised as well. And then I realised the kind of society we are. And it's all over the same in the entire world, whether you're a blonde, brunette, black, white or any bloody kind of race and religion.


The fact that Prince Harry is not smart is a surprise to me but then it became a pretty good news. I then told my lecturer that you know, not everyone's perfect, he's just a human and we all make mistakes. But then she told me that he's a prince afterall and we all expect something better and higher.

So, hypothetically speaking, if he happened to pass all his subjects except for Art, we would most probably feel nothing. Because everyone would be like, "Great, he's good." No one would say he's poor because he sucks in Art.

Because no one really care.
I don't know why people don't care about Art. I don't know why there're people out there who would say that Art is easy. For me, Art has never been easy. It's literally the most difficult thing in the entire world. It's not easy to draw human from bird's eye view perspective. It's not easy to sketch a blondie's hair. It's not easy to learn watercolour skills. It's not easy to mix the colours you want. It's not easy to sharpen a pencil to get the sharpness you want. It's not easy to draw anatomies. It's not easy to get inspired. It's not easy when you're so worried if you can get a job in the future. It's not easy to save money to buy expensive brushes and colours and drawing blocks. And there's always a roller coaster of emotions. Emotions go up and then down and up and down.

But I think each an every second is worth it.
When you suck in other subjects and good in Art, people say you're stupid. When it's vice-versa, people say you're smart.
As quoted from Ted Baker, there's always a hierarchy of subjects. At the top, it's always the Sciences, then the Maths, then the Art. It's unfortunate Art is at the bottom because we all are only interested in subjects that can get you jobs and money.

How many times have you heard, "Blah.. art is not important. Why do you even bother studying it?"
And in schools (I'm talking about Malaysia in general), we all have only 2 periods of art per week And as for other subjects, we have a minimum of 4 periods. Even in the upper forms, Visual Arts is only 3 periods per week when being compared with Science classes which have 15 periods per week (Chemistry, Biology and Physics). If you see Art classes students' level of Art, they have unappreciative low level of art that obviously shows that they have absolutely no love for Art. Even Art students look down on themselves.

Because so many of us are convinced that Art do not get you anywhere. Even if we watch Disney animations that are perfectly done my successful animators, read comics created many comic illustrators, buy super expensive fine paintings by fine artists, watch advertisements by advertisers that have the power to make us crave for something, buy clothes by fashion designers that we would puke blood just to buy them, stay in buildings designed by architects, buy furnitures by interior designers, read fantastic magazines by graphic designers, watch movies by amazing movie directors, we still think that art is not important.

Like, what the hell do we need to care about art right?
So, let's see what happens if there's no art:

1. You'll most probably wear nothing. 
2. You'll have no shopping centers cos' there's nothing to be designed. 
3. You'll have no job. 
4. There'll be retarded economic growth. 
5. You'll have no Picasso, Van Gogh, Leonardo Da Vinci. 
6. You'll have retarded hairstyle and look ugly because there are no hair stylists. 
7. You'll have no savvy cars, iPods because there are no product designers.
8. There'll be no business activity. 
9. Everyone will be stupid because smart people use both sides of their brain and since there's no art, one side of the brain is gone. 
10. And because you're already stupid, you'll most probably fail your science subjects too because you can't think. 
11. And then the world ends. 

Scary enough?
This is to say that art is just as important as any other subjects out there and I think it's unfair for any of us to judge art just because most of us think that it won't get us anywhere. Art is not easy. It is in fact,a darn challenging subject. That's why I enjoy it so much.