End of summer illustrations, pokerface, glee, and other random updates

It's the end of summer and kids are settling back at schools and in classes. I'm not one of them this time. =/

Yep, it's finally sinking in; I'm technically an adult transitioning into the real world of working. Fun.

Anyways, I've been able to do some drawing at least. I did some practice painting with oils over the past few weeks to try out applications on different surfaces, such as gessoed panels and illustration board. One thing for sure, I'm not really feeling the textured gessoed surface on illustration board. Maybe I should try sanding it down so it's much smoother but I feel that takes too much effort in preparing surfaces for me.

I've also produced two real illustrations this time. Again, I'm still experimenting with different media and figuring out what works for my style of drawing best.

Neither really have a title. I only had these images in my head and tried to put it down on paper but no title or anything came up while I was working on them.

Also, there is a "Pokerface" illustration I'm working on to go with a rap cover of said song by Lady Gaga. The song itself is almost done recording, just some chorus tweaks to work on. It's going on youtube once it's all done. =D

On a totally unrelated note, my dad randomly decided to get satellite tv again so now I have the computer and the TV to eat my brains out with. Shows I'm looking forward to watching this fall season are "Chuck," "Glee," and "The Amazing Race." The latter two I'm watching for the Asians, to be honest.

A.ll R.isk T.aker

One thing I'll miss about drawing class here, is having the freedom to do rap videos like this, lol.

Asian Australians....

LOL, and here is the non alcoholic rap, written by yours truly.

Free Music Rerecorded

This isn't the main video I meant in my other post. This rerecording has been sitting in my computer for quite awhile now, waiting for me to finish it up, and it just so happened that I did so today.

The video that I really want to get done soon, hopefully by tomorrow, is a response message to the Aussie Team. As you know, I've met some Australians at Hongdae, and apparently they've found out I do rap videos. Madison and I went clubbing with them and The Frenchies on Friday night, and they requested that I bust out a freestyle on the spot, but I was too slow and too tired to come up with anything, so I just settled with a short Epik High cover.

Basically, it's an ego thing, and I just want to secure my spot as a potential female Asian rapper in this music biz, hah.

I admit, I'm stressed out right now.

My brain's in a total funk since last night. Is it the caffeine? Maybe that stuff's not helping me much.

It was a very full weekend...Clubbing Friday night...Went to Paju Saturday all day...Stayed up doing some homework that night too....Sunday....talked over skype with the Phamily.

That's probably why I haven't gotten much done at all.

I'm preparing a rap video, but there's still homework to do... Oy....

Butterfli Effect

This is the second self portrait assignment for my drawing class. =D My teacher loves it, haha.

Again, he likes what we've been coming up with, so now for next week I have to think of something else to do besides this now....maybe I'll do another rap with dancing footage?

Shoutout Rap

I struggled so much with this simple task of uploading videos. You have no idea.....>.<

Changgyeong Palace, Bukhansan tidbits, and the shoutout rap update

So, like I said in my last post, I went to Bukhansan mountain yesterday with my Oriental Watercolor class.

Oh. My. God. >.< I don't know how I found the energy and the stamina to go up such a steep mountain. Gah. And carrying all our materials, water, and food too! It took about more than an hour to get up there. At the least. It was my first. Dude. I would never have hiked like this on my own. But now, I can totally tell people that I climbed a mountain to practice painting the landscape at the top of it. =D

Yeah...we're going back up to Bukhansan next week. T_T

I'm SO sore. This morning, I didn't feel too bad, but right now, after a day of climbing up and down the stairs on campus in buildings where my class is on the 8th floor.... T______T.

I took some pictures, but the battery in my camera ran out of juice before I could take some really good ones. Since we're going again next week, I'll wait till then before uploading those pics. And, I can show my first set of Oriental paintings too, hahaha.

This picture, my friends, is a teaser for what I will upload on facebook pretty soon. I went to Changyeong Palace with Gina last Friday, the day she helped me buy Epik High concert tickets. I really like that place. There are four other Palace gates like this one all around Seoul. I'll make it a goal to visit each one before my time here is over.

And now about that shoutout video. I have two videos of it, recorded on different days, and I COULD upload one of them, but....I'm still not satisfied with the result. So, please bear with me just a little longer until I get a chance to rerecord. >.< It's a little difficult with a roommate who doesn't leave the room very often.

Paintbrushes and the Shoutout

It's done! The rap is finished! xD

I still don't' know how my creative process works, so when I start formulating raps, it takes a couple of sessions before the final thing is set. Just now, I finished working out the tough spots and it's ready for video! YAY.

The internet wasn't working last night, so I couldn't post this blog like I wanted to. Just some notes about painting class so far:

Finally started painting Wednesday =D. We're just working on painting nude models and stills for several weeks. Each painting is worked on for three weeks. This first week is over now. The class has four models, two men and two women, and they pose at both ends of the classroom, so any student sitting anywhere has a view and choose which set of models to study from.

My first time painting nudes. The process is a little different from drawing nudes. Where I'm used to warming up and doing a lot of gestural drawings of one model, and having that model pose many different ways, painting nudes require them to pose the same way the whole time. We sketch initially onto the canvas first, and that is where you should be able to work out all the proportions and compositions first before applying paint.

And that is where Koreans really excel at. Their technical skill is really amazing. One of the big reasons I decided to go to Korea for study abroad is to improve my technique. What one of the painting teachers, Ingo Baumgartensomething mentioned to me yesterday, though, was that he could tell my painting style was quite different from most Korean students, and that I should be happy about that.

See, these Korean artists studied in an art academy (high school?) prior to taking classes at Hongik where they practice their technical skills all the time. However, their work all looks the same. What my drawing teacher Timothy Blum said once was that most Koreans don't have a distinctive voice in their work, despite the amazing technique behind it. In other words, the conceptual stuff I learned at CCA won't really help me much here, but it's keeping my own voice and style distinctive in my paintings in addition to learning as much technical stuff as I can during my short time here.

I wish I had brought more of my anatomy books but that would have just added another 10 pounds or so in my luggage. >.<

Oh yeah, and the other painting teacher Chang Sara told me that my Taklon brushes aren't suitable for oils and I should get harder bristle paintbrushes instead. Sigh, sorry Mr. Rainbow. I can't use the brushes you gave me for my birthday after all. T_T I really hoped I didn't have to buy more brushes here....gah, the money T_______________T

Hug

Two of my favorite music groups. They seem to know each other quite well actually, as they've covered each other's songs on other radio shows in the past.

 My shoutout video rap is soooooooooo close to being done. I just have a couple of tweaks left to work out in the second verse and it will be ready for recording! Gah, I hope to get it up by the end of this week, it's long overdue. >.<

Painting, Writing, Drawing, Singing?

So today marks the official first week of class at Hongdae for me.

Monday, I had the Fundamental Oriental class with the second teacher, Choi Changbong, and then I finally had the Painting Studio class with Choi Inseon (Insun? Which way looks prettier?).

I mentioned before how limited space is here. But, dude. Seriously, a class of thirty students cannot fit all their 2 or 3 foot canvases, easels, art supplies, and their bodies, plus the bodies of the teacher and the models, and the model stand, in a classroom the size of an average living room.

No.

Gah, I'm worried about storage space for me, too. There is no way I'll be able to keep all my paintings in my dorm room over time. Mm-mmm.

Well, all that first intro stuff aside, things are finally settling in around here at school. I got my tuition bill and my student ID card, which also acts as a bank atm card (so I technically have two accounts now? o_O) and I've made probably one friend/acquaintance in each of my classes, so I feel more comfortable coming into class and not having to worry about being lost the entire time. Thank you, God. T_T

Anyways, some random notes unrelated to school and class since I don't have the motivation to express all that in minute details yet:

Took some more pics of the classrooms and random shots of the interiors of the school buildings to give you all a closer look. =)

Met another student from America, but this one is fully Korean, haha. Her English name is Esther, and she goes to the Art Institute in Chicago. She's in my Fundamental Oriental Watercolor class. It's really good having met her, because during lectures I can copy down her notes, even though they're in Korean, I feel more prepared and have more stuff to look up after class so I'm on top of things.

Also, next week, my Oriental class will be taking a hiking trip to a mountain, I forget the name at the moment, to do some field sketching. It's going to be exciting, but the trip there sounds very daunting. One would have to take the subway, and transfer to a bus, and walk up half a mountain by the time class officially starts (on Tuesdays, the watercolor class starts at 2 pm, which is the day we're having the field trip). In total, the whole trip is at least an hour, give or take 20 minutes. Esther is going to the mountain by car, since her parents are both here, in fact, her dad is a math teacher at Hongdae, and she offered to take me with her.

I'm so lucky, seriously. T_T We're also planning to go to Insadong this weekend (ironic how I had just been there this past weekend with Madison and two other French girls to help Madison get her own Oriental materials) to get our brushes and paper, etc. This trip I most definitely looking forward to. It would be so cool to get some authentic Oriental watercolor materials and inks. =D

Sadly, it just means my wallets burning a hole. Hopefully, the need to get art supplies will stem down soon. I bought a few canvases today, and I really hope that will suffice until a couple more weeks later.

Hmm, been writing a lot lately. In addition to this blog, I've been diving back into my fanlyrics/poetry stuff. It's kind of nice having a little bit more free time during the school year after all, because now I can seriously dish out more videos and fanlyrics. As of right now, I have written English versions to:

Anyband
*Promise U
DBSK
*One
* O Jung.Ban.Hap.
BoA
*Song with no name
*If you were here
Utada Hikaru
*Flavor of Life

And they all follow closely to the original meaning. I use several translations for each song to come up with these lyrics. It's a rule of mine ^^;;

I have some raps here and there, too, some of you guys already know of like Britney Spears' Circus, and a couple of Epik High covers.

Now, there is one more English version to add to the list: Tohoshinki's (DBSK) "Beautiful you."

Mmhmm. I'm actually quite pleased with this one. During the music climax, instead of keeping to Uknow's and Micky's original two lines, I replaced it with a rap instead. If my computer would stop freaking out every so often, I might be able to record more videos of this music project of mine.

Anyways, I have a couple more songs lined up to write to like Yui's "Goodbye Days," Loveholic's "Flowerpot," DBSK's "love in the ice" and "Why did I fall in love with you?" and I think I have another BoA one in there somewhere. I'm open to requests from people as I don't want to limit myself to a couple of singers' works. It's just that these artists have influenced me alot....obviously, lol. I don't know what brings me to choose a certain song to do an English version to. First, I have to really like it, of course, but I also look up lyrics and translations a lot, which may or may not lead me to like the song even more. Eventually, if I think it's something I can work with, and if I imagine it to sound pleasing in English, I add it to the list. Something like that, anyway. >.<

There's also a shoutout rap I'm almost done with. It's for everyone in the States. And, I'm thinking of doing a rap video for this self portrait assignment in my Drawing class. Actually, today was when the self portrait was due, but the teacher, Timothy Blum, liked what we did so much, he's asking us to do the same assignment again for next week. Like a part two to our self portrait.

I did an ink/watercolor in black and blue of a butterfly (haha, go figure) but initially, I wanted to do a rap to go with the butterfly thing. Unfortunately, this past week I wasn't able to get to writing and recording for that video, so I was just left with the watercolor piece. Perhaps, this is a second chance to really get this video self potrait started.