Wildlife Waystation Trip! *Long Post*

Yesterday was the Wildlife Waystation trip. It was really really fun and it was the best opportunity that I have ever had to draw animals up close. We mainly drew big cats. I wish we got to draw some of those grizzly bears and zebras but that's ok. Usually the big cats are the ones who are never seen at zoos. So it was great that we could be so close. There are many many many pictures. I just wanted to post a summary of the trip. There are actually more pictures but I put up the best ones.
I also posted some scans of my drawings. I have never drawn big cats before. I was actually going to look up some big cats online first and do a warm up but I didn't get the chance to. But I thought my drawings turned out really well. And it's mostly thanks to the fact that we stayed for about 8 hours and also because the animals were only 3 feet away behind a cage.
Very awesome :)
Some of the other people who were there had some awesome drawings too.
Next time we go, I hope I can do a more intensive study of the big cats.










Our waystation guide warned us not to stare at monkeys or else they'll go crazy. And when we passed by the chimpanzees, we were told to stay quiet, not to look at the chimps and to walk in a tight group very fast pass the chimps. We knew we were successful when our guide reported that no one got spit on this time. :P
Pretty interesting. As interesting as the crimped hair on the baboon in the picture.

SketchCrawl

Last Saturday the 10th was my 2nd sketchcrawl!
I must say that I was a lot more successful this time. I didn't post pictures of my last sketchcrawl because it was my first.
And I didn't like them as much :P
But I'm making progress and I hope that the next sketchcrawl will be even better :)









I've also been experimenting more with my Chinese painting.
I know I'm breaking all kinds of rules when it comes to Chinese painting.
I use the water straight out of the tube :P
But it is mixed with ink and such... so I'm not cheating too much!
This flower that I've been painting is an Iris plant. I added a bit of blue to make the color a bit cooler and it turned out very nice.

I'm taking an oil painting class this semester with a teacher named Julie Kirk.
Back at UCI, I had some pretty horrible painting classes where technique and skill were kind of thrown out the window, and creativity was encouraged.
I ended up hating paint. But Julie Kirk stresses technique and skill, so I'm very happy to take up painting again.
This semester will be very interesting.

Movie Critique

I found this trailer on the apple site a few days after it was released. I must say that I'm excited about Tim Burton's next film called 9. I want to watch the tiny knit beings save our planet :)
Not much to say about it now, but I do have high expectations for it.
It could be a good thing or a bad thing.
Looking forward to the movie! I've also recently have ventured into the curious world of Benjamin Button, starting with the movie poster. It was the large billboard movie poster that first caught my eye.
Two faces that were cut in half :)
Very lovely. I was wondering when a movie poster was ever going to look like this. I know that the movie poster of Face Off also includes two halves of a face, but this time Brad Pitt's face and Cate Blanchett's face are completely cut in half and are at opposite sides of the poster. I really like it :)
Reveals the different relationships between the people I guess.
Warning! Spoiler!:
I like rambling a bit about movies that I have seen recently. Benjamin Button is the topic tonight.
I think the story was interesting and I don't think I've seen a movie quite like this one. I give props to the movie for being very ambitious. I enjoyed the love story and the time line of a man who grew younger instead of older. But being ambitious may also be the downfall. I feel like Benjamin's character development was a bit poor. We never really see him sad, mad or extremely happy. Coming out of the theater, you conclude that Benjamin Button is a humble, courteous, and curious person. He experiences love, war, and death but most of his reactions are the same. Perhaps that is his character though. But a movie that is almost 3 hours and about a man's entire life, I expected more.

Well, it's just a thought. Overall, I still enjoyed the movie.
Definitely a gorgeous movie :)

Happy 2009!!!

I couldn't be any happier about the new year.
It's about time that 2008 ended.
Truthfully, 2008 was quite the tough year. And to end it, my trip to Taiwan was canceled.
:P
Let's just say that I didn't realize that my passport had been missing for over 2 years until the night before we left. I think I'm more weirded about by that fact than sad.
Taiwan will happen again soon.
So I'm very much looking forward to the new year!
I'm hoping that 2009 will be a promising year :)




Happy New Years!!!

Done!

I just finished my life drawing final at Irvine Valley College. This class has really led to some improvements in my figure drawing. The picture below is a portrait that I did with faber castell color pencil. My main objective was to capture the flesh on the model. I think that was kind of successful, but I was unable to make my drawing look like th model. I thought I mapped out his face correctly but in the end, my drawing doesn't quite look like the model :P
I really need to improve on drawing portraits. But maybe in the end, I like the fact that I can draw people that exist somewhere in the world :)My master copies are done too. I was able to put them up side by side with the originals and critique myself.


This piece is by William Bouguereau. I remember having a lot of trouble with the face on the this one too. I think the eye is too big. But better than when I first started out drawing her face. That was just... scary.
uh... her breasts may be too far apart too....
I plan on fixing my master copies. Especially this one so it doesn't look like she got implants...


This piece is by a wonderful artist named Luis Riccardo Falero. I've been admiring his pieces because they really are beautiful. I can make this one a little darker because the fixative faded the charcoal a bit. Also, I made her look bald... she has a shiny spot on her head.
But other than that, I really enjoyed how dynamic this piece was.



I wanted to draw a male figure for one of my master copies so I chose one of Michelangelo's Ignudi. This one took 3 days because it was done with color pencil. I liked the way this one turned out but I need to go darker in certain areas like his cheek. This was probably the hardest piece to map out. It was very very very tricky.

His upper body was a lot more compressed than I thought it was. So it took me maybe 5 tries to map out his body because I kept making it too long. But I'm happy that I didn't give up :)
I think this piece will look much better when I make it darker.

The most appealing part about this piece was probably the male's little flowy hair :)
This piece is called Patroclus by Jacques Louis David. We were required to do a piece in pastel.
Pastel is witchcraft... and I don't quite understand the language of it.
I started with the left side of his body and it was a wreck.
Then I moved my way to the right side of his body and his arm and I started to get the hang of it.
So this piece turned out better than I thought because I can't work with pastels.
But it is definitely a medium that I would like to work more with.
Next semester at IVC, I won't be taking a figure drawing class. But I'll try to make trips to Otis for figure drawing workshops. I really don't want to stop life drawing, even though I turned my portfolio in already.
I won't be posting in here for a while because I will be in Taiwan for Christmas :)
I've been tracking the weather in Taipei City and it's been raining every single day!
I was hoping I can get some little sketches in, but we'll see what happens.

It might be 2009 when I post again!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Portfolio Contents

I got an email saying that the notification period for CalArts is March 1 through April 1.
A whole month... this countdown is the more stressful one...

I wanted to post some pictures of the drawings that I had in my portfolio.
I won't post everything because I have ALOT of drawings. I used to have almost 60 drawings in my portfolio.
But Gary helped me cut it down to 41.
The requirements for the portfolio are a least 20 drawings from life. That embodies everything.. people, landscapes, animals etc. But 80% should be people and animals.
Gary said 57 drawings would have been too overwhelming.

The first 2 pictures are of a model named Caprice.
I had her at UCI and luckily, I had her again at IVC.
She's such a good model, and it really helps to have a model that inspires :)

These 3 are gestures of another really good model named Yuko at Otis. These are for my sister. My sister doesn't really know what a gesture drawing is supposed to look like.


I also posted some animal drawings that I did. They're from the aquarium, santa ana zoo and the hamster at home. I have a lot more animal drawings but I'll just post some that I like.
The hamster's name is Dot because she was the runt of the liter.
Hamsters are hard to draw :P
She was so active, so my drawings might have a few inconsistencies . But it was good practice and they turned out well.




March and April are going to come up real soon, hopefully I'll be prepared.
Until then, the next sketchcrawl is coming soon and I purchased a sketchcrawl shirt too.
Also, I've been browsing through many many paintings so that I can choose one for my master copy.
I chose some candidates but all of them are so wonderful.
I'm hoping that even after my life drawing class, I can continue to do some master copies for fun.


I found a painting done by Luis Ricardo Falero. It's called The Belated Witch. I won't be doing this for a master copy because I can't find a better picture. But it's a very beautiful painting and I wish I could see it in color.
I have 3 more master copies due on the 15th, and I'm looking forward to working on them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

There is no longer a countdown on top of the page
I just turned in my portfolio for CalArts today.
:Z
I was nervous just walking into the admissions office. But it's all good now.
I can relax a bit and wait for the decision's letter.
I might up a countdown for the month of April because that's supposed to be the month that I will hear from CalArts if I got in or not.
It's been quite the crazy month, and now I can celebrate with Thanksgiving.
And I have quite a lot to be thankful for!
My family, the teachers who have helped me and friends.
I remember, when I was getting stamps carved for me for my Chinese paintings, my mom suggested a Chinese quote. I don't remember the quote but translated into English it's: Be grateful for what you have.
(Something like that... I hope I didn't butcher it..)

I really hope that whatever happens works out for the best.
Though... I really do want to get into CalArts :)
We'll all be waiting.
I'm going to keep this post short

Happy Thanksgiving!