the lost innocence

My first attempt of portrait painting on wood with acrylic. :) This was started during summerbreak but only managed to complete it recently.

I hued the final painting to suit the title. Love this old sephia effect :D

Holidays are boring and i miss childhood.

hello again!

I AM BACK!

SO IS MY BLOG! haha

I finally got the time and this shall be a really long entry :)

It had been one hell-crazy semester in school! Stress like fuck! But I'm so glad I survived!! hahaha Almost got buried alive by the outrageous amount of school work. Lots of suay things happened towards the end.

The worst one was my toes being rolled over by a car! It happened when I just alighted from my dad's car and getting my stuff out. I haven't even closed the door and all of a sudden my dad drove! And the next moment the tyre was on my toes! I shouted for him to stop but anxiety got the better of him as the car continue to drive 4ward till the whole weight of the car with 3 people was on my toe! That was one of the most painful moment man, even past incidents like knocking through the balcony glass door, plucking wisdom tooth, etc can't be compared to this as I scream like a crazy man. Damn pai seh lar, but the unbearable pain caused me to react this way. Luckily a kind uncle came to help, and together with my dad they managed to lift the car up. I saw lots of students standing there watching, which makes me wonder did they just saw it or they saw it long ago but just stood and watch? It would be quite sad if it was the latter, what has the world become? :( At that moment I really thought my toes crashed and sure got blood and all. It was quite traumatizing. But I was lucky, the toe just looked really swollen. I was rushed to the hospital after that 4 xray and sat on a wheelchair for the very 1st time. So drama, haha immediately I feel I was teleported to the Philippines as I was greeted by the nurses. Fortunately for my strong little toe, it got away with no fractures and just swellings. Dad had been really nice to me after the incident, lol, buying me macs breakfast and promising iphone4. :p And one other thing that I realize, all these suay things happened whenever I da bao food for people! Well, the chinese saying 好人难当 is so true! haha

I watched the best movie of the year, Disney's Rapunzel! The visuals were stunning and first time in a 3d disney animation, the characters appear so beautiful! Really love the soundtrack too, glad to hear Mandy Moore once again! And at the part whereby Rapunzel finally see the lights, and her song played, it was the most touching of all and makes me wanna cry.

The end of sem show just ended and I'm glad some of my works got displayed. It was a pity I didn't get to see the show, I thought they would leave the works there for a few days but no, it got removed just after a day. And to our horror, they were treated like rubbish, all dumped into the viscomm studio messed up. There's totally shows no respect and regard for all the hard work we've put in by dumping our works around. My GD momento even got destroyed in the process and I can't find my haiku. Hopefully it's safe and I'm quite disappointed with the school.

I grew to like typography as the assignments got more interesting and I must say @ the end it certainly got more interesting than graphic design although the workload is hell. Here are some of the works I'm really proud of. :)

Grey, first major type assignment.

Photo collage assignment about joo chiat road, fun! :)

Haiku, final project. I really like the haiku I've chosen. It kinda reflects how I feel about the new day now.

Morning or mourning,

the day that dawns bring new grief.

First light, then shadow.

Process book + letter journal - to document the whole sem's work

This almost killed me as I chose to document my work into a comic book. It had always been my dream to draw a comic book, although this is a somewhat simplified version as i didn't really draw much and used alot of repetitive images in order to make up for the lack of time, still it really feels great and accomplished! Oh and it costs me a bomb too. I realise i'm really not accustomed to using the wacom tablet, needa spend some more time figuring it out. The size i bought too small le, regrets. :[

Next up, the Graphic Design works.

This sem I feel I didn't really do that well here as I spent most of my time in type 1. Hmm hopefully next time will do better :)

Momentos brochure and momento- final project

Here is my graphic design momento, about me as a designer. One of my more experimental works as I tried out different materials. Too bad it got destroyed. :(

Advanced drawing works:

I could have done better here. Hope that I can learn more in the upcoming figurative painting class :)

Stop Motion works:

Say hello to Mr Chillee! Somehow this sem I'm kinda angsty and I keep getting the idea of incorporating chillies into my works, which I did here and in graphic design. haha this is my first stop motion puppet made using foam, cute right? It was initially a fierce and scary looking monster. After I gave him cute specs, organic slippers and leafy brows, he got more friendly :D

Finally my stop mo final project, a group work.

Kinda quarreled with my team members for this, which made me quite reluctant to do group work next time. Pair work is the best, I really had lotsa fun teaming up with qi to do the helvetica presentation. Randomness rocks! Here is the uncut version of the video we made.

I am so glad all this madness is temporarily over as a short holiday awaits. But for now I'm still staring at this holiday, clueless of what to do. Suddenly, there isn't anything to look forward to anymore. I still can't wait to get out of this country to go for exchange, but I've to go through another hellish semester first. :( Hmm, I'm kinda filled with negativity nowadays, always thinking of the pessimistic. Will Mr Santa Claus please bring me some joy this x'mas? :o

where's the spark?

I need some sparks in my life :/ Something that will make me smile when i go to bed and gives me all the hope and motivation upon waking up. Something that will make me treasure my life like never before. Something that will spur me on. Something that will make me look forward to every brand new day. Something that will make happy last. That's just missing now. . SIGH

My little dreams

hello recess!

Hell week is officially over! Yay!

:):(:):(:):(

Finally i get to blog. Have been really busy ever since school started and talking about school makes me mad! This entry i shall vent all my frustrations!! I finally know why people would quit design n all, cuz it sucks man. Everything is about client and communication, it's not freedom of expression anymore, damn it. Then I was seriously considering about switching to animation, but on seeing last year's grad still struggling to complete their unfinished final proj from last yr changed my mind. haha. I'm not sure if it's the same everywhere in this world, but I feel the education system here really sucks man. Depriving us of life and sleep, and all the fun that could be found in art and design. Another crappy thing about visual communication is typography. It's so farking boring! I don't mind spending time on the assignments if they're fun to do, but for typography, it's all a terrible bore. Year 2 is definitely worse den year 1, which is the opposite of what I thought it to be. Every week is like a new final project for every studio modules now. :( Plus for graphic design history and asian art history, the requirements are much more den western art history last year. Why make us do so many things with such short time, seriously man. Now that I've no hall, I find it quite troublesome. Regretted not getting one, cuz when I've things at night I've no place to rest while waiting. Initially wanted to try out rock climbing but I guess I'll have to drop the idea. I might be dropping canoe polo too due to the lack of time. :( I find myself dreading to go for viscomm classes nowadays n hence the skipping of graphic class today. Actually also because I overslept. :p

Some other things to update. Maid is gone!! My house is getting messier by day. Damn it, just after I taught her how to cook. haha Her new owner is lucky cuz she had a good teacher which is me. Ever since the day i taught her, she had been cooking decent meals for me. Now the she's gone, I've to do my own housework. I mopped the floor today, haha housework can be a fun thing.

I finally fixed a chinup bar in my room, hope I could make good use of it. :) Got a tablet too. :)

Yesterday was mahjong day and i had fun!:) Got to unwind from all the frustrations of NTU.

Below are some works I've done for the past few weeks.

"Great", 1st graphic design assignment which described my holidays. It had been quite an accomplishment for the past 4 months. Managed to achieve what I set out to do and get: got my driving license, installed chinup bar, get tablet, do some fine art, freelance design, win in design contest, earn more money, learn something new, get paddle, etc etc :D

Did these just before school started, now that school started, I yearn for such relaxation again.

My first 2 stop motion projects! Stop mo is my favorite module now, I really had lotsa fun doing these assignments! :D
I've been getting alot of advice to switch to animation, but I decided not to. I believe for viscomm, after the shit will come the fun? At least for its final project it doesn't need to be commercial which allows some freedom of expression and I kinda know what I wanna do already. :)

Kittens everywhere

I met lots of cats and kittens on Monday! :)

And lol, can't believe I actually taught my maid how to cook on Tues! I can cook! :)

School started, I was initially quite neutral about it and maybe a bit looking forward but now i feel damn sian! Lectures are boring me out, zzz and assignments already piling up even in the first week. Gosh, very soon this blog will be left to rot too. haha I hope I can finish up whatever I'm left with so I can concentrate full force on the assignments. I managed to get stop motion course during add/drop period, YAY!! First lesson introduction for all my viscomm modules did not really excite me much and I'm actually looking forward to my new animation module much much more! damn! haha but I guess I'll feel the same even if I'm in animation major lar, if only our school offers fine art. :p

I can't take long hours of lecture, it makes me feel super sleepy and my eyes start to become blurry, as if I'm in some celestial world. Feel so old :s

My new room!

I have my own bedroom now, yay! :) Today, I finally got rid of my bro's bed, all by myself! I feel so accomplished. Hahaha, I can use the screwdriver after all! And tada, here are some pics.

This is my humble bedroom.

And the door I vandalized a few years back, lol.

With the other bed gone, my room now has plenty of space for me to build a home gym! I plan to fix a pull up bar here soon. I can also organize mahjong sessions and drinking games here. :D

And of course, not forgetting my very own art corner!

Last day of Work

Yesterday was officially my last day of work. It was the longest working day too as I've stuff to finish up. I'll certainly miss the cat and the people as well. My boss has been really nice, giving us tasty treats from time to time and overall it had been a great working experience. I learnt quite alot about various types of art and also art from different countries through my research and program planning. The kids are really cute although some maybe annoying and cheeky. haha

Here are some final pictures of Bumblebee! He is so adorable, I just love to pinch his cheeks!

Bumblebee and his newfound friend

He loves to be tickled at his chin. This is my boss.

I'll miss him disturbing me @ work. He likes to use my arm as his pillow too.:)

Some works from one of the classes I facilitate.

One of the things I enjoy most about work is doing samples for the programs I planned. Kids' craft really fun even though they're simple to do. Here is a Japanese fortune cat.

The first and only painting I did @ work. Pop Art- inspired cookie. I was hoping I had more chance to paint, but workload was increasing then. Oh well, I hope I could go back and paint with the people next time:)

I happen to chance upon this you tube video. This guy is incredibly talented, his rendition of pop songs on piano is simply amazing. I can really feel the emotions and sincerity of it. If only he can accept me as his student, I really hope for a piano teacher now. Haha, but fee is another issue though, my parents seemed reluctant to sponsor me now. It's hard practicing myself, I keep playing the same few songs and progress is slow. Another issue is my short fingers, reaching out for notes far apart is tearing my hand apart! hahaha