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Tiny

Mornings when I'm in the gym on the 14th floor, this little white butterfly flies by, outside the window. It always flies off in the same direction; it first rises from floors beneath, shows itself to me, and then proceeds to head off to the opposite building.

Up and down, up and down it beats its wings. A tiny being in a metropolis, strung in between cold uncaring skyscrapers.

It can't be the same butterfly, could it?

waterfall

He said he likes listening to the rain. I've liked watching the pitter patter of drops so eagerly meeting earth, never discriminating hard nor soft surfaces, slippery nor coarse, living and dead; but dismissed the sound as simply white noise. He said so as he cleared the table for our art project--we splattered paint on shirts, the rain behind him like a waterfall curtain.

A headache today. So I was pulling over myself a blanket when the first drops of the lingering gray sky began to chime. The memory of his uttered words ran through my mind, like lighted wordings of an electronic banner.

a year later

a song played familiar

a year later

a smile ten times wider

http://jiayueh.tumblr.com/

Day 6: Cafe at the marketplace

Failed to sketch for Day 4 and 5. I just felt really drained and unmotivated. Then I realised I was doing it all wrong. 


There's 2 ways I could sketch someone:
1. Spend a good few minutes memorising the look of a person's pose and expression before I even start drawing. So I don't have to be exactly where the subject is, because I can memorise something interesting I see earlier on, and then draw it out later in another place. The downside to this approach is that I would be focusing more on the structure and form of the subject, and details would be hard to add in later, because the subject isn't there for me to refer back to,
2. Sit where the subject is, and draw detail by detail, all the while referring back to the subject. This makes it easy to add in details (such as shadows, wrinkles, concave areas, creases in clothing etc.) but the annoying bit is when the subject moves away immediately, I'm left with half a face in my sketchbook. And I don't even take too long to sketch a full recognisable face, under 5 minutes. But one sneeze, one turn too long, and the moment could be gone in less than 2 seconds.


So I've been doing it with Approach 2 from Day 1-3, and it is tiring, and irritating at times--because I like to find a relatively still subject that is interesting and challenging to sketch. And today I just remembered that I've forgotten to do Approach 1, so I did. The two girls' faces are the end result of glances at passing strangers at the market, but I'm still not happy how I can't add more details to them afterwards. The girl with the mushroom hair on the left was so adorable!

Day 3: The Talk

Day 2: At the Donut Shop

Sketch Challenge: Day 1

Mid 2012

In 2009, my Macroeconomics lecturer told us, in her culture, there's a saying: 
If a woman is unhappy, first she can change her hairstyle. If she is still unhappy, she changes her apartment. Lastly, she changes her boyfriend.


Well this year, I've done all of the above. I had to cut M lose this February because since I moved back to Asia, I started to realise how appalling he treated me although he said he wanted to give long distance a shot. We had started growing into different people with different values since we started working, and we had already fallen apart last year. Since the breakup, I've been very much happier (like that Medina song that went 'I have no time for you to hurt my feelings'). Afterall, if a woman changes all of the mentioned things, theoretically she should be ecstatic. 


So it's been half a year since my last post, because:

• I haven't been reading as much as I used to. 
• I was figuring out how to use which blog for what, especially since I've started focusing my efforts on my Tumblr page.

Reading back on my old posts, I realised that for this year, I've actually accomplished what I wished I could last year--simplify my posts into short excerpts. In fact, I've been writing like that on my Tumblr blog.


But I've decided to come back here because I finally figured out what I should be doing here. I will use this blog for more personal posts, whereas Tumblr is for my work. 


Since I had too many goals last year, and didn't focus well, this year I only have 2 non-job-related goals:
1. To start my own illustration Facebook page - check
2. Publish one story per 2 months, on Tumblr - check check


Values for this year has 3 Ps:
1. Patience - An unexpected affair came up recently, and it is training my patience to climb a steep spirally stairway. 
2. Posture - I keep forgetting to work on.
3. Passion - I've been lucky to be able to pursue all of my passions this year, but my mojo for drawing has gone down since last month. I can't really focus on spitting something good out. So I'm challenging myself to bring my sketchbook to work this week, and sketch at least one person, with minimum 2 variations. 

Reviewing last year's goals

2011 was quite a difficult time for me. I pushed myself more than I did before, and braved challenges emotionally. I didn't have enough time to eat well, and as a result was more prone to meltdowns. But then there were also some highs and a wonderfully patient housemate to pick up the (my) pieces at the end of the day. So I'm mighty appreciative for that.

Goals 2011:

1. Dedicate 2 full days in a week for coursework. This I did, and scored at least one Distinction grade for every semester (3 subjects each sem).
2. Focus on job hunting. Worked 2 part-time jobs throughout the year, on top of evening university classes.
3. Set up an Etsy store. The prints project fell through due to lack of costing solutions. But I set up one to sell some craft brooches with 2 friends. Sue-Anne helped a lot with the trials and errors in using Etsy's interface.
4. Work on a children's picture book and attempt to publish it by the end of this year. This I failed to work on. But I'm hoping to get it back on track by this July.

As for 2011's resolutions, I realised that they're pretty much useless. So I'll scrap them for this year, and focus on values instead. Will update on 2012's list soon (and hopefully a nice greeting illustration before that).