Withdrawal Symptoms

…suck.

I haven’t drawn/written in almost two months.

I say almost because last week I managed to finish colouring in a sketch that had been sitting around for weeks, luring me away from my lab readings and assignments to spend time with my lonely coloured pencils.

(Which makes it sound like I relapsed while trying to recover from addiction. Hah.)

I try to draw a least one picture a month. And when I say draw, I really mean paint/colour/ink/CG/whatever an artwork. It has to be finished for it to count.

I currently have two linearts to paint and one half-finished CG. It really kinda hurts when they’re so close and I can’t touch them.

The last two months have been hard because there aren’t enough hours in a day, or minutes in an hour. University actually kinda sucks. I’m usually tired because I stay up late to do my readings and finish assignments. And after one assignment, you get another. Lab quiz after lab quiz. Analysis after essay after essay after lab report after analysis after essay. And now exams.

(Yeah, I whinge like no tomorrow. Deal with it.)

It’s pretty bad when instead of studying at uni like everybody else; you hide at a desk in the library and secretly draw. And I hunch over so people can’t see what I’m doing and I get really paranoid whenever people walk past and I quickly use a book or page to hide it.

(I’m a loser, but at least I know it.)

My mum asked me once whether I like drawing more than writing, or writing more than drawing. I told her that was a silly question.

When I am unable to write, I draw. And when I am unable to draw, I write. That’s it.

Maybe it’s a bit easier to deal with not writing because I have a serious love/hate relationship with it. Really, it would take a whole other blog post to explain that. But it’s okay to not be physically writing, because I am permanently writing away in my head.

Honestly. That’s all I do.

I have difficulty with words and arranging them on the page like I want. But I’m always, always thinking and planning and creating stories in my mind. It could just be a certain person I glanced at in the bus, or how that boy was lighting up the girl’s cigarette for her, or the way the overweight man averted his gaze when I walked past as if he was ashamed. I just keep thinking and thinking and swallowing up all these stories that appear. It’s really crowded in here.

I just have to hold on, because in a couple of weeks I’ll be able to draw and write again.

But in the end, it’s a cycle, isn’t it? As much as it pains me, there’ll be assignments and work and life outside of my whimsical thoughts. 

Maybe this is also an addiction I can’t fight.

Maybe I’m just truly diseased beyond cure.

…it’s getting really crowded in here.

Cold Hands

Random fact: I have permanently cold hands.

True story. I constantly have people who grab my hands and comment: “Your hands are so cold!” or “Why are you so cold?” or “Do you live in a freezer?”

(That being said, I don’t hold hands with everybody. And everybody doesn’t run up to me to grab my hands. That was a hypothetical statement compiling previous occurrences. Duh.)

I think I just have permanently low body temperature. I’m cold-blooded. (in more ways than one, haha.) That doesn’t actually mean I feel cold all the time, I just feel cold. In fact, I handle cold weather pretty well. But because I am physically cold to touch, other people get the wrong idea. Especially my mum. She enjoys frequently running onto the balcony with an outstretched coat yelling: “Wear a coat/jacket/jumper/something woolly/balaclava(?) etc!”

“But I’m not cold!” As in, I’m cold, but I’m not actually cold.

Interestingly, it’s mainly just my hands that are always cold. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, because I do everything with my hands. Because I have to draw and paint and write and type and play piano. Basically, I’m screwed without them.

I don’t know if you have a particular body part you need the most. (Let’s steer your thoughts away from the reproductive organs, children.) For example, if you were a singer, and you lost your voice. Perhaps you’re an eloquent person, someone who thinks out loud, a people-person, a great speaker and you couldn’t use your mouth anymore. I had a friend once who greatly overreacted when she injured her leg because she thought she wouldn’t be able to walk again and her sporting life was over.

Personally, I think if I lost my hands I would be upset for quite a while, but then I would go straight back to doing what I do regardless.

(Why yes, I do frequently consider what would happen if I randomly lost my limbs, because I’m weird like that.)

I think writing would be a bit more difficult because it’d be hard to write and rewrite and edit and express exactly the words I want. I’m pedantic when it comes to writing, and dictating what I want to someone else simply wouldn’t do. Besides, I will go over a single sentence or section hundreds of times, rearranging or changing one word out of many until I get exactly what I want. I don’t think there are many transcribers that will put up with me for that.

When it comes to art and drawing, it’d be like starting from scratch. But I know that if I lost my right hand, I’d use my left. If I lost both, then I’d use my feet or my mouth. My feet would need a lot of training though, have you ever tried gripping a pencil/pen with your toes?

Playing piano would probably be the hardest. But not impossible, have you heard Liu Wei? (He plays Mariage d’armour better than me and he has no hands!) He is absolutely amazing. His commitment and determination is so profound that it almost makes me cry.

I have dreams too, and I want to achieve them. I don’t think I’m someone who will, or can let go of these things, even if the biggest obstacles get in the way. I have a frustratingly relentless stubborn streak, and it will probably only get worse if by some off chance I had a run-in with a chainsaw.

I understand that I’m someone who constantly gets knocked down over and over again, and I know that this blog records a lot of my frustration and despair over my failings, but I’m also someone who plays piano even when my hands are frozen. It actually really hurts when your hands are so cold and your fingers are so numb you can hardly move them, but I push them to play music anyway.

(I also have a habit of sitting on my hands to keep them warm. It looks weird.)

Liu Wei says: “I have two options- I can die as fast as possible, or I can live a brilliant life. And I chose the latter.”

I don’t think that only relates to people with disabilities or disadvantages, I think it says something to everyone. For me personally, it means I won’t stop drawing or writing or playing music, no matter how cold my hands are, even if they drop off.

how we broke up

the world is so oddly obsessed with falling in love.
everywhere we look, in every part of society, in our books, our movies, our music, our tv shows, our conversations.
the world is obsessed with telling stories, but all stories of the same thing.

when you watch your Disney movies or you read your fairytales or watch those formulaic chick-flicks, it’s all about how they fell in love.
it’s about how guy-meets-girl, girl-meets-guy, lover-meets-lover.
how they fall head-over-heels in love, how they clamber over obstacles in their getting together, how they end up happily ever after.
how they share that final (or first) kiss with the exact angle of the sunlight creating sun spots on the camera and zooming out and panning around and around the couple.
as if they’re the only people in the world.

but there is no happily-ever-after.

that is why the movie ends.

because nobody wants to write about the arguments and the fights and the husband storming out of the house and drowning his sorrows in alcohol and the wife running off with the boss and being involved in a scandalous office affair.
they don’t mention the mess with the divorce and the arguments of who wants the kids, because honestly, THEY JUST WANT THE DAMN HOUSE.
and maybe the relationship works out for a while, until eventually the interest dies down, because let’s be honest here, nobody is going to be passionately in love with someone like that for ever and ever.
people grow old. (and wrinkly.)
and the leading man is going to look not as hot anymore, and the lady will have gained weight and developed bad eating habits, and maybe the man has been having too much cholesterol or whatever and now has bowel problems. (and bad gas.)

you will not always be in love the way you feel right now, right this instance.
and i don’t want to hear you scream BUT WE’RE IN LOVE and IT’S MEANT TO BE and WE JUST WANT TO BE TOGETHER WHY CAN’T YOU SEE THAT.

but the world doesn’t want to watch your relationship crash and burn. they don’t want to see the bad bits that come stuck with the shiny bits. they don’t want to see you in your marriage counseling and your arguments and your drunken fights and your crying-yourself-to-sleep.

love should not be how-we-got-together.
it should be how-we-stayed-together.

i happen to like writing about unrequited love most of all. when i count on my fingers the novels filling up the hard-drive and the dim recesses of my brain (and heart), they seem to turn back to that.

…
i wonder why?
i like to think about things like that. i like to touch upon the things that didn’t happen, that will never happen. i want to write about the people that almost touch, but never meet halfway. i want to paint pictures and weave illusions of almost-but-not-quite.

i want to write about falling out of love.

there are way too many love stories out there.
so i am going to write a love story in reverse.


this is the story of how we broke up:

so i’m a little bit like a hopeless romantic.
except without the “romantic” part.

therefore i am just a hopeless.

i think we should have known that before we started out. perhaps it was obvious from the beginning, that some people can’t click the way that puzzle pieces fit together.
not. all. neat. like. that.

but you were determined and i was naive
and my mum told me once that how would i know unless i gave you a chance?
but i don’t like taking chances

because we used to learn probability in maths and did you know the probability of you and i was close to zero?

so i thought i thought i thought
and i said in a tiny voice i said
“okay”

i think we did very well in pretending for a long time
well at least i was pretending.
and you were pretending that you weren’t pretending and that i was only pretending that i was pretending
Dr Phil says pretence is bad in a relationship.
everyone listens to Dr Phil.

i think i maybe liked you a little bit.
but a little bit is not enough.
because there is no equals sign between us, because the arrow between you and me is greater on your end and smaller on mine
i don’t want to be the small end on the greater-than sign.

but i thought i thought i thought
maybe we can force these puzzle pieces together until their corners are bruised and their colours come off.

and maybe i didn’t like you enough, but i liked:
your voice
your smile
your shirts with the stupid slogans on them

and i liked the ground where you stood and the places that you visited and the books that you read and the chair that you always sat on in class.

but you should know that i’m a realist.
and you’re a dreamer.

i confess that i would’ve liked to hold your hand for a little longer.

but it’s harder to pull apart paper after the glue has dried. and i don’t want to leave you full of holes.

i tried to get the words out of my throat but they got caught halfway and when they fell out they hit the ground too heavy and rush out like a tide and i’m never going to get your expression out of my mind or forget your rueful smile and the one that is probably still on mine because maybe i have ended up liking you and you have stopped liking me and maybe my greater-than sign is bigger than yours now and i-

“iamsorryandihadfunthankyouandgoodbye”

…sayonara baby.

three weeks worth.

yep. this is three weeks worth of art. i wanted to time exactly how long it was in hours, but i didn't manage to find a stopwatch. anyway, i started this on the 4th so now it's been exactly 3 weeks worth of work, on and off.

i hate having to work in such small intervals, but between university, work and hideously large amounts of university readings, i try to draw as much as possible in the little spaces of time i have left over.

i used my brand new graphite pencils. :) my favourite one is the 4B, i think. and i feel sorry for my B, because it was brand new and already it's so much shorter than all its comrades in their little steel tin.
i recently got a kneadable eraser too (there goes all my hard-earned money again!), and i can't get over the fact that it's blue!

oh, and in case you don't know, it's Ikuta Toma, a Japanese actor who i'm a really big fan of. :)

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i wonder who i should draw next?

making friends with my tablet

i've always thought of myself as a resolutely traditional artist. being part of an online art community, it really seems that digital work is the way to go these days. but for me, my gallery has always stuck stubbornly to traditional work.

maybe i'm a bit behind the times?














it took me so long to really pick up watercolour and even now, i still have a long way to go. i'm kind of shocked at how easy it is to paint digitally. i kinda just went at it, followed a tutorial or two, and already i think i'm getting the hang out it.

maybe it's this convenience, the option to ctrl-z, the no-mess-and-no-setting-up-and-packing-up art materials that makes digital painting so attractive.

i'm the slowest painter in the world. right now, it seems that i'm painting digitally a bit faster. that being said, this artwork still took me over 6 hours so it looks like i won't be giving up that title any time soon!

The Igloo

Once upon a time there was a man who was obsessed with beautiful things.

He spent his lifetime collecting beautiful things- beautiful objects, everything- in order to find the epitome of what he believed was beauty. His house- no, his mansion- for it had to be the best house that there ever was- was filled to the brim with this collection of his.
There was nothing substandard in the entire household, from the carefully maintained (rococo) furniture to the (oriental) carpets stretched out over the (Macassar ebony) wood floor.

His maids and servants were hand chosen, the best in their business, immaculately dressed and presented. His butler was dressed to the nines, with his pinstriped suit and his carefully parted hairdo. The man himself was careful to inspect his own face (flawless) in the mirror (bought at an outrageous price from a heritage museum) every morning. For if such a beautiful collection of objects were to have a less than beautiful owner, what would become of the world?

The mansion had an extension attached to the back of it. It was large and metallic- carefully cleaned and shined every day. Shaped like a long rectangle, it was something akin to a ballroom-sized freezer. This was called the Igloo.

Out of all the beautiful treasures in his collection, the man would place his most favourite things inside the igloo. The Igloo was kept at a deathly cold temperature in order to preserve the man’s most beautiful objects. In order to enter the Igloo, one had to put on a specially designed suit and glass helmet to protect themselves from the cold. The door to the Igloo also had multiple layers of insulation to stop the cold from seeping into the mansion. The door had to be opened and closed immediately when the Igloo was to be entered.

Despite all the magnificent artworks, marble statures and incredible ice sculptures collected in the Igloo, the man was unsatisfied. For he had yet to find the most beautiful object in the world. He did not know what this object would be, whether it would be living or alive, and whether he could fit it into his Igloo.

Then the man fell in love.

Marianne was the most beautiful girl in the world. Her skin was like porcelain and the colour of her eyes like the deepest blue opal. The man immediately brought her to live with him in his mansion. He gave Marianne all that she could possibly want, luxurious gowns to match her beauty, expensive and exotic gifts and all the servants she needed at her service.

But Marianne was unhappy because the man would not touch her.

Indeed, although he showered her with gifts, the man acted as if she were poisonous to him. He refused to stand closer than one metre to her, and would not touch her, not even when he was wearing his specially tailored silk gloves. She wondered if it was because he was afraid of soiling his gloves, but in fact he was afraid of soiling her.

The man was scared of ruining her beauty, he was afraid of dirtying his beautiful Marianne. He would not embrace her, for fear of injuring her delicate frame. He would not hold her hand, for fear of marking her thin hands. He would not touch her face, for fear of bruising her pale skin.

Marianne grew more and more depressed. She thought that she was not beautiful enough to be loved, because the man would not touch her, or walk close enough to look at her properly, like the way he did with his Venus di Milo and the other artworks he owned.

Now Marianne knew that the objects the man treasured the most were kept inside the Igloo. But she had never seen the inside, so she believed she was not precious enough to enter. She thought, if only she was beautiful enough, if only the man loved her enough, she could go inside too. She thought that if she could only peek inside, she would know what she needed to be for the man to love her.

One afternoon, the man came home to find Marianne’s room empty. He checked all her usual spots, but she was nowhere to be found. Panicking, his heart jumping into his throat, he ordered all his servants to search the mansion for her.

The man sat upright in his armchair, his fingers clenched into fists, unable to relax, unable to appreciate any of the decorations or artwork or furniture in the room. All he could think of was Marianne and where she could be, what had happened to her, her beautiful face, her beautiful smile…

Then the butler stepped gravely into the living room. He was dressed in the special suit made for the Igloo. He took off the glass helmet in order to speak:

“Sir, I’ve found the lady. She… She’s in the Igloo.”

“Marianne!” The man leapt to his feet, running through the living room towards the Igloo, knocking over gorgeous vases and polished ceramics as he went. “Marianne, my love!”

“Sir!” His butler cried out, running after him. “Wait, sir!”

The man forgot about the icy temperature, about putting on the suit and helmet before entering the Igloo, so concerned about the love of his life was he. He saw Marianne in the middle of the Igloo, so beautiful was she; only she did not move and would never move again, frozen perfectly under the clear ice, like a monument behind glass.

He threw his arms around her, only before he could even touch that perfect icy skin of hers, he too, froze solid.

The butler, so concerned over his master, had not put his helmet back on while following him.

There was nobody to close the door to the Igloo, and so the coldness seeped into the living room, and then spread throughout the entire mansion like a cancer. And all the maids and all the servants froze in the midst of what they were doing, and all the beautiful possessions in the world crusted over with ice until everything in the mansion was perfectly preserved, beautiful, glittering and untouchable.

It was only a shame that nobody would ever see it.

Dead End

I feel like I'm standing at a dead end.

When I think ahead all I can think about are the little tasks and things at hand that I want/need to do. That's the way my head works. I think in little chunks. You can't ask me if I'm available to do something next week because I don't even know what I'm doing tomorrow. I can think big, I can dream big, but those tasks are not worded in achievable things. Things like becoming an amazing writer, like being a great artist. They are not little steps, they engulf all my little tasks in one.

I think little, but I dream big. At this stage, while I'm still on my holidays in the last free weeks before uni, my head looks like this:

-finish that lineart
-paint that lineart
-organise those hk/japan photos on my harddrive
-finish that fanfiction
-sketch up a new artwork
-do lineart for that new artwork
-read through manuscript submission
-final edit manuscript submission
-send manuscript submission
-get to chapter LX of "The Count of Monte Cristo"
-get to chapter LXXX
-finish the book
-start "The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes"

Those are the kind of miniature goals I set for myself every day. I'm a list person. I write lists for everything, little things like that. I feel like when I can break down larger tasks into smaller bits I am more capable of it. I believe in Divide and Conquer.

I feel really happy when I can cross things off my lists. Being able to throw away a completed list is great. But sometimes I get so attached to that list that I can't throw it away and it just accumulates dust with the rest of the crap on my desk.

I don't know where I'm going.
I don't know where I'm at.
I'm confused. I'm a bit lonely. But I don't terribly want human interaction either.

I'm a bit of a introvert. True fact. I'm borderline, but I tilt more to being introverted. I really think socialising is an effort, but it doesn't mean I have trouble interacting at all.

I think I'm scared.

I can play the carefree optimist easy. I can be completely laid-back and nonchalent to everyone. But when the tasks at hand are too big for me to cut down into pieces, when I'm not sure how I'll climb the mountain, when I can't quite imagine what to do I come face to face with reality. Reality really sucks.

I'm finally being nervous about uni. Don't see any reason why I should be, but I am. But that's not really what I'm scared about.

Con Campbell talked about existential angst at NextGen12 this year. But that's not it either.

I think this world has too many talented people and too many artists sometimes. Even if you become amazing at what you do, you won't stand out from everyone else around you, because they're just as amazing as you are.
I was really happy yesterday morning, but my mood deteriorated later on. I spent all morning on deviantart and then pixiv. Mainly pixiv. This is the thing about pixiv, you either become incredibly inspired or incredibly depressed. Or in my case, both. One after the other.

I got really inspired. I love things like colours and sceneries. I know, I hate landscape photography and still-lives in general, but I adore the landscapes and places that people can create by themselves. I like the additions of purples and violets in the shadows and the blacks. I like the green tinges at the end of the lights. I like artists who can see those extra things and bring places to life.
I like negative space. I like quirky composition. I like simple lineart and flat colours and flat patterns. I like beautiful bright and magnificently deep colours. I like complicated works as well, the obscurest detail, the amount of thought and love and dedication that you can see in artworks.

Ideas and new artworks were already filling up my head. I couldn't wait to get started, to put those sketches on paper. Then I remembered the artwork that I've put off for a year and that I haven't even started. And I could hardly fill in the blank paper.

I feel dead-ended by many things. Things like my art style. I'm breaking out of it, I know, but it's a slow process. I don't want to draw manga/anime for ever. I'm capable of various different styles now. And I want to keep expanding, doing everything. But at the same time, there's that tugging on my sleeve that wants to know my speciality. Because artists should have their own style, right? Because there should be something that people recognize it, that people admire in it everytime. Something that makes people know that it's Banksy.

I've been drawing non-stop for the last years now, but the more I draw, the further away I seem to get. Ah damn, can't I just BE Shaun Tan? Please? Or Benjamin Zhang? I'd like that.

Something else that I'm currently dead-ended by is my writing. I'm about to send off my manuscript submission to an agency I really really want. And I've spent who knows how long of my life researching and reading relevant articles on everything there is to know on formatting, structure and etiquette. But sometimes sources can contradict each other. And what worries me is when I'm rejected, how will I know if it is my writing that is not good enough or my layout? I tell myself it's my writing because I know then that it is my fault and I can do better.

I'll send it this week. Really.

This writing industry is terrifying. Packaging up people's thoughts and creations and hearts and then distributing them. What a job.

It feels like I've given myself a last chance. Like it's almost time to give up on this story and leave a piece of myself behind.

So bloody scared. Scared. Scared. Scared.

I don't like dead ends.