Epic Pokemon Win

I have one of the most amazing friends because she drew me this:

To see more great work by Ruth Kim, please see the following sites:
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Yay for sucking less than I was before.

My computer managed to find itself back on my desk, as opposed to on my stomach as I lie in bed while junk piles rest where my computer should be. I also managed to get myself to write again and draw again. It's a slow and tedious process, but every little bit counts. More updates a things develop. I know, not much has been going on here post wise, but maybe, hopefully, that'll change.

Some Thumbnails

Couldn't sleep last night. I think you should be able to guess who this is.



It's about time I got around to doing something like this. Maybe more to come?

新年快樂！

Happy Chinese New Year!

新年快樂！

I guess I may try to color this when I get my paints back from my grandma's... or I may try with color pencils... or something.

More later!

Drawings! Yay!

So I've finally scanned in a few more drawings I've done way too long ago to actually count for anything. I should really pick this all up again because I haven't drawn in forever and I really suck now, haha. It's difficult because I've been drawing noting but blanks in both my mind and on paper as to anything creative. The old creative muscle has atrophied a bit too much, time to dust it off and get it back on a rigorous exercise plan. It's use it or lose it and losing it this early in the game would be nothing but a shame.

As always, feedback is welcome.

Drawings (Finally!)

I FINALLY got around to scanning in a couple of drawings that I have done. One of which I did in Hawaii, another of which I did some time last month and the last of which I did today (or yesterday, depending on how technical you want to be).

On that same subject, however, my ever faithful, badly beaten and quite well traveled notebook/sketchbook that I've had since Junior year is finally near full, meaning I have two blank pages left.

Honestly, this sketchbook has become a major instrument in my life, having been bought and started second semester Junior year because of my class "Lyrical Resistance," which encouraged the constant writing down of our thoughts or ideas or whatever in a notebook or journal, which I did and I'm ever so grateful that I started and have not stopped. This notebook has been with me everywhere I've traveled, from Holland and Prague (Czech Republic) the summer between junior year and senior year to Arizona and Hawaii this past year, and within it lies all sorts of memories and improvements; you can really see my growth through the past two years. At the same time, however, you can also see just how much has painfully stayed the same. I still have some things (drawings) I need to complete in there and some ideas I need to flesh out more and use this notebook as a reference to pull from, so it's not going in some box in my attic, no, actually it will probably stay right here on my desk, although once the last 2 pages are filled it will not be traveling with me in my backpack anymore; I'll have to find a new one for that.

That and I don't think it can stand very much more travel, honestly I must have taped the front cover back on at least 3 or 4 times in its life span.

Anyway, here's what I advertised, the long awaited drawings... don't get your hopes up, I haven't been drawing much so my already crappy drafting skills have only gotten worse.

It's really weird seeing Christmas decorations up while people walk around in shorts and short sleeve shirts.

This was actually drawn around my friend's actual birthday (Mid to late November) but I just never got around to scanning it and uploading it until now.

Here's a drawing I did today while my friend (same as above) was practicing piano. As you can see my drafting skills need work... especially on the actual person... I don't really mind how the piano came out too much.

Pillow Fights and Drawings

EXT. SIDEWALK DAY

Over 100 students and program assistants (think camp counselors only in the city) gather outside the front steps of the residence hall clutching pillows. The one in charge of the entire program, RUDY RAMOS, an office dweller always dressed in a shirt pants and tie with slicked back hair stands in front of everyone making an announcement.

RUDY

What we are about to do is in celebration of the

end of this program. It is also highly illegal, but

that's not gonna stop us is it?

CROWD

NO!

Cheers emit from the crowd, several members raise their pillows in the air triumphantly.

RUDY

Ok, so we can't converge in the park or we'll

get arrested.

The crowd starts to moan.

RUDY (CON'T)

BUT! But, we're going to go over to Washington

Place right around the corner and do this right in

the middle of the street!

The crowd cheers again. They're all anxious.

RUDY (CON'T)

Alright! So we're gonna head over and when I say go,

and only when I say go, we'll start!

The crowd erupts in cheers yet again and begins to follow Rudy down the street to the location. MATT, 22, holds his pillow with an excited grin on his face. He turns to NATALIE, 21, a fellow PA who stands next to him and smiles a wide and devious smile.

NATALIE

You're excited.

Matt nods his head in assent.

NATALIE (CON'T)

Hmmm

A blond drama queen in a pink zip-up hoodie from the Drama department starts laughing flamboyantly and causes a commotion around him.

MATT

(practicing swinging his pillow)

He's first

NATALIE

(eyes lighting up)

Yea!

There's more to this but maybe next time. It gets kinda long. However, it does involve me catching pillows swung at me and just beating the owner of said caught pillow relentlessly with my own. It was a glorious 4 minutes of unadulterated pillow bashing before the cops came and we ran back to the dorm.

Aside from all that I have a picture to post that I just did. I've had this image in my mind for a few days and, of course, it looks so much cooler in my mind than on paper, but I guess I'm getting a little better.

I guess I aspire to be him; a *puppet master, the mind behind the plans working from the shadows to get everything done. It's quite difficult now because more often than not I feel more like one of the puppets in his hands.

*I guess the aspiration has something to do with a power trip of some sort. I hope that should the leadership role ever be placed in my hands I would handle it well, but I guess the only way of telling with that is seeing if it happens.

Painting Pt. 1

When I was a child I loved painting using water colors. At the same time, however, I hated it because I could never get my pictures to look nearly as good as the afro-wearing instructor Bob Ross whom I watched regularly on PBS. Despite my frustration I still loved playing with paint and it helped that painting and art was an old hobby of my mother's (actually, something she did in college alongside her mathematics and computer science studies), which meant that there were always plenty of water colors and brushes around for me to experiment with.

I discovered that one thing I loved to paint, mostly because I discovered that it was relatively easy to me, were sunsets. Maybe it wasn't easy for me to do at first, but the bright and saturated colors, alongside the wonders of mixing colors to create another, was enough for me to thoroughly enjoy making them enough to pratice enough to get to the point where I felt as though I did a good job.

Fastforward 15 to 17 years. The old watercolor sets (which were, in fact, older than me) no longer reside under the sink, neither does the cup full of stained and poorly cleaned brushes. They've all been moved... or thrown out. Searching for them I stumble upon a box in the living room holding most of the old art supplies I used so many years ago. The oil and acrylic paints sit in their jars or tubes, dried and crusted after years of neglect. The brushes lay, some stained and mistreated others brand new, never removed from their original packaging. The tins of watercolors, what I was looking for, however, are not there, probably thrown away years earlier as they ran out of paint.

I however, still wanted to paint with watercolors in preparation of a short animation idea I've been playing with in my mind, so I went to Blick's and bought a set and a brush. The following are the results of my more recent ventures into the world of painting:

Drawings Pt. 2

Here are some more drawings, mostly from commuting in, although one is obviously of Washington Square Park so that's not from commuting in. Still working on my drafting skills, they've gotten a lot worse since this past fall but a lot better since... two months ago?

Exercise

So suddenly I got the urge to draw something so I went to Youtube and turned on a Michael Jackson video; "Black or White". When I figure draw I try to look for dynamic poses so one place I can always count on to find these kinds of poses is anything Michael Jackson. The man has his issues (as do the rest of us... although not quite like his) but he can sing and dance, I'll give him that.

At any rate, after drawing a few figure drawings I came to a very sobering and immediate conclusion that I had been avoiding for some time now: my drafting skills have gone to shit.

Most people have this misconception that drawing is something that you're either born with or you're not, so most people that can't draw just leave it at that and live with it... I was never one of those people. Since childhood I was always baffled by people who could draw and immensely jealous of people with that particular skill, especially since I did not possess it. However, where most people would shrug and move on, I, being the stubborn person I am, never quite learned to deal with it, so in middle school I made attempts at drawing; they were all terrible.

However, despite being told that you're either born with it or you're not, I kept at it and slowly got better, determined to do what I thought then as the impossible. (I must thank several friends for the continued encouragement). Recently, as I reached college, I learned that what I had been previously told was a lie. Drawing is a craft, you can learn it. Sure, natural ability helps, but drawing is like a muscle, in order for it to be of any use you must use it and exercise it for it to get stronger, much like anything else we're expected to do. Exercising your drafting abilities, much like exercising anything else, is a painful and often unrewarding process, being forced to look at your own flaws and shortcommings constantly is something that tires easily and so, even though I love drawing, my drawing has fallen by the wayside these past few months.

So earlier, when I picked up my steadily filling notebook and did some figure drawings I was surprised and pained by just how much my drafting skills had slipped. This was clearly a sign, I need to draw more.

Maybe if I'm feeling up to it I'll scan in my figure drawings in later for all to see and laugh at.