I Miss Art School

And the things we used to do.



We used to have five-hour classes of only one subject per day, watch strange films in the dark, carve sculptures out of styrofoam with penknives while wearing masks, watch our teacher point out muscle groups on a live nude model, do strange things for homework (e.g. arrange rose petals to look like a face / drip black shampoo over a mirror and draw in it to create a stop motion film), we used to compare paper samples and learn to make our own perfect bound vs stab bound books, we used to talk about subjects ranging from art history to Indian philosophy. We used to have inside jokes.

We live in the real world now.

We still have fun, but not everyone knows what art school was like.

There might not be anything like it in my life again.

A Penny-farthing for Your Thoughts

The penny-farthing, granddaddy of bikes! Have been in love with its form ever since I saw it on Wikipedia. Made a few vectors of it for fun.







Some good news -- my design for the Houston office's jerseys have gone for production (and gathered positive feedback from colleagues there). Singapore saw the design, liked it, so soon everyone will be wearing my shirt at the company marathon!

Am always happy to see my work in the real world!

Made this as a reminder to myself.



Wallpaper version available for download. :)

The version below was made using two photographs I took from a car in Houston (slantedness was a happy accident).

I watched The Big Bang Theory almost every night when I was in Houston. Sheldon's probably my favourite character. He is almost, but not quite, entirely like a robot.



Some quotes:

Sheldon: I am aware of the way humans usually reproduce which is messy, unsanitary and based on living next to you for three years, involves loud and unnecessary appeals to a deity.
Penny: Oh, God.
Sheldon: Yes, exactly.

Leonard: What would you be if you were attached to another object by an inclined plane, wrapped helically around an axis?
Sheldon: Screwed.
Leonard: There you go.

Sheldon: Why are you crying?
Penny: Because I'm stupid!
Sheldon: That's no reason to cry. One cries because one is sad. For example, I cry because others are stupid, and that makes me sad.

*Howard is teaching Sheldon Chinese*.
Howard: You know, I'm really glad you decided to learn Mandarin.
Sheldon: Why?
Howard: Once you're fluent, you'll have a billion more people to annoy instead of me.

Sheldon: What exactly does that expression mean, 'friends with benefits?' Does he provide her with health insurance?

Sheldon: *knock knock knock* Leonard? *knock knock knock* Leonard? *knock knock knock* Leonard?
Leonard: *opens door* What Sheldon! What Sheldon! What Sheldon!
Sheldon: Tell me what you see here. (Holding his laptop.)
Leonard: The blunt instrument that will be the focus of my murder trial?

Raj: I don't like bugs, okay? They freak me out.
Sheldon: Interesting. You're afraid of insects and women. Ladybugs must render you catatonic.

Sheldon: I believe I would like to alter the paradigm of our relationship.
Amy: I'm listening.
Sheldon: With the understanding that nothing changes what so ever - physical or otherwise, I would not object to us no longer characterizing you as not my girlfriend.
Amy: Interesting, now try it without the quadruple negative.

Zack: Is that the laser? It's bitchin'.
Sheldon: Yes. In 1917, when Albert Einstein established the theoretic foundation for the laser in his paper "Zur Quantentheorie de Strahlung", his fondest hope was that the resultant device be bitchin'.

Today's Images

Taking Dear Photograph one step further...













I love Ben Heine's work!

[Edit] If my body is my temple, I am playing a good shrine maiden. Signed up for a 5km corporate run with colleagues and trained 4km after work today. Then I made mango milk for my mother and mango + orange yoghurt for myself at home :) Simple pleasures.

Today's Images





Simplicity! Nordic design by little studio.

The ideas are coming a lot faster than I can create them. This may sound like a good thing, but it's disturbing. How much time do I spend on one before I go on to another? (Not that I have given up on any yet...) I am making about three T-shirt designs now instead of one, which smacks a lot of the way I have about two three-month plans and am not acting single-mindedly on one of them.

In the creative industry there's a lot of talk about how when you love something it's never a chore, you would run the extra mile, pretty much get exploited because you're "in it for the passion". Apart from ending up bitter and angry (as many designers do), this makes you vulnerable to the fear -- especially when you're just starting out -- that you're not in the right field because you hate yourself, hate your work, and can't get it to reach your standards. Even after getting past that, as I have, there's still the question, "If I spend more time on this will it look better? If so, why not keep going?" and I end up never finishing anything as fast as I would like.

LOL.

Started my weekend right with a talk on wildlife photography by Bjorn Olesen. He retired from corporate life a couple of years ago and traipsed around Madagascar, Africa, photographing endemic species with his wife. Incidentally she used to be the CEO of Singapore Zoological Gardens. A good match :)

Some of my favourite photos:


Fighting Male Sakalava Weaver (Ploceus sakalava) – endemic, found in dry forests and scrubland


Madagascar Kingfisher (Alcedo vintsio) – endemic


Diademed Sifaka (Propithecus diaderna), endangered, long silky coat, groups of up to 8, in rainforests up to 1,700m, diet: immature leaves, fruits & seeds, and flowers, gestation 175 days with births in June


Female Tomato Frog (Dyscophus antongilli), 95mm, near threatened, 95mm long

The female tomato frog made me chuckle, it really looks like it has tomato sauce all over.

The audience was treated to his photos of mammals, amphibians and birds, 80-90% of which can only be found in Madagascar. The camera equipment talk mostly flew over my head (am not well-versed in that area yet), but I found his photographs of lesser-known species fascinating, especially the bugs that grow bits of white "fleece" all over their body, enabling them to escape from predators by shedding their fluff.

A quote from his Facebook page:

Did you know that there are more bird species in Singapore than Madagascar?

According to the Avifauna of Singapore (Lim Kim Seng) there is a total of 345 naturally occurring species in Singapore, whereas there are 294 species recorded for Madagascar, which by the way 850 times bigger than the small red dot called Singapore? If you have a couple of days in Singapore you should consider doing a bit of birding.

What a coincidence, my mother just gave me a pair of binoculars. Am gonna sign up for some "birding"!