to hokkaido!

be back in 13 days, will miss you all :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9eJd8Ih9m0&feature=related

merry christmas!

this is a very very early shoutout to everyone since i won't be in singapore on the 25th.
so... MERRY CHRISTMAS!

see u in a fortnight or so!

singapore design festival + photography

went to singapore design festival 09 at The City Hall a few days back, part of the exhibit was at ION, so I stopped there too. I thought I would be able to find some inspiration for coursework but not much luck there.. it's a design fest, not an art fest i guess.

that said, some of the ideas at sdf were really mind-blowing (visually).


there is this HUGE christmas tree at ION now, and you can go INTO the christmas tree and see this internal light installation. it's otherworldly xD

on a completely unrelated note, i removed my braces :$ feels super refreshing. i haven't seen my toothy smile in 2 years+!

this is awesome :D

afa 09

this is our 8 page comic that was spammed in roughly 2 days in all its printed glory... it was featured during afa at the extravaganza booth! though it was just an honorable mention (like last year), at least we know where we stand, and that we have a long way to go ><

and yet again, we met the godly artists from imaginary friends studios =) inspiring.

great job, ash! =) this may be our last year participating together but we'll keep drawing, yeah?

cos we've all got all the right moves ^^

the missing planet

went to watch a play "the missing planet" put up by the little arts academy in the arts house today with yubo and rachel (on runway pseudo-business). although most of the cast were kids, there was a lovely 16-year old singer who came in at intervals. i wanna hear more of her >_<

yubo asked me if i saw myself working at the arts house in the future. i honestly don't know where i want to go in the art industry, but hopefully i'll find out soon, after enough experience.

same old sentiments =_=

--

on an unrelated note, this year has been great, my family has been going out a lot more.

my mum has suddenly become quite supportive, silently leaving random art books on my desk and my dad gave me a talk about his photography days.

my 3 brothers (yes, all of them!) are starting to cave under jap influence! reading manga and watching anime. i say it's because of me but they won't admit it xD and yeah, i feel that we 3 can talk more about random stuff like the latest stuff we've watched and it's not as contrived as before.

if there's one thing to be thankful for this year, it's that my family is much closer.

so yeah, :)

exploration

for coursework 2010, i'm supposed on explore a theme that is close to the heart. it's best to start early, so... time to reflect on the themes that inspire me.

(in some way, this is related) i really want to introduce this artist, Daniel Dociu, this works are phenomenal...

his fantasy landscapes just pull me in... the compositions are stunning and absolutely crammed with details. what's more is that there usually aren't any human figure in his paintings, a refreshing change =)

one element i wish my coursework could have is this sense of originality. dociu's works don't seem to have any common influences. if i do use digital art as my medium next year, i also want to achieve this level of realism and detail (how intimidating...)

and with an impressionist kind of mentality, i don't want to make my subject matter something that is bounded to reality (unless it's reality rendered in a different way). what's the use when photography can already achieve that aim?

the painting below was actually my brush-texture test (see the background), but somehow i wanted to finish it. after seeing daniel docius work, it really inspired me to use more textures. i hope to explore backgrounds alot more, and keep the focal point off the human figure, if possible.


for now, his work is sitting as my destop background as a silent reminder that i'm still far, far away from that level of digital painting mastery. i suppose i have to wait after years of practice before i am satisfied...

wish me luck next year >_<

OP over!

my project was on conserving the coral reefs in singapore, one of the strategies was coming up with comics to appeal to the youth. how we adapted it is that one page has a happy ending, one doesn't (to emphasise the consequences and what not). it's a copy and paste job >< by hey, it's PW!

in my opinion, op is THE worst pw milestone ever. glad it's over.

i've also submitted another 8 page collaboration comic with ashley to graphite this year (awaiting the results, will upload if ashley agrees) and i'm waiting for the book launch of "many roads home", where my illustrations will be published with others o.o and finally i'm trying to learn a bit about photog for next year..

but that's really it - it's time to take a break from art, especially digital art. what's done for art for now has already been done (: i just need to review everything i've done over the school year.

shin needs to recharge, and love her other subjects more, sleep earlier and meet up with old friends ^^