FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

What a day! A whole day of work, busiest possible schedule, but maintained a good mood and energy levels throughout. Probably because of excellent weather and having beaten a cold off, am filled with positive vibes.

Tonight there was a work-related party were we had to bring along some dishes from our home countries. The photo above are the instruction written by my partner, and illustrated with pacman-like entities by yours truly. How to perform a Tim Tam Slam. I had no idea a Tim Tam Slam was to be performed. For those of you unfamiliar with what this is, now you know. My partner and I are both from Australia, so we baked a Pavlova last night, and I'm quite proud to say, it came out pretty neat.

( Pavlova And More Photos )

Coloured ink and gouache. My attempt at natural media. My cylindrical objects are always so wonky. Happy with the way the light turned out as well.

Tried on a pair of Birkenstock Mary Janes today. Nice, but the price is not nice. I might have bought them, but will have to try them with thicker socks. So I will wear thicker socks to the shop next time. I need a pair of tough, good shoes that will hopefully survive the epic trip next year. Not sure if Mary Janes are the way to go, but.

Inspiration came to me one night from a song (I get most of my inspiration from songs). I might go into more detail once I do the other half of this picture, but right now I’m jsut satisfied at having gotten this much out. It’s almost pretty much exactly as I’d imagined it. All I now want to do is to have the clouds in the background moving and the birds blinking (ala Julian Opie).

My concidering to apply to digital art/new media at ANU is getting stronger, I think. I guess this is sort of a piece of concept art (maybe a bit too specific to be concept art) for that…’that’ being my idea for studio work. The basic story: a girl’s village was raided by a group who are known as the conquistadores. They go around looting a barren land, driving the people into further dispair. One girl has had enough. She goes out to claim her village’s lost gold. But the concept/ideas behind it… I think I want to play around with language, and the effect of language on the viewer.

There are so many things wrong with this from the outset, and I don’t have the brain power to write it out properly, but I’m just enjoying the vibe at the moment. Satisfied that I was mildly able to create something close to my image.

SO KNACKERED TODAY. I'm never really great with exercise and all of that, but today a few of us from work got together to play some sort of soccer-esque game. It was really great to do that again; ahh, the memories from highschool. It was just the most brilliant weather today, not so hot, not so cold (last night was freezing) and it was all kinds of nice and fun. So tomorrow morning my body is going to be moaning, but what can you do. Sports, yakiniku and divine company. What more can you ask on a holiday.

So, I should be putting a porfolio together and all of that, so things would be a little easier when I get home to apply for that course. Same problem I had when I was 18: how on earth do you put together a portfolio? I suppose this is where I should go and consult my larger circle of friends and aquantances. I’m sure there are some people out there who have some tips to offer. Because, really, I feel completely out of the loop. Do I just throw together some images in a digital folder and burn it? Or do I need a nice, fancy, sparkly cover page of some sort? Or do I have to have a hard copy too? (I think for that last question I should consult the course website). And is it like a resume, where I have to show things that are best suited for the content of the course? Or should I have a wide array of things to display my broader interest? Argh, so many questions.

This probably means I should go and read up on the course website again, and after that, consult with some people...

Let’s fess up: I’m a russophile. For some reason, which I can’t realy explain, I’m fascinated by Russia. It probably all started back in high school when we studied the Russian Revolution. My attention was captured on a level which I hadn’t really experienced before. And then it was probably the songs composed by Yoko Kanno and sung by Origa, in Russian, which got me hooked even further. From there my interests went on to broader Russian history (still very limited outside the Soviet era), folk art, folk tales, some songs, the language and film. I don’t actually know about these things in great detail; I’m just scratching the surface.

But Russian films are one of the few films that I actually go out of my way to see. My partner will tell you I’m a real drag when it comes to watching movies, as I usually prefer to do other things rather than watch a film. I don’t usually watch movies, but it seems that I do watch Russian ones.

The weather was god-awful today, but I insisted on going out to Tokyo to get a guidebook for the Dolls Party in December. And I was going to check out the Oshmans to see if they had some sandals I could use next year while traveling; namely a pair of snazzy Teva sandles and mary janes. But apparently, Teva has no presence in Tokyo what so ever. How often is it that you want something in Tokyo but you can only find it in Australia!

Paul and I also went to check out an Henri de Toulous-Lautrec exhibition in Shibuya. It was pretty exciting seeing life-size prints of pictures you'd seen either in books or as reproductions. It must have been because of the bad weather, but it was super spacious and we could get right up to the picutres. I love being able to see the brush strokes, or the paint applied, or the crinkles in the paper. And I must say, I really do like Lautrec's work. It's clear, no nonsense and bold. His composition is so classy without obviously trying to wow and impress (or maybe it comes across that way to me. I think my contemporary brain is too used to seeing compositions that use three point perspective and so on). I likes all the big-name posters such as the Ambassadeure: Aristide Bruant (1892), Avril (1893) and Moulin Rouge (1891) , but I really liked his smaller prints and pictures; magazine covers, scribbled self-portraits and so on. There were works by other artists there as well, and I was surprised to see three prints by Alphonse Mucha. Wasn't expecting it, and it was pretty neat to see the prints up close.

What I really liked about Lautrec's stuff was the faces. They are realistic, individual faces, but drawn with such simplicity. But they are also people you can imagine walking down the street. And some features of the faces are so endearing, like the hook-nose of the old men, the sly eye-lids of the women, the protuding and round chins of some dancers, the theatrica and sometimes unflattering angles of the face in general. And I was saying to Paul, that the peope featured in the posters, which are technically advertisements, are not tarted up and extremely beautiful in the way modern advertising works. Perhaps back in the day these figures were tarted up plently, but there was something in the un-glamourised theatre with it's old-school charm that was really comforting (read: I'm not a real fan of the images of beauty commonly found in contemporary advertisements).

There's a lot more I could say, but I won't. Just that I enjoyed this exhibition immensely. And there was hardly anyone there! Probably because it's a regular work day and the weather was really crap.

I'm really surprised that I'm not a francophile, really. Everything tells me that I should be. I guess I'm too Anglo-Saxon, culturally, to admit that I like French stuff. :P

( Do You Know This Man? )

Hmm. Pseudo-modelded off a photo of a friend. Looks nothing like him…I really want to get better at depicting from life. I feel the shading around the nose and eyes in particular need a bit of work; I already stacked on too much ink, so it came out darker than I would have liked. The ears are always something I need to be extra careful of (and even if I’m careful, it never works out quite right. More practice, I guess).

Having said that, I’m mildly pleased with the way the colours turned out! It’s a little hard to tell from this scan, but this was painted onto one of those tea-stained sheets of watercolour paper I was talking about. The problem though, is that the paper has these really fine, nobbly-rocks-washed-by-the-sea grains on it. I suppose it adds to the flavour and personality of the picture, but when the ink was still layered thin, it really stood out and I felt a bit D:

Coloured ink and what appears to be gouache (can’t actually tell because it’s in Japanese)

I completely forgot to mention, but yesterday I went bowling! I was appaling. Since yesterday was a public holiday, a few of us from work decided to go. It was mostly the Japanese staff, and just me and my partner.

Today is such a sunny day again, I headed over to Yokohama. I’m itching to get my hands on a copy of Towa Tei’s album, I’ve been to a few second hand CD shops but I can’t find this one… I may just have to cough up and get it at the retail price. I’m not sure what I like about his mixes… something quirky, but fun to listen to. Anyway, found two other CDs and bought The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, all for the price of 1000yen. Ha.

Had takoyaki for lunch and ate it in the sun, while people watching.