Exams are over! The big End-Of-Years. Phew. Screwed up about 3 papers (at varying degrees), and a few others I'm not feeling very confident about. Ah man but who cares, it's not like I've been screwing up things all along, shouldn't get so worked up about it sometimes. Studying isn't and will never be my life. -.-

Ok so as compensation for all the times I missed drawing this year cuz studying kicked art out, I am going to stuff myself with drawing until I get sick of it - which I most probably wouldn't. I can get tired after some time but art is just too amazing, haha. :D Anyway, I do have a few CG plans in mind, one of which is the "Bells" project in which I'm gonna paint 4 bells each representing one of the four seasons. Autumn is already completed, so I'm left with...winter, summer and spring. Whow, long way to go.

It just happened that I was painting this bell I bought from Hong Kong airport, it had maple leaf patterns on it and was brown (actually mine was black but I just used it for reference for lighting and shadow), and had a really autumny feel, thought I could work on the concept a bit more. I love representations of the four seasons.

I'm thinking I should make the winter bell kinda translucent, or transparent; the icy feel could bring out the frost quite well. It's gonna be really really hard though, I've never played around much with transparency, and less so during painting. Especially since my reference bell is opaque, I'll have to devise the lighting and shadow plans myself. Either that or go google image an ice orb or something. Hopefully that helps, unless google chucks me trash like they tend to do sometimes.

*Sigh* I just spent my entire free day today drawing practice sketches while rewatching Naruto from the start again. I really love that anime. For some reason, simply watching it, or just hearing it, makes me have that homely feel. It gives me a lot of encouragement; like when I'm down or feeling lonely or just simply wanna run away from everything, knowing that someone could make it (even though he's a fictional character) just somehow comforts me. It feels really nice.

Reminds me, I think I should return to fanart-ing soon. I've been doing too many "free" sketch and CGs lately, well, after some time I kinda wanna draw out others' creations that have already been established.

I have a plan for a CG fanart in mind - of course it's Naruto, and it's about Team 7. The background's gonna be a sunset and basically they're standing on a leafless tree - at different heights of course. I'm just kinda debating on whether I should draw a back view or front view. Personally I think back view brings out the mood more, since I'll be able to draw out the sun (cuz it makes sense that they're facing it) and it has that melancholic feel - but then again, I suck at human anatomy from the back, and front view would allow you to see their expressions and...well, my current photoshopping skills will make back view look really bland, since I have yet to learn to incorporate many tones or details into the picture appropriately.

Haiz I think I'll push that idea to the back for future work. It won't really look nice if my photoshop skills stay as they are right now.

Dang, now that I brought it up myself, I really do need an improvement somewhere in art soon. I love those, um, what I call "skill spurts" whereby you just suddenly reach a stage after drawing and practising and you just get to a level higher naturally, like the one I experienced during this year's June hols. I dunno, I think it's cuz of lack of practice during exam week, my skills are a bit unstable lately. I mean they don't de-prove that much, but sometimes I'd think I improved and only discover the next day that I was back to normal.

Bleah. Shouldn't get too impatient. ><

*Entire chunk deleted by blogger because they couldn't format it properly -.-*

I'm not saying that I totally rule out hard work as one of the factors - I have been working for art and my efforts do bear fruit when the right times come. I've worked for math and I've seen the effects - even though I do screw up now and then since it wasn't my natural forte altogether. But yes, in art, a person with 0% talent drawing really well with just 100% hard work is very rare, if there is any. Art is a feeling thing, you need it in your blood to do it well.

They say the difference between artists and people who are not artistically inclined is that, for example, when drawing a few chickens, the artist would make them seem like a family, whereas others would be drawing purely a few chickens.

Just like in my art lesson, when we were doing a charcoal piece of five bears in a basket, the art teacher reminded us that we need to constantly observe the relationship between the bears and the basket and not make the bears seem like a solitary group altogether. That is, drawing the folds and shadings appropriately according to where the bears come into contact with the basket. Basically everything is interlinked in art, in more ways than one.

Alright, now I'm getting tired. Bleh. Dance exam tomorrow at 12.15, I bet I've already forgotten all the Jive moves. Then there's OBS health screening until 5 something. Sometimes I really wish I could just heck care and blow it all off. Lots of extra stuff around, it's becoming a bother.

Oh yea, next Friday is my birthday, and my grandparents are coincidentally flying over from China right on my birthday! Whoohoo, I would like a green tea cake, or chocolate mint. Mom said I could save some for Az and Cher even if they come in the afternoon, though I am kinda wondering about the funny candle-blowing traditions if 2 slices of cake are gone. It is a bit weird if you think about it.

Anyway, signing off now, cya!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

10th September 2009 (Thursday)

Whew, it's the hols. Actually it's already the fourth day of the hols and nearing the end, but, well, beautiful day I had today. Had a really great time with Az and Ming Wei at the Jurong library and then at Az's house - managed to buy Naruto volume 47 after hunting at IMM, the school bookshop never seems to restock their mangas.

Yup, as expected, three art nerds having an awesome day together. ^^"

Oh but we finished the chibis! Took us quite some time to get all the requests, and in the end Az just drew a couple her way since the people concerned didn't seem to give a damn. Ah well, now that it's over, I have to say I kinda liked my chibi. *Woots* Thanks Az!

Bleh I'm kinda tired today. Getting really really emo now from the song I'm listening to, and yea it's T.A.T.U again, All My Love to be exact. I was hunting for the instrumental version of that song for soooo long, but till now I could only find the Russian / English version; already an achievement, but somehow having lyrics kinda spoils the entire ambience. All My Love is better off being instrumental honestly. The original lyric-less version is played with acoustic guitar and piano, and some other things. Sounded beautifully melancholic.

Now if only I could get the instrumental version...there isn't really a way for me to get rid of the voice since it's part of the audio, but then...

Haiz.

Ah well, forget it. I'll find it someday.

Just read the volume 3 of Residence of the Sun, the plot ended there, very nicely. I'm still way too mad over Residence of the Sun - it's the awesomest narusasu doujinshi ever and I haven't gotten over it yet!! Argh! I think the coverpage had a spell or something. The way they coloured the sunset was so...TwT soothingly lonely. And that's one of the reasons why I'm now mad over All My Love too; background music for my fav doujinshi, what else can you expect? Both of them fit perfectly.

And then there's the entire sad ambience for the plot that draws me in so much. I love bittersweet endings, and volume 3 ended the plot wayyy toooo well. There was a cycle sort of effect; when they last went to view the sunrise at the mountain it was on Sas' birthday 4 years ago, and in the ending it's Naru's. And the way humour and life was weaved in with melancholy...small, obscure things like looking after a tomato garden, and Naruto's reaction when he found out the utterly ridiculous fact that Sas loved comedy, well, they explain a lot on their own. I bet this artist could've been on par with Kishimoto well enough.

Alright, this is definitely my ultimate pal for emoing. I can read it over and over and not get bored, cuz the plot is just so sad. I'm never sick of sad stuff.

Kay I better get going, had a long day and I'd love some rest. Cya!

***

~~~Played with the winds at 10.50pm*~~~

Eralight blogged at 6:48 AM

Roaming the Winds

Saturday, September 5, 2009

5th September 2009 (Saturday)

Okay for some reason I'm feeling very emo now so I'm gonna blog again. I think it's because of Ming Wei's sms spree; he was in the botanic garden and apparently he smsed me about how, um, wonderful he felt lying on the grass staring at the night sky so...yea. Then we talked about various manga plotlines, Japanese films and our fav times of the day etc etc. Wow, simple things sure spiral into bigger stuff sooner or later.

Well he said he liked evening and night, something like my favourites, I liked sunsets, evenings and nights. Actually my utmost favourite is still a time in my world for which I have yet to find the right adjective; it's something like a combination of everything, there's no distinct watershed. Maybe not so much of night, but it's definitely got evening and afternoon, and a bit of morning. It's the time at that place with the whole field of waist-length yellow, mountains, lots of wind, and a clear pale blue sky. Or another one when I'm up on the mountains looking down at this calm sapphireblue lake below, and really a lot of wind. Yup. I loved that kind of time.

And then I have other times with sunsets - one of them is down this mountainside village, I'd be walking through the streets and there're lots of people, stores, and houses, food stalls and smoke (those from cooking) on both sides, a little bit of festive ambience but definitely not so in truth. It's more of a daily life sort of thing. I dislike crowds, but for some reason the village was really nice; it felt so isolated, like watching life going on but they don't give you extra attention. And the best thing is still the beautiful sunset that fills the entire place - red, warm, and forgotten.

The second sunset is a colder one, it's the one in "Looking Back" which I posted in the previous entry. Mountains, a pale sun, yellow fading to pink skies, and a fence on this side of the hill. The time is still for this one, it's like, as one of my deviant buds said, as though the sun stays there and never moves and thus time never goes on. Really fitting description :D This sunset is one of my favourites. The pic I photoshopped, though, was inspired by this Naruto doujinshi titled Taiyou No Sumika; really awesome plotline and cover page painting, bittersweet ending, and it's in my absolute favs.

The last sunset is also on a mountain, cliff to be exact, but this one's golden and warm, and it's got a field. The field's mostly green, but has occasional streaks of brown and yellow. Lots of wind again, and the sun's big and golden, those you get in early sunsets. This kind of sunset makes me wanna spring off the cliff, in my world of course. Oh yea and another one is by the ocean when the golden setting sun glistens off the water surface. Huge rock walls behind me, so sometimes I'd just sit on the rocks looking out at the sea.

As for night I have two, one on the green misty fields with alpine mountains around, and another by the sea with a lot of stars. The seaside scene is usually the one whereby I'd have picnics with my dream companions. :)

Actually my world is a whole lot more dynamic than these few, I was just listing out my fav times. Hmm but these visualizations sure set me off thinking...when I'm meddling around with my idealisms, what are other people's utopia?

Well it could be just about anyone. Az, Cher, Ms Lim, Ming Wei, Mrs Tan, Mrs Chia, Brendan, etc etc. Everyone has their own world, and I definitely know them all too little to imagine.

It's so easy to start thinking about what's after death. We do that all the time - it's in our instincts to fear death, but why? Well if everything in life has got a deadline, and death is the deadline of life, then do we have to submit something by death? What is that something? Do we fear the ultimate deadline that's ingrained in our subconsciousness since birth?

It's all such a jumbled mess. I've seen some interesting theories; one was the Time Split Theory, whereby everyone enters their own realities after death (I've forgotten the spiritual / scientic - if there was - implications stated), sounds quite possible. Because if our own realities are what we spend our entire life building, then we could possibly redeem our works after death. Could, not "would", and don't forget "possibly", cuz it sounds so out-of-realism and too utopian.

You know, actually to me, it's good to be a pessimist when appropriate. Like, thinking you flunked your exam, but when the actual marks come down they're better than expected, and it comes as a pleasant surprise. And if it isn't so, then we can try getting optimistic and start planning for what's coming next. It's harder to disappoint yourself this way as compared to a full-time optimist.

In a way, pessimism is beautiful. It makes you view beauty, when it appears, umpteen folds better than what they originally are. Optimism is an all-time brightness, but after a while, you get darkness if you don't alternate between these two regularly. This society is like that. It's just a bit of a warped version of the original implication of adaptation; when some can take this as a pathetic way to make yourself happy, others can take it as an effective method to mitigating misery.

Well, ts all a matter of choice. We just have to keep choosing don't we?

Life is such a millipede.

Okay I'm tired. Yay. Now I can go to sleep - next time if I'm emo but awake and want to sleep, I should blog.

Alright good night and take care people! Horrible days ahead and hols ending in, uh, about 7 days, and then another 3 months and we'll be sec three, and another year and we'll face the horrors of unresponsive sec four, then jc, then uni, then working like a dog...and if a person's max life span is 100 years, in about 86 more years we'd be dead.

Not to mention if global warming keeps escalating that span will be halved if not quartered.

*Pessimism*...

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 11.13pm*~~~

Eralight blogged at 7:27 AM

Roaming the Winds

Monday, August 31, 2009

31st August 2009 (Monday) *Happy Teachers' Day!!

Oolala, it's Teachers' Day! Let's see...there're many many names down my list, I can still remember most of my teachers who taught me from p1 all the way to sec 2. Except for a few, maybe. Let me see - I'll try reciting.

A biiiigg thank you to...*takes a deep breath*...P1 Mdm Yun, P1 Miss Poh, P2 Mdm Teo, P3 Ms Noor Alinah, P4 Mdm Nora, P5 - P6 Mrs Tan, Sec 1 - Sec 2 Mrs Chia.

And also heartfelt appreciations to all subject teachers (I can only remember those in sec school the clearest sry): Eng/Lit teachers Ms Lim, Ms Wu, Ms Irene; Math teacher Mrs Chia; Geog teacher Ms Wong; Chinese teachers Tang Lao Shi and Zhang Lao Shi; History teacher Mrs Mak; PE teacher Mrs Wee and Mr Yeo; Chem teacher Mrs Tay; Philo teacher Ms Chan; RS mentor Mr Tan; my SG math tuition teacher Mr Koh, and also my China hols math tuition teacher Yu Lao Shi (like reaallly big and exceptional thank you - if he could read english!).

Oh and not forgetting the awesome guitar teachers-in-charge Ms Seah and Mr Larry - and an even awesomer guitar instructor Mr Chua!!!

Yes, a big fat humongous Happy Teachers' Day to all my wondrous teachers - who cares what my initial impressions were, eventually we'll all end up happy and, er, sound! - hehe nah just joking, I never had anything against you guys. *Swells with pride* My teachers are just uniquely different. ^^

Okay, on to the proper reports. Well today I had guitar and we were preparing for assessment pieces, had to do sight-singing for 2h and played for another 1.5 hours I think. Mr Chua had to cut the cake for the tiny party at the end - Ashley baked the cake, it had one candle on it, and Mr Chua was having this really toothy grin that is just so...>

Hehe. Yup, and then Az came over, we watched a damn ridiculous arc in Gintama and then finished our products for lit PT. Learnt quite some stuff about Photoshop from Az; guess being in tribune and rushing through all those articles really helps huh? XD Now I finally know more about the Magicwand tool! Yay! Joy to the world!

Ahh man I'm so happy today. For some reason I'm just so happy today. My drawing skills sorta recovered from that previous warping freak-incident, and Pan says that she thinks my current style is a little better so I shall stop trying to get my old style back. I shall try to forget about my horrifying intuition of math exam today - just for today, before I start chewing out on the last bits of my happiness.

Uh huh so our CSI group's coming over tomo at 11am to film the stuff, and Az is reaching (again) way earlier than them in the morn, somewhere around 7 am, so we can finish our lit PT reflections and then sort out the props before the rest arrive. Keer's bringing powder for finger-printing, Az the maid's costume and black construction paper for data collection, Nans the video cam, Dams and Cher the...? Me the house, sketchbook for sketching data, and CS4 / moviemaker for video editing. Yup, hopefully all sorted out.

I'm writing to Ms Lim lately! She has such an interesting personality that really fits her profession. Missing all her lessons and those humourous banters...haiz...good stuff just has to end someday, no matter how they end huh? Is that part of Murphy's Law? Cuz if it is I'm kinda like a half-supporter of the law so...

Oh well.

Should I end off with a picture? I did this sky practice in photoshop a couple of days back, nothing much, but I think I'll still post it up.

1) Sky Practice 1





















Description: Airbrushing and soft shade in CS4 Photoshop, approx 2h. First time painting clouds digitally, very amateur, but also really fun otherwise. Had to make use of quite some layers to split the process up; like one layer for basic white, then another for gray shadow, blue shadow, highlights, etc. Tried to fluff up the edges of the clouds with smaller detail brushes. I forgot to apply the gaussian blur in the end, but, oh well.

Supposedly having a dreamy feeling - and yes, this kind of skies do exist in my world too. A soft dreamy sun, but still isolated. :D

Okay I suppose I should really go now! Tired after the whole day. Cya! Good night, and enjoy your teachers' day and hols!

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 10.25pm*~~~

Eralight blogged at 6:42 AM

Roaming the Winds

Friday, August 21, 2009

21st August 2009 (Friday)

Wow, what a terribly long break. Not in the literal sense since, you know, we have exams and PTs et all, but I've just been kept away from blogging for quite some time, and I have to say the past month was one of the worst I've ever had. Lots of stuff chucked in our timetables; just got rid of a whole clump of annoying things today (exams + guitar rehearsal + guitar costumes + Chinese PT + Jap Compos), and another clump's comin' up. *Sob* No time to pursue the arts for now, have to get myself settled down.

Goodness, just the first few seconds and I'm already getting emo - when pressure and stress comes up, my emoness follows suit. ><>

I guess it IS kinda irritating that I'm so darn idealistic. It makes things a lot harder, and living with constant longing for this unknown something isn't exactly the best anyone could wish. I'm not saying I hate being such a dreamer; my idealism is, after all, what propels my passion in art anyway, but sometimes it just gets a little...you know, too much.

These few days my world just grows too taunting; in those dreamy seconds before sleep, my inner world seems so close, so realistic, I could simply hear the wind and feel the entire ambience of it, and yet there's this barrier that keeps me from crossing over, and that's what makes it seem so far away. And then again there are all those terribly vivid and amazing dreams, which leave you aching and feeling dang hollow when you wake up into reality. It's really hard to stop dwelling upon these things.

And what's more, now my dream companions aren't coming back anymore. I still catch occasional glimpses of them in my dreams but we seldom get to exchange more than a few words; the most vivid one was the month-old dream about my dream companions visiting another dimension with me into our past, but I fell asleep in the dream in the end and when I woke up it was reality. It's as though a phase (like childhood) ended along with sec 1, a little sad haha. I still remember that farewell dream in p6, the one on the moon, dreams before that used to be so nice and secure despite the same mysterious ambience - now it's just a vast dreamworld with so many strange faces and unknown places, and I have to find my own way.

I dunno, maybe this is a sign telling me that it's time to grow up.

Yup, my parents used to chide about how I should grow up; forget those stuff cuz they aren't real, and face what's coming instead of being a coward. It's kinda true I guess, but to think of discarding all these idealisms, like abandoning dream after dream, just isn't very easy. I run too much. Like the sort of wandering idiot who pauses every few seconds along the road to gaze at the clouds, taking every chance to forget what's going on and just simply drinking in the dream, and then panicking when you think of the long long road ahead and what you'll have to face in the who-knows-what-will-happen crazy future.

Wish I was more practical, a little more...you know, "mature" in terms of dealing with life, but there's always this little part in my mind that urges me otherwise, to remain the self I've always been since birth. Kinda funny huh, how growth can be so complex. Maybe that's why people are so scared of aging; you have this terrible conflict going on deep inside, one side bound by ettiquettes and laws, saying you need to act as what a person of your age should, and the other yearning to go back to where everything originated from. Of course, this disregards the physical factors, but the underlying complication is there.

As what Az and I agreed, time is indeed the biggest bully.

Alright! I should REALLY shut up. Have a feeling that this is boring you guyz...hmm let's see what should I do...ah yes, PICTURES!! I did another piccie in photoshop over the past month, it depicts a scene my inner world. XD I have a lot more, mainly OCs (okay, ALL OC designs), but posting them all up will destroy my formatting for some weird reason. Will post them up slowly so that blogger doesn't get chucked up.

Kay, so here goes.


1) Looking Back
























Description: A landscape pic I did in photoshop, took about 2 hours. Very amateur, but it depicts very adequately this sunset scene in my inner world. In case my work is so noob you can't see what's there, um...that's the sun, the sky, the clouds, the mountains, and a lonely fence in the foreground. Yup. My sunsets are usually lonely, isolated and a little cold, as in, not the warm golden-y type. I do have those too, but at different places and different times.

Used a combi of soft-shade, cel-style and airbrushing. Played around with adding 10% opacity black in the touch-ups for this pic to give it a bit of a painting feel. Have a lot to improve on, but I liked how this turned out.

Funny how I actually wanted so bad to pounce into this scene when I was colouring it in photoshop. ^^"
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Okay that's the end of pic-sharing for today! I'm practically dead after all the stuff today. Ah well shouldn't complain this much - I bet teachers have it worse.

And when we grow up, it'll be our turn to have it worse too. There you go, a new metaphysical cycle born...

So before I get drawn into this new metaphysical blackhole, I better sign out. Don't feel like cheesing you guyz off anymore. =D I need some...er, proper rest! Yeah! Oh and Az is coming to my house tomorrow!!

To discuss PTs and RS.

But of course, be rest assured we'll play. I'll er, haunt someone if we don't. Okay signing out! Night~!

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 9.36pm*~~~

Eralight blogged at 5:38 AM

Roaming the Winds

Friday, July 3, 2009

3rd July 2009 (Friday)

Yo world! The emoer is back!

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Whow, I missed out blogging for the whole month of June hols. Well, was in China, and sadly that chicken shaped land didn't have connections to something as simple as blogger. Last year it worked, somehow this year didn't go as well. =.= Haiz, so much for China-related affairs. There goes my trust. *Stares down the gutters*

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Anyway it's not like the hols were really that eventful, so I shan't go through the details; the main things are having 3 hour intensive math tuitions (in chinese) every single day and even more time spent on tuition homework, and then drawing and designing OCs for basically the rest of the days. Nothin' friggin' interesting.

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But I do have to say that my grandparents look so much older now.

Somehow that strikes a cord somewhere, it's a little hard to put into words. It's just the feeling of age...leave it to philosophy to solve the crux of human nature, and you may not get any form of an answer for the next millennium. Well that was random. Guess I'm not in the right mind today. I'm still having a bit of a fluctuating temperature you know.

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Okay, so a brief recount of my godsend 7 day LOA holiday that was, both unfortunately AND expectedly, littered with complications. I had fluctuations in my temperature ranging from 37.0 to 37.68, which covered the trigger temperature as the news reported, a bit of a sorethroat, and quite some fatigue, and that alone was enough to make the clinic doctor send me off in an ambulance to the KK hospital - for check-up, so it was reasonable in a sense. My parents are the ones opposing against it, not me.

________________________

Kay. You know what?

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Let's cut it short. I'm tired of having to repeat this over and over for the past few days, concerning the complications with school and stuff. I received results after 50 hours (actually I called them for it) and it's tested negative, so I DON'T have the H1N1. Great news ain't it? At least that removes half the original stress factors for the past week.

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Oh yea, and the doctor ridiculously, happily, obdurately took me as the parent (my mom). I know ppl say my voice sounds like my mom's over the phone, but, well, I did try to make my identity distinctive at some points. He just doesn't seem to be able to pick up any of those more than conspicuous signs. So, well, in the end the conversation was all in terms of "your child", "your child's NRIC please", "your child's name", "when did your child come". Denise said this little anecdote was pretty funny. I kinda agree.

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Yeah now that these reporting duties are finally over, I am going to treat you guys to...PICTURES! Phweee. Yup, my ton of drawings accumulated over the month in China, plus some other things I did here and there back in SG. They're all up on Deviantart, but I do like pics on my blog too. Get ready for a lot of OCs.

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Here goes.

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1) Amaya

2) Amaya - Coloured

3) Asami

4) Asami - Coloured

5) Chinatsu

6) Daichi

7) Hideki

8) Kasumi

9) Kohaku

10) Minori

11) Saki

12) Sayuri

13) Sayuri - Coloured

14) Shouji

15) Tatsuya

16) Rokudaime

17) Endure

18) Evening Light

Phew. Too lazy to add descrips since there are so many. And I bet blogger's gonna throw me some more problems with formatting so I think I shan't care. If you ever wanna find out the OCs particulars, they're on my DA account (www.Aurinya.deviantart.com).

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Ow, shoulder aching.

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Anyway Naruto chapter 454 was pretty okay, a bit draggy, but I guess it's still much better than the anime's pace. O_O It was a little bit weird that he became the punching bag for the lightning emissionaries. :X No spoilers, so I think I'd better shut up before I blab.

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Just one thing. Wonder what Sai's gonna do. Somebody has to stop that right?

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Okie. I think I'm basically done here. Wow things sure turn into chores if they stretch too long. Signing off, gud night and sweet dreams :)

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***

~~~*Played with the winds at 11.13pm*~~~

Eralight blogged at 6:58 AM

Roaming the Winds

Saturday, May 23, 2009

23rd May 2009 (Saturday)

I don't have much time here for now, mom wants me to read the cambridge family instruction thing before I sleep, so I'll just post 2 more artworks that I did over the duration of yesterday to today afternoon. They're not new, just coloured versions of previous sketches. I'll be fast. O_O

And I mean, real fast. My *cough* dad's screaming already.

1) Age - Coloured

Description: Coloured with photoshop, took a long time before I managed to get the desired sky, sun and field colours. At first the old lady was supp to be wearing white, but then it made her look like a ghost in all the warm colours, so I coloured it black.

2) Evening

Description: Naruto x Hinata pairing!

3) Doushita, Anbu-chan? - Coloured

Description: This one sucked, but I was bored, so, oh well.

Okay, I really gtg! Cya! Good night!

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 11.59pm*~~~

Eralight blogged at 8:52 AM

Roaming the Winds

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

19th May 2009 (Tuesday)

Today's a bad day, and I have A LOT to rant about, but...well, first things first.

Right, apparently my e-mail's experiencing some problems now so I'm having difficulties sending the poem to Mrs Tan; she asked if she could read it today morning, and yea, of course she can. It's supposed to be a parody of "To Be or Not to Be", but then I called it off and decided that it was more like a poem inspired by Shakespeare's roundabout ramblings rather than a parody.

Rule number 1: Parodies are funny. Mine, no.

Rule number 2: Parodies can mock the original creator's works - pushing aside the copyrights for now since Shakie is...well, put it in a nice way, gone to the "undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns". Ah, stuck in his own philosophies.

But what is written is written, and as the teacher commented, mine was pretty but sombre like I had a LOT to say. Actually I did, and one of my major writing problems is to manipulate humour skillfully enough to wrench the breath out of readers. Okies call it off - I'll put up the poem, maybe as my perspective and opinions towards war?

Hope the thing makes sense.

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Literature Choral Reading

Theme: War

To kill or not to kill: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis kinder in the heart to falter
With shots and bullets of tenebrous presage,
Or to hem in the remains of living love
And with heartlessness burn them? To die: to run;
No more; and by our deaths to reach the end
Of aimless escapade; the thousand winding roads
Our souls are enchained to, ‘tis a resolution
Ardently to be wish’d. To die, to run;
To run; perchance to flee: ay, there’s the rub;
For whilst we flee what darkness ahead may lie
When we have eschewed these bullets of ice,
And yet face more? There’s the torment
That stirs adversity into cold war;
For who could take the disparities of life,
The prejudiced cries, the rebellions’ say,
The pinch of hatred brewed, the people’s pain,
The slighting of beings of same living rights,
That, unseeing, draws us from our common stand,
When we ourselves our own quietus had made
With a glinting blade? Who would farther venture,
To cut and drown in swirling blood,
Oppressed by the dread of life so fast gone,
Toward the seeing eye in whose realm
No answer resides, benumbs the will
And makes us rather walk on paths underfoot
Than to wander whither we know not of?
Thus mystery does make cowards of us all;
And thus the humane light of acceptance
Is bleared o’er with the unsavory dust of thought,
And to think of all arduous trips embarked
Toward the hollow of this emptied pith,
Our call loses its reason.
To die: to run; at this crucial point
Whether ‘tis nobler to seek the words we hear
And adrift the sea be laid to peter; or run,
When life with mocking eye held in blackness
Of falling night sky, a light bereft of truth
Fading into future? There lies the wood
For one man’s fire, and a thousand spreads
From scintillating blade to dulling heart,
To die, to kill; by our misery take another
Into hell with us. Should our sanity hear
The cry we have yanked from the deeps of his gut,
The rustling of breath from his pale blue lips,
And dying, feel the weight of his pain?
To kill or not to kill;
There is no other question
That burns our hearts greater than any flame
Upon despair feeds.

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Okay guys I'm really sorry for dumping this whole chunk of words here without preamble, but for goodness' sake, thank Shakespeare for not paragraphing his originals. It was frustrating enough to analyse his hamlet speech; one question could stretch over a few lines, starting from what seems like a normal statement, chopped up with a few commas inbetween, and then ending with a darn question mark that totally throws you off and sets you revising the lines you've just read over and over. And the other thing is that he LOVES to use archaic words and olden day language.

Oh, but thanks to him, I did learn a few new words. Apparently some of my classmates were playing guessing games with his poetry and...yea, here's an example. Nan was just talking about roasting marshmallows over a bare bodkin ("bare bodkin", as adapted from Shakespeare's Hamlet Speech), trying to write her own parody of To Be or Not To Be, and I was like, "how do you do that?" and she was asking, "what's a bodkin anyway?"

A bodkin's a needle.

Roasting marshmallows over a needle.

Oh well, guess that makes perfect sense.

Hmm and now to my ultimate, honest, truthful reflections of yesterday's attempt at writing a poem based on To Be or Not To Be...it was FUN! Okay, challenging, and when I say that, I mean REALLY challenging, but fun in the meantime. His structure is a little...*cough* smothering if you try to imitate it, but all the same, literature is literature, and writing poems based on other works IS still poetry-writing after all. I haven't been writing poems for the past two months. This is a good break.

I think I'll just post another of my poem here, the one which I sent to my uncle over in America and, according to him, cheered him up from the mid-week fatigue. He works as a lawyer, and his English is awesome, but he needs to...well, melt his frozen report-like structure a little when he writes poetry. I've seen one of his poems before. I like his ideas and perspectives, but he's gotta open up, relax, be free and less rigid in his language.

Okay so here goes. This one's titled Wanderers, something I wrote when I was emoing and wondering over the joys and freedom of wanderers of all the ages behind us; well, I was thinking, maybe wanderers beyond our ages, our time, our world, and in something much more idealistic than what really holds the possibility of future existence. I'm kinda emotionally attached to wandering (spiritually, in a sense), and the wind is my favourite in nature. I hope that explains Pan's question about why I love to draw windblown leaves in my artworks.

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Wanderers

Down to the winds our path runs free
And follow its wake, past rock and tree
When night runs erelong with the day
And dawn treads genteel by our way
For along rivers we shall walk,
And ‘cross wild moorlands time has wrought,
Where ever our spirits are always born
To dance in the plains and sing this song!

Far, far, so far away!
Oceans swum and mountains lain!
Under the moon we wander afield,
Nary a sound to drown our lilt,
For so long a time we are free to fly
O’er the vales, and into the sky
Whence come thunder or wind or storm,
We’ll dance in the plains and sing this song!

Run, run, seers of time!
We know naught of past, and not of prime!
Yet ahead the road flows long,
And caverns deep with lights they shone,
For whither we head, we do not know
Past seas and hills and wealds of roe
And question then, why our spirits long
To dance in the plains and sing this song!

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Yup, that's about it for now. I don't have much time left and have to sign off soon. Well, just bfore I go, 2.4 almost killed me today and I got it done in 16.45 min, which sucked, but better than a fail anyway. Oh who cares about NAPFA. I don't like all those sports and physical stuff - well, with exceptions of team games like netball or relays though, anything in which we can work together to achieve a common goal.

And we're getting back our chem papers tomorrow, together with English Narrative Writing and Orals. Goodness, I'm so dead. Hope I don't fail chem.

I know it's too low of an expectation, and usually I look higher, but I like to set realistic goals. For now, judging by...circumstances, and our chem teacher's face regarding our class' performance, I think a pass is rewarding enough.

***

~~~*Played with the winds at 7.24pm*~~~

Eralight blogged at 3:36 AM

Roaming the Winds

Saturday, May 16, 2009

16th May 2009 (Saturday)

Alright it's been another long gap and I'm gonna make this an art post. XD Well I DID promise to post some of my recent drawings after exams, which is, thank goodness, now. Then after that, it's gonna be more personal UPDATES! Naw, just daily life registration. I'm just suddenly a little more in the mood to blog for some unknown reason.

Well, prepare yourselves, it's gonna be another long post after a long time.

Hmm...yup so here goes; u can find these drawings in my deviantart account too but I wanted to post them up on my blog anyway. Feels better when things in your life get into your personal diary, I guess?

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1) The Lost Civilization

Description: An imaginary scene drawn with charcoal, and the main things are the house, the empty field, the fallen chunks of rocks (if you can see they are rocks - I think they look a little more like wood, screwed up the wiping so the sharp edges weren't salient enough), the black sky, weird sun/moon, the pitcher and the little wild plant inside. Spent a total of about 4 hours on it, did it in 2 parts. Do try to ignore the quality of this photo though, was taken with my phone cam that is a pitiful 2.0 megapixels since the scanner couldn't scan anything larger than A4.

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Well, pretty fun I guess. Did the main touches after exams. This pic implies something though, especially the midnight sun (or moon, I decided not to give it a fixed perspective), and the flower in the broken pitcher. I'm too lazy to explain my implications so I shall just leave it to you to perceive this pic the way you want. I think the title alone conveys quite a lot already in a sense.

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Sums up my second try with charcoal.

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2) Age

Description: This one's a little more sombre. I was emoing while sketching this pic; didn't shade much since it was a rough sketch. Basically it's my perception of age; this old lady sitting on a swing (that doesn't work, if you judge by its distance from the trunk) and the knobby tree, the blank field before her and the setting sun and wind, and, as Pan Yu says, the random leaves. Well, to me, age isn't particularly a sad thing. This pic implies a bit of sadness because of the loneliness and gradual feeling that we're really being abandoned while we age, that we can't catch up and, soon, never will. Hmm...an interesting situation, ain't it? Somehow age does have an intriguing effect on people; we just feel different, think different, and our whole world becomes different.

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And meanwhile, we attempt to return to what we used to do as a child in the form of nostalgia. The old lady sits on the swing, yet she can't and never will play on it like she had used to. It's like that, while we age, we will come to lose some of the things we used to have as kids; the innocence, the purity, the time and acceptance and freedom from social influences etc. Just like sitting on the swing but not playing it. In truth people can still be who they used to be even if, in society's eyes, you're too old for it. That's what exists in ourselves. This knowing that we can and should be like who we used to be from the original start.

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Yet society's influences stop us from truly returning to our very beginnings. We are forced to look back, and constantly look back, and never really reach that point where our whole world returns to that place we look back to. This is my perception of age. It's funny how the cycle returns to its start in the end; just in a different way.
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Oh well, I get the feeling that you won't really understand what I've just rambled.

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3) Inner World

Description: A corel pic done with bamboo tablet and corel painter essentials 4. Shows a place in my inner world, that's all. The wooden frame thing was utterly out of randomness; but somehow, though unexpected, I guess it enhances the lonely and (supposed to be) sorta ethereal ambience. Yup, that's how it's usually like in my inner world. The sun is just about that colour, but of course in my world it's more realistic and there's really the shine, and more red when it sets, not a mere blob of pale yellowish *cough* digital paint.

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4) 拝見！(Haiken!)

Description: A random OC character that was the result of suddenly altering the intentions of this pic from Naruto fanart to self-design. In the end the guy turned out to be a little more fighter type than intended, but oh well, since it was set that way, I decided to gear in that direction halfway through. Not much to say about this though, was done during a mid-revision break sometime before history exam.

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5) Despair

Description: Another emo pic drawn while listening to sad Naruto music. It's Fanart! - and as Pan Yu says, there's the RANDOM LEAVES again. But oh well, I just love leaves, and wind, and I think there's nothing really wrong with that. It gives me a cooling feeling that I would really need - partly cuz of SG's terrible temperature and another the stress of real life.

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Don't call me a sadist, but I just like it when plot characters are sad or stuck in situations a little more...difficult to handle. Maybe it's just a side-effect from my overall liking of sadness itself. The pure, cooling and cleansing feeling. Feels real nice...

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6) Despair (Coloured)

Description: Okay this one's just the coloured version of the original sketch, done with photoshop. My first try at photoshop; the blending sucked, but I have to give it to photoshop for being better than Corel Painter in several ways. At least there were more effects to choose from.

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I accidently made this pic a little brighter than what "despair" would have been like; didn't manage to achieve a bit of grayscale or washout feeling. Should put more effort into that next time. Oh well, give me more time to hone my digital art.

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7) Alone in Autumn (Rough Sketch)

Description: Oh wow I just typed "Despair" instead of "Description"! Gah. *Clears mind* Anyway, this was a very quick and rough sketch done on paint with bamboo tablet. Was feeling random so I just drew it. I think I prefer the coloured version below a little more.

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8) Alone in Autumn (Coloured)

Description: Here goes the coloured version. This one wasn't made with photoshop though, it's corel painter. Screwed up the lighting, but oh well, I got over it soon after. First time trying sketching from an up to down perspective. It was originally meant to be a father-son pic of Naruto and his father Minato, but I got too lazy to draw Minato and there wasn't space anyway so I just left it as it is. Hmm...maybe that's how Naruto got to be alone in the first place? Kishimoto got a lil too lazy to draw an extra person eh?

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Mwahaha.

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9) A Sketch of Minato

Description: A very quick sketch of his face done on a piece of scrap paper from my notebook. Did this during a break in revision again; got a lil heated up that time, if I remember correctly, and just decided to cool down via doodling. It helped. First time getting Minato's eyes somewhat better than the older versions I used to draw.

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10) 六代目火影波風ナルト (Rokudaime Hokage Namikaze Naruto)

Description: Another fanart of Naruto in the grownup Rokudaime form. Messed up the face but otherwise I think it's sorta okay. The shading was screwed though, next time I should really use wooden 2Bs to shade instead of mechanical leads. And woohoo this is my FIRST scanned picture! XD

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*Hugs scanner*

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11) Girl

Description: Okay, this was random, really random, done during a shopping trip with my parents. They were looking for some sort of kitchen thing so I just hung around near the desks and started doodling on my notebook. I liked her eyes though, the proportions were kinda off, and the shading was basically cheap-work, but considering the fact that I was rushing around wherever my parents moved and having a headache from the taxi ride, I shall call it off lols.

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12) 1st Page of Doujinshi

Description: Okay this is the first page of this doujinshi that I was doing for a fanfic written by Talia or somebody of the like; the one I spent 6 hours on, from 12 am to 6am. I messed up the ANBUs cuz now then I realized thay had guards all the way till the elbows and their clothes were a little different, and Minato doesn't look like Minato AT ALL, since at that time I didn't really know how to draw his eyes and face. It was fun doing the hokage tower though, the whole up to down perspective. The tedium was a little unbearable at some points but overall it was good practice.

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13) どうした、暗部ちゃん。 (Doushita, Anbu-chan?)

Description: Another Naruto fanart! Shows my view on how Naruto will treat his ANBUs when he becomes Rokudaime. Yup, that's how the Anbu should look like, I mean, comparing to the screwed-up ANBU in my previous doujinshi pic. Hehe poor ANBU-chan. I realized Naruto's facial features made him look a little younger than he should, considering his possible age by the time he becomes hokage, but oh well. What's done is done. Ididn't want more annoying eraser smudges.

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PHEW! It was TIRING! TIRING I tellya - posting all the drawings and adding descriptions for them in one go. A wonder how blogging can become a drag if you do it for too long.

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Yeah, Pan Yu says my posts are too darn long. I suppose she's right. Readers can get real pissed off eh?

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Okay so let's get on to the words. Groan if you want, I'm still writing.

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So today's Sat, there was supposed to be the inter-class relay thing on today but then Damini called me yesterday and told me it was called off cuz many ppl couldn't make it. Then apparently when I reached sch today (for lit choral reading project) Jiao and Kana told me Julia sent an email saying the whole thing was back on, cuz they found replacements! I didn't wear PE shorts thanks to the miscommunication. Tried borrowing from Mrs Wee, but she told me all the girls didn't return the PE shorts so they didn't have and that she was really sorry and all that...oh well. The rest of them tried calling for *cough* reinforcements (!) but apparently it was alr 9.20 and nobody could rush here within 10 minutes, so...

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In the end, they voided the run.

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Jiao was pissed.

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Hmm yup so my lit group went up to class to do a lil bit of discussion on the parody, which wasn't very fruitful, and I left at 10 for art. Turns out that I reached art lesson 2 minutes late, which was 28 minutes earlier than I estimated. I kept overestimating travelling times. Maybe it's just because I feel safer when there's more allowance time in a sense. You know how annoying it can get when things happen...uh, unexpectedly.

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For art we're currently working on a basket of four teddy bears and another toy dog beside it. I got sick of the toy dog. I've been drawing it for the first few lessons and other subsequent lessons which was about 2 years ago and I never wanted to see it again. But, well, fate says otherwise.

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The horror of THE TOY DOG!

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Gah! I just KNEW I would hate drawing stuff toys with charcoal...and the basket! THE BASKET! What a terrible prospect - it's RATTEN! RATTEN FOR GOODNESS SAKE-

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Ugh. And what was worse, I was feeling pretty feverish when I reached the art teacher's house (in the warm stuffy RG uniform since I rushed from sch in the morn), and apparently my distribution of space on the paper was totally screwed up. The teacher said the top right hand corner felt a little empty. Not just a little. It was "too" empty.

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Well, yea, he kindly...erased the whole thing.

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I had to draw it again on the underside of the paper, which was another failed attempt (at least I thought it was cuz I didn't get the usual feel - was feeling sicker every minute) and asked the teacher for a new piece of paper. Luckily he agreed without any complaint. So yea, afterwards, my feel got back, and the teacher actually liked the way I sketched the draft. He said I got much more relaxed and free with my charcoal strokes.

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I suppose...that's an improvement?

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Yea well afterwards exchanged a few words with Mao, who was getting a little envious about RG exams ending earlier than RI's, but for goodness sake, RG starts early and ends early, that's all. We have FRIGGIN 3 exams in one day. Maybe that's what they call...uh, efficient? Yeah, efficient to the point of *cough* excess scrimmage, which COULD actually be solved with a little bit more relaxation and flexibility of the timetable. Haiz who knows what ppl are thinking nowadays?

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Okay so that's basically it for the day, took a nap and dreamt of eating Japanese food with Az in the middle of a Jap and a dunno-what-race war (too much of history I guess), and it was darn life-like that I could actually taste the food, but, uh, I had to wake up cuz the cleaner got here at a totally unexpected timing. At least unexpected for me. My parents tend to arrange things without my knowledge sometimes. I guess they don't need me to know anyway.

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Got back my Jap and Math results. 50.6/55 for Jap CA2, 32.5/35 for Jap CA3, and 33/40 for Math. Oh, and 19/20 for Jap Show&Tell. All 4.0s so I'm kinda satisfied to a certain extent. But it's quite bad for math though, despite the improvement since last year, that's still there, but the fact that I lost 5 marks due to carelessness doesn't make this mark look so nice. Well, yes, I could've gotten 38/40 if not for all the stupid carelessness. Was rushing through 2 tougher questions in the last 10 minutes so I didn't get enough time to check.

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But some careless stuff, like reading the graph wrongly, was pretty much unacceptable for me. =.= I feel so...argh. Mrs Chia wants me to get full marks next time. I'll try.

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I think I'll flunk Chem and maybe some other subjects. Hope I don't though.

Hmm...what else...oh, I have to ask my tuition teacher that math trig ratio question tomorrow. I don't really understand it from whatever explanation the sch lesson provided.

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Kayz, that's enough for today, I think, it looks frighteningly long. Should go off now. Feeling a little lightheaded and drowsy. Nighties!

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***
~~~*Played with the winds at 10.26pm*~~~

Eralight blogged at 5:49 AM

Roaming the Winds