Wow, I had a really good day (Minowa, 2011).

FOREWORD

Before anything, I should share this: this summer, I will be spending a little over a month and half in Europe. The first month, I'm going to be taking French classes intensively in Normandy, France. For three or so weeks afterward I'm planning to backpack alone to a number of countries using the Eurail. Though I went to study abroad for five months in Ecuador a year ago, I've never really traveled completely alone on my own itinerary and all. So this is kind of a big thing for me and it's something I have dreamt of doing for many years. I am fortunate because my mother has been generous to offer me any kind of financial support I need to make this happen.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Today, I had three main things on my agenda: (1) To establish basic plans for this trip; (2) to go watch "Tangled"; (3) to do the MC for the World Peace Prayer at the community center in Santa Ana.

INTRODUCTION

The morning began well. I got up refreshed before my alarm went off and showered. Cut my bangs impromptu, and then had a slow, easy breakfast in the cafeteria with friends. I brought back breakfast for a sick friend and when I returned to my room I chanted for a good 45 minutes. My mind may have been unfocused but at least it was "raw" in the sense that I was in tune with myself. I chanted with the determination that no matter what, I'm going to have a good day, and that somehow by bedtime I will have "won."

So Tangled.  Since everyone and their moms and their hairdressers and their first grade daughters all have seen it, I reeaaally wanted to see it before it was out of theaters. But I texted a hoard of people and everyone was busy. So I said, "I am going to watch a movie in a theater on my own!" I'd never done it before and I had always associated movie-outings to social bonding opportunities. But you know, Amelie does it. And because Amelie does it, it's always been a kind of wonder to me. I saw through myself and knew that the hesitation to go to a theater alone is my insecurity acting up and breaking through this is a step toward my solo backpacking in Europe.

VICTORY NUMBER ONE: NOT BEING CRESTFALLEN BY UNPRECEDENTED EVENTS

Fandango.com said that there was a 12:50 showing so I took the 12:30 shuttle to Edwards Cinema, only to find out that no, the movie began at 12:20. See, usually, this kinda mishap totally throws me off and my initial reaction is always to give it up and go home. But I've recently been repeatedly preached to "always have a backup plan!" (-Mom). Well I wasn't going to pay $10 for a movie 30 minutes in. So I bought the next showing at 3:25. This would mean I wouldn't have a ride back to campus since the shuttle wouldn't be in service by the time the movie's over. Plus I'm not sure if I can get back in time to prepare for the meeting tonight. Oh, there were so many things that could go wrong. But I stopped myself and my tendency to think negatively. And I decided: no, this will be a minor adventure. Let's see what I can do with this new situation.

VICTORY NUMBER TWO: A MILESTONE TO INDEPENDENCE

Well now I had 2.5 hours to kill. If I had internet I could begin researching travel plans. But aha! There's a Barnes & Noble in the Town Center! So I went there and burrowed into the travel section. I had a wonderful book at hand, Europe by Rail, which provided precisely the information and advice I needed. By the end of an hour's reading, I had my basic route selected. From southern France to Switzerland, Austria, crawl northward to Germany and head back westward to Belgium with a possible flight over to Turkey. Having built the foundation to a potential itinerary, I finally felt a hint of ownership to what could become a wonderful project for myself--not only an educational adventure but an experience that may very well polish my character and independence. In the words of Elizabeth Bennet: "It is a small kind of accomplishment, I suppose."

VICTORY NUMBER THREE: EARTHLY PLEASURES ARE ENLIGHTENMENT

I still had an hour and a half to kill. I was getting hungry since I skipped lunch. So I grabbed a bite at a Greek cafe (I had just read a chapter on Greek food and I was craving pita bread). The waiter was a tall, friendly guy who wore black framed glasses and spoke Greek. I ate as I read the first few chapters of The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. After that I treated myself to a Coldstone "Savory Strawberry" shake--like it size, of course. 3:20 came in no time and I felt like a giddy little schoolboy in the Smithsonian as I walked into the theater--alone! Ha! Theater 6 was mainly empty aside from a couple parents with their 5 year old kids, a young couple and a creepy man on the phone in the back row corner. The movie was pretty darn adorable and I'll elaborate on that in a later post (probably with some fan art, too). But Flynn is definitely a better name that Eugene IMHO. Things also worked out with my ride back because I got my friend Natalia, who conveniently needed to go to her car anyway, to swiftly pick me up. That was the end of a surprisingly marvelous afternoon in the good ol' Town Center.

VICTORY NUMBER FOUR: DETERMINATIONS ACTUALIZED

I got back to my room in time for a quick change of outfits before heading off to the meeting. I faced the Gohonzon again and chanted briefly with a mind set on a successful meeting. When we arrived my co-MC and I had only 15 minutes to go through the agenda and plan things out. I felt nervous for the first time in a while. I had always seen the role of an MC to be crucial to setting the tone and direction of a meeting--I get irritated when I see MCs lacking energy or engagement. So now that the responsibility was bestowed upon us, you can understand that I had set pretty high standards for myself. As I felt myself blanking out, I reassured myself that it all comes down to enthusiasm.

Well, it worked out okay. As a matter of fact, the meeting was great. There was some fantastic encouragement and guidance from leaders and some very young members (two 9 and 12 year old sisters who have used their Buddhist practice to fight their inborn autism and lethal allergies) and my friend performed wonderfully singing with her acoustic guitar. At the end of the meeting I was surprised to receive many praises and felt doubly triumphant when they said my MCing to be "exemplary" and "uplifting."

CONCLUSION

It was past nine when I returned to campus. I was pretty drained from the long day and the persisting jet lag but a couple girlfriends and I had arranged to go out for boba so we drove to Cha for Tea at UCIrvine. I saw the friendly, Greek waiter guy from lunch today! We played a few games of rummy with my magical Harry Potter playing cards (they vanish!) and we drove back to SUA after an hour. I was cold and tired when I returned to my room but I wanted to write about this here before I closed the day. See, it may not have been too exciting or eventful to read--and I apologize if it's fairly anticlimactic and I thank you for even bothering to read this far--but it's been a long time since I've stepped out of my comfort zone or determined to accomplish something. I've been depressed for a long time and the rehabilitation period was equally long. I'm only just easing back into my old gym shoes but I'm also at the point of wanting to explore new facets and potential in my identity. Today could've been an average day, like yesterday and the many yesterdays before that which I spent clammed up in a sheltered cove where I hibernated for months to recover from depression. But the choice I made as I chanted in the morning led me down an unbeaten path. It may have been small--as small as going to watch Tangled alone in a movie theater can be--but at least today was not a repeat of yesterday. Today I had four small victories. Today, I won.

WIPs and Fahrenheit 451

Thank you for your kind comments on the previous post. I am doing much better now, though I've had very little sleep, mainly due to my insomniac cat who was exceptionally irritable last night after a forced cat bath. She was keen on creating a constant ruckus all night by leaping onto the door handle ever half hour and tangling herself in plastic bags; on the upside, she smells lovely. 

I'm drawing as much as I can now (or as much as my rapidly deteriorating eye-sight will permit) before I return to school next week. I'm determined to finish the two commissioned-ish pieces before February. You can take a look at the progress so far. The first is a WIP of an illustration for the cover of an article that will advocate nuclear disarmament in the World Tribune, the newspaper for the Buddhist organization, SGI. The idea was to create a hopeful image that calls for peace by drawing attention to a very pressing issue of nuclear energy and weaponry. I began this project in late November and it took a good couple weeks to come up with an idea that seemed suitable. I really wanted to avoid generic symbols like a fat red X across a power plant or sad faces of children embracing the earth etc. This is what I came up with--and I'd appreciate your feedback on whether or not the image makes any sense by looking at it. You can click on it to enlarge--I suppose it will be printed large enough for the details to show. I've yet to fully work out the composition and effects, so the haphazard flock of birds is definitely going to go through some changes. 

The second is a promotional illustration for an LP video channel that features retro games like N64 and SNES. I initially planned to do something Mario-related since I've always yearned for a reason to draw Mario-themed stuff, but I decided to stick with Zelda for this occasion. I've actually never drawn Link before so this was pretty fun--after nearly ten drafts and variations of compositions and styles and angles etc I settled down with this. Let me know what you think--though it's pretty hard to give any opinion really when it's still in this sloppy stage. The red lines are going to be abstract symbol-ish-runes... kinda inspired by some Native American art that I picked up in a book recently. 

Speaking of books, I recently finished reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (I feel like a campaign girl repeating this so many times in this blog) and just this morning I watched the 1966 Francois Truffaut film version of the book.

 

I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed, primarily with the lack of "The Hound," which was the main reason I wanted to see the film anyway because I was having trouble picturing the monstrous machinery in my head. But I admit I had raised my expectations quite a bit--a little too far for what the 60s' film industry could provide. Still I found it quite moving and fascinating to see classical literature be brought to life as talking, walking people. Once I have time, I may want to sketch out some scenes from the novel of my own rendition.

Also, HOT SPRINGS IN HAKONE TOMORROW (not to boast--though I am boasting... quite shamelessly). I have been looking forward to this... very much.

Books! And Cleverness!

Just finished Hermione today. I wanted her to hold a wand so I flipped her to face right. I also got rid of the Devil's Snare because it looked too ominous. I've been practicing floral motifs lately after buying a book of 1,001 floral motifs and ornaments. I really want to develop my sense of design and pattern and practicing linework is one of them. I figured, since it's unlikely I'll be taking actual art courses any time soon, I might as well be my own teacher and study through reference and practice. c:

WIP dumps

With my personality, I need to work on several pieces all at once. Majority don't get finished, mainly because they are generated from 2AM boredom/insomnia and aren't really things worth finishing anyway. But I thought I'd share them here because I don't know if all of them will get up on my deviantArt.

So this first piece is from last week when I started reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. It depicts my interpretation of the scene with Clarisse and Montag in the rain.

I'm also re-reading Deathly Hallows simultaneously, as I mentioned earlier. Drew this scene when they enter Grimmauld Place and encounter the freaky Dumbledore dummy for the first time. Did this at 4am.

Drew this today mainly for fun. I guess I'll finish this tomorrow. 1st year Hermione with Devil's Snare.

This here is Neville. I'm using this illustration for a tutorial that I'm trying to make because I've been receiving a lot of requests to share my painting techniques on Photoshop. I've taken several screenshots with this one but I'm not so sure if this is gonna be the best example... meeehhh TBA.

Drew this today, too. I really am starting to pick up a new style that stresses on patterns and simplicity. I'm still in the experimentation stage and it's hard to venture right now because I've got a pile of other illustrations I need to be doing for other people but still... it's good to explore during breaks.

This was one of the five drafts that were tossed for the World Tribune newspaper's Seize the Day section on Nuclear Disarmament. It's depicting an enormous bunch of doves formulating a mushroom cloud shape. The sunflowers were added as a common symbol of nuclear abolition. I've yet to finish the actual illustration that was chosen.

Another draft for the World Tribune cover art on nuclear abolition--this one focuses on the section of Daisaku Ikeda's UN Peace Proposal that advocates youth empowerment and education.

This is a draft for a notebook cover design for the SGI Young Womens Division. This exact design won't be used but a cleaned up version of the circle of girls may be used for the YWD section on the World Tribune. 

A wip (work in progress) of a commissioned piece featuring a more grown up Draco and Harry set in an earlier gilded era.

Finally, this I began last summer and haven't touched since. It's a collage of the years that I have spent growing up with Harry Potter. I really want to finish this and make it look nice but it's RRREAAAALLLYYYY time consuming. In the center it will have JKR's message: "To you, who* stuck with Harry until the very end." I hope to get this done before or soon after the release of the very last HP film, Deathly Hallows part 2.
*The actual text is: "To you, if you have stuck with Harry until the very end." 

Warning: heavy image dump ahead--you're welcome.

I haven't updated on my life at all since the New Year, but there really wouldn't be much to divulge anyway. I'm a little horrified to know that we're already 1/24th done with 2011 and all I've managed to accomplish are a few illustrations, even fewer e-mails, a couple trips to art galleries and two visits to the gym. I've been mainly preoccupied with a number of illustration requests from the SGI-USA, one which was to design a logo for the Ikeda Kayo-Kai, and another two colorful illustrations for various sections of the Buddhist World Tribune newspaper. I'm pretty happy with the finished product of the logo but I'm not so sure if I'm free to share it in public yet. I feel very fortunate that since I began posting my drawings publicly on dA and Facebook (mainly from this summer), I've been receiving a number of requests and commissions from various sources. It's all great practice to get a small taste of what it would be like to pursue art professionally. However, the idea of living as a freelance illustrator (and most likely a part-time worker for something else to be able to keep a constant wage) is still a little unnerving to me.

Other news, like I said, I went to a couple art museums. I went to the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi Hills on Wednesday with my friend from high school, Saya Signs. Right now they're showing the works of Motohiko Odani on his theme "Phantom Limb"--it was a collection of bizarre, symbolic installations revolving around the theme of physical sensations and psychological states. The pieces included a full-length dress made completely of human hair, a bunch of enormous female bodies, unicorns and lilies made of white bandages suspended from the ceiling, and fluid, geometric sculptures made of animal skeletons and bones. And lots of other strange stuff:

Today, Saya and I met again to go visit the art gallery in Shibuya Bunkamura, which is displaying a number of Claude Monet paintings, along with works of other impressionist painters from Giverny, France. After we got our fill of the lilies, haystacks and orchid gardens, we had lunch at Botejyu, an okonomiyaki and yakisoba restaurant, which was followed by quaint, Chinese tea and annin-dofu at Chamate on the 4th floor of Loft. Yes, there has been a lot of delicious eating during the first 15 days of 2011, I am unashamed to say.

Wow, it's already past 1:30... I need to sleep. Okay, the rest in bullet points:

• Began re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
• Simultaneously began reading Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, proving to be an awesome, captivating and illustrative read.
• Began, actually this evening, formulating (for the 4th or 5th time now) a new Capstone idea revolving around the construction of physical and conceptual space and atmosphere through light, objects, sound and words.
• Bought my flight back to LA (Jan 29th) by milage.
• Films watched: How to Train Your Dragon (AGAIN), Inception (AGAIN), Nine (the movie-musical with Daniel Day Lewis, not that potato-sack-tiny-people-animation movie), Julie and Julia (again) and Wall-E (again)
• Got my parents addicted to Angry Birds
• Went to Tama Zoo with my high school friend, Jeannie and took these pictures:
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• Drew these things:
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• And finally, totally screwed over my sleeping schedule.