some works!

Cross section of a strawberry!

Started something new

Yesterday marked my second class in a watercolour course by Mr Marvin Chew. It's held at Sogan Art Galerie, in the quiet Mosque Street a walk from Chinatown mrt station. I've never had proper training in traditional painting before, and thought it would be useful to understand colours in person instead of just in the digital realms. For digital painting, I could plan and know what I'm doing when it's digital. However, in watercolours, my brain gets blocked partially and all my observations on real-life lighting and colours get locked up and I know not what I am doing. :/ Just perhaps, trying to imitate my teacher.

And it's bad how I go into paralysis at every stage of painting. Watercolours is like putting on layers and layers of colours, from light to dark. There is this fear that I may ruin something so I sometimes just stay put and leave my eyes to dart around.

At least during my second class, I was more bold, but it still felt like I was bulldozing forward without a clear plan, and that scares me. I want to be more in control when I paint. To logically reach the final image I want to create, but I guess it's hard because I never know what colour will leave my brush after a mix so I cannot really plan? The paintings I've done felt like accidents. :x

Anyway, here're the two pieces I've done (with much help from the teacher :p I'm so thankful he comes by and tells me what's missing, shows me examples of what I can do at the stages I freeze at), they aren't exactly complete yet, too:

And my still-new white watercolour palette and paintbrushes. :> Feels so pro. Hahaha... Hopefully soon, I'll be painting at home too, not just at class. Practice makes perfect and I doubt once a week is a good enough exercise to get to know this medium properly. :/

arted!

After spending a couple of the past few days reading Trinity Blood manga, I finally had inspiration to draw something (and a happy smiling girl at that)! ^^ Here's a peek of her and me having fun posing with a pencil. :>

Actually, seeing another artist's artwork with flowing hair made me want to draw a girl with flowy hair too. This is a more manga styled artwork, with the typical large eyes. I miss the Alichino/Trinity Blood gothic style so much and am very pleased to be able to draw somebody in this mish mash style. :> Lol, maybe the colouring's going to be pin-up style. We'll see!

I am alive!

Had miraculous free time today to do a quick digital paint of a tulip.

Shapes are a wee bit off, but this was mainly a colour thing.

I'm now working in an ad agency and work has been crazy hectic, but I managed to do so much stuff that I've not done before. Can't wait to spend some time updating my website with new things. :)

Some good resting!

Completed my digital portfolio and managed to put it up on the website last night! The site's now also a temporary white surface with links to places I inhabit on the internet. Once I manage to decide on how big I want my thumbnails to be (yeah, what the heck), the complete look will be uploaded! *aghast*

I managed to become a Creative Professional on behance.net, but I haven't gotten a chance to tinker around their portfolio building tools yet. Need to prune my works as well as work on more projects that are current and show the level of my skills. There are so many inspiring people on Behance and Cargo Collective, it's mindblowing. :) There is also my pile of design books I need to ravage (currently I'm into {Typography Workbook}) so my knowledge of the basics are at least sound.

And by the way, I got 91/100 in this html5 kerning game http://type.me . :D I got killed by the first question and on another when I wasn't paying attention. o_O Kerning can be so addictive, though. It's something once learnt, you cannot unlearn and all these unkerned logos I see on local websites make me :6.

Other news, I'm always on the lookout for short courses I can attend. I found Orita-Sinclair offering Typography courses at 16hours each. It's a little depressing that timing's 3pm to 5pm, which I was hoping I could try for now that I have flexible hours, but I have my interview this coming Monday at 4pm... :( I wonder if they'll offer this course at 7pm? At least if I get a full time job, I can still go for their classes. *weeps*

So I have been able to dispatch my resumes out to the local companies looking for designers. One interview's set on the 31st this month. I can't wait to be lulled by the flow of working every day. Of course, I still want my weekends to last four days. Life is only this short, other than doing good on your full time job, there is also doing good on your full time life. ;) Before I continue with the typography book, I'm halfway through the last book of {The Hunger Games}! Didn't want to read it because it sounded depressing, but the plots and characters push me on. 3: Cried quite a bit over the unfortunate happenings in it too.

Okay, I think I should head on to working on my doll clothing brand {lovesprung}. Recently decided to change the name and work up a proper branding and identity thing for it. Oh ho, after reading {Logos Design Love} and other branding publications, it is imperative that this project of mine be sounder. :)

Do it again...

Was scrolling through my past posts and since August the 19th, I have more or less gotten most of the stuff I wanted. I've got all except the A3 papers and an iMac. Haha... The initial design for the new website had frames, but then since I'm not an amazing coder, I've decided to stick to just a single page and using tables instead.

So it's starting a little like all over again, and I'm still in the midst of starting proper, with a concept behind the website and all. All I know is I want to display large pictures on a clean layout with a touch of me in it. Thing is, I'm not sure what design. Hopefully after more brainstorming, I can finally get it going.

I've started my temp job yesterday, working half days this week so I can devote the extra time on working out my site and portfolio. Learnt a fair bit from the previous job that I could only stay for a month and 3 days. I am still reading more design books (currently at the first few pages of Typography Workbook) to increase my knowledge. School just wasn't enough and it took me too long to realize that the education I got was just a tiny touch of the surface.

Oh well, better late then never. I am just glad there are so many good books on grids, universal principles of design, typography, page design etc. for me to read. I just got my {Before & After Graphics for Business} book in the mail today! <3 I've referred to their {How to Design Cool Stuff} and {Page Design} books and liked how useful the information was. I just wish I could read faster!

In the worksss

Howdy. Yes, this is taking way too long. The revamping of the website. :c

Anyway, finally there is progress! Here are two sneak previews!

Would be keeping this idea clean and simple.

Had a rather active Saturday, 20 minutes past. Spent good time reproducing Bridgman's drawings in the central library on top of some shopping, ramen slurping with a good buddy and trying to know more about my finances. :> It's getting late and off to bed I go if I want to head to the gym successfully tomorrow morning.