awkward situations

It's so unnerving when the life drawing model is staring RIGHT at you, while you are trying to draw them completely naked...
especially when you have to keep looking up at them only to meet their gaze, and they DON'T look away even when you stare back at them to LET THEM KNOW that you are aware of their full-on staring, but they continue to watch you anyway, as they they are trying to force their presence upon your invisible territory, and watch amused as their victims squirm with discomfort.

during life drawing today, the male model that was modeling for us today was quite a handsome and charming fellow. but at one point, turned to face me and stroke this super MANLY muscle flexing poses while just full-on staring at me, (i could have sworn he was gay). i had the most difficult time looking back at him. i couldn't even last putting up with his gaze for more than 0.1 sec, so instead, i concentrated my attention to his feet rather than his face. there was even one point where he was facing towards me, and he was smiling cuz the teacher and the other students were talking about some funny things, and i didn't know whether i should smile back or not. at break time, when i had to run to and back from my car, the male model happened to be heading towards the same way i was, and he commented that he liked my drawing style.

the teacher really liked my gesture drawings today, and i started feeling foolish and big headed (cuz it's so RARE when that teacher ever gives a student a compliment) enough to start drawing hair and eyelashes on the figure during the 3 hour long sketch, even though the teacher HATED and kept warning us against putting in eyelashes and hair. when she caught me decorating the head like that, she came over and yelled at me

hahahaha!

it's raining alot and im officially sick

i thought i was going to die today from all the charcoal powder wafting up my nose in the classroom. sneezing like a mad women with watery eyes, and itchy throat coughing and having a difficult time breathing.

later at home, as i was blowing out my nose, i found charcoal powder mixed in with my snot on the napkin...

i tried to stuff myself full of oranges for vitamin c, but i don't think it's working...

on rainy days, i like to listen to chopin. i'm planning to be sketching all night long

ps: henry darger was quite the violent man. throughout his diary, he often mentions putting his enemies to the hospital by cutting them up with a knife! i'll scan some more of it soon)

darger, i've always loved you

my allergies are starting to attack me and today was just pretty horrid! D:

i've been having strange dreams of my best friend ditching me at a fish taco restaurant and dumbeldore ripping my head off so he could check my brain, and i woke up shaking my head back and forth.

on a brighter note, i've been gifted with LOTS of old beautiful books, including one about pre-raphaelite paintings, and i got my hands on a big HENRY DARGER art book today from the library!!!

oh, his art makes me so happy, i wish to sit for hours and hours, completely drowning the air with the perfume of sweet ginger candles, fingers dripping with cherry juice, adventuring through this book filled with pages upon pages upon PAGES of a fantastical new world, unfurling underneath my feet like a magical carpet, leading me away away away to a land of little girls in cute dresses, tiny speech bubbles, disturbed expressions, girls with penises running a away from big scary men strangling the tiny necks until their eyes bulge out and tongue stick. oh, take me away to the land of the unreal! let me see what you see. take me to the bloody battlefield where the young wages raging battles against the terrors of adults and horrifying mysterious entities. i want to wander in your land that is made out of milk and pudding, pastel purple lines, and blushing colors.

at the end of the book, they've included some pages of Darger's handwritten typed out diary... his original diary is at least 7000 pages long! so far, of what i've read, he is such an interesting old man....
i'm so inspired and tempted to scan every picture in this book to share with you guys on this blog cuz the internet really does not provide much of him!!.. perhaps in the weekend when i have some time i'll be able to a few...

tuesday

(above: a sculpture project im working on)
ps:i've been feeling very happy these days :- )
pss: i'm starting to work on a full length story...

Playing Potion Witch and a Virgin Princess Bunny

guess who came in the mail today?



ALAS! my princess has arrived!!!!

from the wonderfully talented ms Bonnie Wood whom i did an art trade with a few months ago!

(why is there a sweet potato sitting in a milk saucer thingy, you ask??? cuz i'm growing a sweet potato plant, silly! soon, the potato will start sprouting out beautiful vines and leaves!)

my mom got really scared when i showed her my new pet. (i have recently got a marimo fungus ball pet- and a tiny dried up sea horse in a tiny jar)

mum was telling me to stop bringing "creepy granny stuff" into the house and that the bunny will get revenge on me as i sleep! waaa!

i got to admit tho.. that seeing this bunny kind of makes me sad...
i wish it was alive so we could play :- (



this boy was sitting in the wee corner of my imagination as the teacher was lecturing in english class today.
i really couldn't help drawing him, and he came out to be one of the more finer doodles that i have come to really like.
he's an 18 year old boy who's bored out of his mind!!

today, i got acquainted with this one guy in my english class whom i'll call "H" here. i always thought he looked like a pretty interesting guy when i first saw him (not to mention, he looks like a pale, younger version of the frontman of one of my favorite band, Grizzy Bear)

we had to partner up with people in the class to practice interviewing strangers for one of our assignments, and since he was sitting right behind me, he asked for me to be his partner

he was one of those people that i was able to connect with right away. he did sculpture work and seemed to be fascinated with people who drew... and the kinds of ideals we had were similar. when class ended, he said bye to me and smiled in a shy sorta way XD
(such a nice guy, tho i was quite disapointed to hear he had a gf! sigh.. oh weeeelllll. i need to make myself available for professor lupin anyway : D haha -btw, the movie version of him is.. NOT GOOD! BLAAAH)



as i was working on my homework tonight, i decided to give one of my friends from school a call to ask about some stuff about class.
ever since she moved into the apartments next to the school, i couldn't help noticing that she looked super stressed.
she's one of those hard-working perfectionists and worries awfully alot...
when i called her, she was at school alone at 11pm finishing our still life assignment(which im procrastinating on XD)
she told me how worn out she was, and i genuinely wished i could help her out in some way..

whenever people has some body malfunction issues, i always recommend them some kind of herbal tea that will help them.

so jasmine tea popped up right into my head, to help her stay up and full of energy during those long nights of homework. i told her i'll be giving her some tomorrow, and i went right to work on making a special Blend of Tea for her!



-A big package of loose jasmine tea leaves
-3 bags of chinese diet tea (she's been on a diet so i thought this would help (it cleanses out the body and helps in losing weight)
- 1 bag of chamomile and spearmint tea to help her relax and relieve some stress!

i put all this in a japanese caramel box filled with handwritten notes and instructions on how to drink them and their effects!

i just realized as i was cleaning out my tea cabinet that i had AN ASSLOAD OF TEA!!!
-pomegranite leaves, green tea that unfurls into real leaves when put into hot water, rose tea (super expensive real minature rose buds), 2 boxes of chamomile and spearmint, a jar of this strange herb called asthma, vanilla and rhubarb tea, prince of whales tea, ginger, lavender, estate darjeeling, detox chinese tea, strawberry tea, earl grey, citrus tea jam, plum tea jam, black tea, oolong tea...
and i'm not sure if i left out quite a few...hmmm

(i've also been really into organic things lately.. and now use organic shampoo, conditioner, foundation, and soap.. believe me! it makes a difference!)

my other friend who's not very fond of tea wants me to introduce her to the various kinds of teas and teach her how to "drink them properly" XD
haha she makes it sound so complicated

so i'm planning to make her a cup when she comes over this weekend, and prepare a special tea box of her own complete with notes and stuff...
i think i would need little jars tho if i want to include honey powder and the tea jams in her package...

i think it would be fun to have pen pals.. like Elaine (perhaps??) to be able to swap potion secrets and ingredients, and little fun knick knacks and notes with XD

boooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!
i'm a witch!



just kidding!
as you can tell, i've been reading too much harry potter lately

The Artist Society

(thank you neikan for this lovely pic on your blog ; A ;)

i've posted the following on my deviantart...
and i was very much surprised at all the strong positive feedbacks i got from the fellow artists...
i am now even more convinced that this is the right thing to do

america is a consumerism culture.
where companies can make profit out of selling TAP WATER in bottles, making people believe that it is natural for water to be BOUGHT. i wouldn't be surprised if in the future, "pure" sunshine in a bottle could be bought for $2.00. how can humanity even go so low as to be SELLING nature given resources that already belongs to everyone?
everything is cheap commodity nowadays; people, music, entertainment, education, etc.
ads lead everyone to believe that we NEED to constantly keep buying things we don't need, which keeps on adding to our ever growing land fills, polluted water, desecrated forests, annihilation of animals, and essentially, a slow miserable decay of the whole planet...
all because of greedy rich people trying to get richer off of the rest of society.

and you know what the worst part is?
we let them get away with it.

money hungry government and media makes us believe that money and glamor is all there is to life. leading the youth to believe that it is "cool" to disrespect our elders, having sex at 14, littering the grounds with hot cheeto bags for birds to choke on, and cursing your own mother you gave birth to you. but nobody cares nowadays do they? they're too busy on their cell phones, facebook, and i-pods...(communities that the yet again, media and gov is now learning how to get a fast hold of by creating advertisements especially directed to those with certain interests, making people all the more isolated within themselves) trying to keep up with the rest of society. wanting to be connected to the rest of society who gathers in a big huddle like sheeps... ultimately confused. cuz the truth is, devoid of roots and unnatural mechanization, people, being organic beings don't really know what they want and are afraid to be alone .

People grew up believing that this kind of society is natural because they grew up being spoon fed the kind of example that the people in power is setting up for the rest of it's people, and the people are mindlessly following..without even aware of the veil over their eyes....

As Nicole Absher has contributed:

"[quoting] from Emily Dickinson's poem tell all the truth.

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--- Success in Cirrcuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightening to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind---

This poem reaffirmed my belief that as an artist. We must draw the viewer in and captivate them. Let them take their time pondering the texture and technique, pondering the beauty and then, our message will seep in and soak into them. A gradual truth will be spread."

(aah thank you for that Ms Absher!!!!!)

the youth cannot be afraid to express their own individuality even if it means they must be alone to fight against all odds on their own. we need to take our own responsibilities and show some CLASS. we cannot keep depending on the system. we need to start truly caring and looking out for each other because obviously, the rich and powerful who dominates the world don't give a rat's ass about us as long as they keep on getting richer.

as my teacher put it, we are most unfortunate to have come to live at an era of change....
as artists, we must pertain to current trends and ideals in order to make a living, yet things as of right now is unclear.
yet, there couldn't be a better time for artists who has the power to help SHAPE that future through pure and ethical visionary artwork.

the vision dictates more than 80% of our senses. therefore, sight has the most impact on the way people think.
art enables us to look into a different dimensions that our eyes are not able to see within our normal state.

Take Waltz Disney for example. For the mere sake of sharing joy and delight to children and adults alike, he brought real magic and influence of joy through pure, ethical art and storytelling in the form of animation. isn't that true? he was only able to create such magic because he didn't care about budget or money or how long it took as long as he got to hire the most professional artists to make his art of the finest quality.
Look at the Disney corporation now.
Nobody gets out of their way to do things like that anymore. Everything has lost it's color and meaning for the sake of profit...

My friend E and I have been toying with the idea for a while now in creating an artists community inspired by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and KaiKai KiKi..
our goal is to create completely modernized, super detailed, traditional work to inspire culture and ethics in people all around while at the same time be able to bring forth our own identity :- )

this society revolving around obsession with money and commodities, and constant bombardments of media broadcast by corporations, succeeding in brainwashing the general public have alienated people from themselves from who they really are....

us, as natural, organic beings.
through images, through the mere power of pure, ethical art, people could be influenced and their natural senses would wake them back to be reminded of our roots....


we could have our own little community on the web.
and perhaps encourage other people to create their own artistic communities.
more people=more power

who knows where it could lead?

What do you guys think?? Please give me some honest feedback...!!!

with love,
S.Jin

(Arthur Rackham)

only mildy interested

(koitsukihime)

i am currently sitting in the school library attempting to do homework, but i can't seem to concentrate... even though there are so many things i need to do

i have been slightly irritated with some people i know lately. Like i found out from my bestie that this one girl whom i've known since middle school, who also has somewhat of a very jelous personality, proclaim she doesn't understand how in the world i got into the school that i am in right now.

frankly, i don't need that bull crap from someone like her who spends her days doing drugs, whining about her parents and fucking ugly boys, not even TRYING to do anything, and she barely even goes to community college. so what makes her think she can handle real college?

i WORKED my ass off to get to where i am now. some people these days just expect things to be handed over to them on a fucking sliver platter.

and i don't need people whom i dont' even have the slightest interest in knowing all the way across the states bitiching at me and making me feel like a bad person cuz i'm not "responding to them on myspace" or what have you. first of all, i don't even KNOW them, they don't even introduce themselves and just because we'v exchanged a few words, they suddenly expect to become best buddies and have me DEVOTE myself to them online?? LALALA?? geez!!!

and i find myself being more and more jelous of my fellow classmates who are going on the Paris trip. one of my friends who is going, is getting all worked up to lose weight just so that she could look good for the french boys, and it kind of annoys me; like, she's using her grandparents' money to go to paris just so that she could oggle at hot french boys??? she prolly won't even get to see any with having to rush from one museum to another, taking notes and doing assignments, under big heavy coats and sloshing around their rain boots in the horrid spring/winter season! all i can say is that she's going for the wrong reasons and will be disapointed = _ =
then again, that is only my jelousy speaking. deep down, i know she deserves to go. she works harder than any student i ever knew and she better have a good time ; A ;

*pants* okay... i just needed to get that off my chest...

now~ on to more pleasant things~!!!

during the weekend, i've been submerged inside my house feeling like a sleepy fuzzy creature, sleep walking through the rabbit hole, that is my home; keeping under the blankets to keep warm and getting lost in the world of harry potter for hours on end. i feel like it is too cold to do anything else, and i crave for thick soup, buttery bread, and sweets!

(ps. i am in love with professor lupin ; A ; i definately have a thing for worn out, older young men who are knowledgeable and quite polite! <3 teehee (i.e Louis from interview with the vampire. ahaha....!!! WHY!??!?!?!? ; A ;)

when night falls around 10pm, i seem to have properly awaken. i finally get out of bed, plop myself in front of my desk and start drawing like a mad woman! deep into the night until dawn, until my right hand begin to cramp and the slow slow slow melody of grizzly bear and yann teirson haunting, and dripping from one ear to the other.

i feel myself more and more becoming less and less interested in the environment that surrounds my "reality" nowadays.

i walk down the hallways of school, lazily casting an eye at the wall which is decorated with artwork; only mildy amused at the work my fellow artists has done.... and to tell you the truth, most of them aren't so amusing.

it's really not all that bad, but Los angeles is just not the place i'd want to be.

maybe it is Mr Sylvester that is catching up to me again. As i feel the tips of his familiar, cold hard fingernails tapping against my shoulder, i don't feel as scared of him as i used to.

Because at least he is a creature born from my imagination, a very good relief compared to some of the people that i am surrounded by nowadays and depressing modernizations...

i don't quite find Mr Sylverster as depressing anymore, but rather, a martyr from my secret little world, holding the door open to that familiar world of dizzy perfume breaths, roses, wreathes of lacey collars.
"welcome back, prince" he whispers...

and the most wonderful part is,,, is that the door is always left slightly ajar for me, like leaving a back door open a crack for the kitty to enter whenever he/she's done with their night explorations and adventure.

My hair is getting long enough to be able to shape into fun styles!!! i'm planning on getting curlers and doing some shopping with bestie next week. I'm thinking of buying some deer taxidermy at Necromance... and organic soap bars and tea leaves... i'm also in desperate need of some new clothes... but i've been less interested in clothes lately and more interested in filling up my inventory with things that only English grannies like T 0 T ill have some pictures to post soon :- )

(pssst: i'm considering turning into a witch for a while, making placebo medicines in little glass jars, lighting black candle sticks, and practicing tarot cards and tea leaf reading)

meanwhile, i'll be crouching by the candle in my favorite little place sipping sweet black rose tea into my veins, baking cupcakes and having midnight chats with bestie....

and there is dorian in the garden... as beautiful as ever...

i have been avoiding him for so long i don't know when the last time i ever mentioned him.

Uncanny and Madness

When i was younger, i remember visiting a website called, The Fantasy Farm... and it was because of this website that i first got introduced to the world of fantasy through pre-raphaelite art...
The website was set up like a virtual adventure, as if you have just ventured into an unknown land faraway, and entering different parts of the world to visit princesses, knights, dragons, fairies, mermaids, unicorns, and magic.
i used to visit that "place" everyday, as it linked to hundreds of other magical "sites" that are similarly set up.
the eerie music floating through the speakers put me in a sort of trance, the images whisking me away into a new lang of boundless possibilities and adventure...
as long as i could remember, i have always been into drawing and writing stories. the diaries i ever kept turned into fantastical made-up stories, starring me as the main character.

(i realized that i could naturally put myself in a sort of mental trance at will.)
like i could induce myself to become in a state of mind as that of a person who smoked weed and immerse my senses into feeling different atmospheres/auras depending on my environment. (such as a room with poor furnishings and blank white walls that one often see's in office buildings often greatly horrifies me. i know it's illogical and i cannot explain how being in places like those with flourescent lights effects me in such a disturbing manner. it's a mental thing.)

So today, when we learned about the pre-raphaelite movement and the brotherhood in modern art history class, i was most excited to see similar images and paintings that have inspired me when i was younger.

the pre-raphaelite brotherhood were a bunch of young males around the same age as i, who were allianced with a purpose to bring back medieval crafts into a society that was turning mechanized/industrialized, which to them, was a horrifying prospect.

Pre-raphaelite art was a challenge to the traditional art of classicism. their purpose in their art was to go back and renew the pure and ethical purpose of art. (which was simply the act of creating art). They're art were expressed as a narration. Through contexts of symbols, and subjects, they told stories with themes of moral values.
They signed their paintings anymously as "PRB". They painted these extremely detailed paintings, observed from nature. their details were thus, that it took them a whole week just to cover several inches of their painting. Every single details are precise, creating an effect of "heightened realism".

Beatrix Potter's artwork had a pre-raphaelite-ish style in the sense that eveything is revealed in her artwork through precise detail.

i thought that it was pretty uncanny how the goal/methods of pre-raphaelites were something that i've always been attempting to create in my own artwork. (of course, my own work was devoid of any morality, and cannot possibly compare to the superb quality of pre-raphealite context).

and my strange, uncannily strong attraction towards boys with pale skin and flaming red hair were also something that the pre-raphaelites considered to be the ultimate beauty in females.

coincedence much?

or maybe having been exposed to pre-raphaelite art at an early age have influenced my purpose without me even being concious of it??

before this, i wasn't even aware that these kind of work had a name under pre-raphaelite!

after having learned of the brother hood, i thought it would be amazingly wonderful to have my own little brotherhood (well.. sisterhood) creating completely modernized, super detailed work that goes against the growing industrialized/mechanized/ business-centered society.
this soceity revolving around obsession with money and commodities, and constant bombardments of media broadcasted by corporations, suceeding l in brainwashing the general public have alienated people from themselves from who they really are....

us, as natural, organic beings.
through images, through the mere power of pure, ethical art, people could be influenced and their natural senses would wake them back to be reminded of their roots....

i remember, how me and E even talked earlier about forming a group of artists with similar passions/aesthetical values, but at the same time be able to bring forth our own individual identity/style. like Murakami's "KIKI KAIKAI" thing.

we could have our own little community on the web.
and perhaps encourage other people to create their own artistic communities.
more people=more power

who knows where it could lead?

it's a pretty wonderful idea, but im still somewhat timid about it...?


giorgio de chirico

i'm doing my modern art paper on giorgio de chirico. i'm not too fond of his work, but his theories upon art and metaphysical aesthetics are something that i do want to study more into...

the handwritten exerpt by giorgio de chirico under the image at the beginning of this post was something that i was able to COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY relate to!!!

lately, i've been slipping into deep mental states of isolation, to the point where i once saw a picture of a baby with it's lips puckered.
of course, it's got to be one of the most cutest things on earth to any person.

but at that moment, it struck me as being horribly grotesque, as i was looking at it from an alien perspective....
something about the way the lips were puckered, the skin around it stretched upwards....
i don't know what it was.
at other times, i find myself being fascinated by the process of how people eat using forks and knives, placing food on glass plates.... we created plates just to serve as portable clean surfaces to put our food on to hold the food together more proficiently and so that the food wont make a mess of other surfaces...
SUCH SOPHISTICATATION we people display every single day, every moment without even being aware of our strange practices. little girls playing patty cakes and saying nursery verses or joining hands to create a cirlce and spinning around to pass the time...
to an outsider or a different organism from another world/planet, it's like "WHAT THE FUCK??? WOA!! AMAZING!"
and how funny these bodies are shaped! everyone looks the same with their heads proportioned to their shoulders,, stomache, etc...... arms that extends from the shoulders that splinter into 5 little sticks called fingers.
and how we created these communities, setting up habitats in plastered structures next to one another with white picket fences marking our territory, in order to live peacefully with one another. with our made up rules, boundaries and system to which we act accordingly because we probably won't know what else to do with ourselves if we don't!!!

my God!!!

well, enough of my psychotic rambling

here are some gorey scans i promised!

this one is called the untitled book

as u might all already know, gorey makes the most depressing little emo stories in the world.
the one i've uploaded today, which is actually prolly my favorite from gorey, is filled with strange animals and mumbo jumbo!!
YAAAAAAAAAAY