Gaki N Me If you love to talk about the world, love Asian idols, this is the place.

I can't believe this. The USDA found melanie in shrimp feed that the US exports to Panama, Venzuela, Belize, Suriname, Costa Rica, Honduras, Ecuador, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Gambia, Lebanon and CANADA!!! You could read the article here or here. The same binding material that China used for pet food. now I will avoid shrimps at all costs.  By the way, do you know that shrimps are also called the cockroaches of the sea? Did I just spoil your appetite? haha...Here's a little drawing I made.

Today I was practicing on drawing with color pencils and here's my result on black paper.

Thanks to Martin Williams of the Hong Kong Outdoors site for allowing me to use his photos as reference for my future Hong Kong sketches. He has many unique photos different from the commercialized shots of Hong Kong because the outdoors is where his heart is.  I am so happy to have come across his site recently. I have not even seen many of the scenes he has shot in fabulous sunsets when I was growing up in Hong Kong. The first one is a ferry to Cheung Chau Island, which is a favorite weekend short trip for many and where windsurfers hang out. Here's the photo reference. This one is totally done with a 0.7mm mechanical pencil. The second one is Tai Mei Tuk in the northeastern part of the New Territories. Here's the photo reference. I am a bit apprehensive about doing it in color and so used a carbon sketch and wash pencil to do the gray, and dotted some sampans in with the 0.7mm mechanical pencil.

 

Totally had fun reproducing this American Indian mask I saw at the state museum with my son on his field trip. Prismacolor pencils on white background since the colors usually doesn't come out on black paper and for the black, first I used color pencil and then realized the limitation and then overlaid it with charcoal 6B.

I think this is part of the Lantern Festival in Korea where they celebrate the birth of Buddha in April and dates back to the Three Kingdoms Period (57 B.C. - A.D. 676). During the Goryeo Dynasty (918 - 1392), when Buddhism was the state religion, colorful lanterns were strung and festivities were held across the country from palaces to small villages. This one is at Hangang River. No matter how I tried, I couldn't get the red to show up against the black with Prismacolor pencils. Scanning it is worse so the one on the right is a photographed copy of the drawing.

 

TGIF. One more shuttle and I could relax for the weekend. I was dozing off on the deck like a turtle warming itself on a rock while listening to Kinki Kids' I album when suddenly, I opened my eyes and saw layers of darkness of different gradation. Hurriedly I sketched this. It was better without wearing glasses because I couldn't see details but only gradation and didn't get lost in trying to do up the houses or the trees. Done in 2B, 4B, 6B woodless pencils. Before this, I actually also saw a few other pieces I wanted to draw flashing by under the sunlit eyelid. The ballerina one should have darker shades but that's the gist of it. Perhaps in a bit, I'll darken it and put black ink as outline. My first time posting something done with my new 120 pc Prismacolor pencil set.

  

This is Kimura in 1997. When I studied his eyes, he had such an attitude! *faint* and his face is very poignant at certain parts. I could almost feel his contours after a few of his portraits. Free hand no grid.

Tonight I drew Koichi Domoto and I think the top one looks the more mature him and the bottom one is the younger him. Freehand with no grid.

 

I am in the mood to draw. These are by vine charcoal. The two on the right darkest parts are with a carbon pencil which is dark like charcoal without the flake. I love using vine charcoal. It's so easy to erase!!! The first one is my hand, the second is a Nepal girl with baby brother, and the last one is a griffin sculpture in Iran.

  

I'm totally enjoy my long weekend doing nothing but draw. Well, I did translate about fans spotting Kimura in Cannes but the rest of the day, I get to try using my prismacolor pencils and failed yet again. Last night I have already failed repairing my pencil bamboo piece. So earlier, I'm sketching voluminously in charcoal as a revenge, the easiest medium for me.  

 

I splurged on four woodless graphite pencils that have just a thin coating on the outside and the entire pencil is just plain graphite. It is so good. It is heavier but shading is so fast with this pencils. So nice!!!

  

If I say I don't miss Hong Kong, I'm kidding myself. I miss Asia in general. I would like to travel to Hong Kong and stay there for extended period to photograph all that I'm familiar of again, and travel around Asia and do the same and eat local food. Whenever I see the night view of Hong Kong, I miss it so much because it is so pretty, unlike the suburban dark nights over here.  Today, I spent the whole day using color pencils to draw the night scene of Hong Kong while listening to Tony Leung and Lee Soo Young's music. Again it was mostly Prang color pencil which for some reason works very well with black construction paper and an occasional Prismacolor pencil. The left one is my original and the right one has been digitally manipulated by my daughter.  I have come to like my drawing these days that I don't need to fix it anymore unless it is a major flaw.

 

I bought an Interview magazine last year and today, having translated a huge long press conference of Battle of Red Cliff on Tony, I feel like drawing him. So while listening to his album here, I used white charcoal on black contruction paper. This is my first time using white on black, and the first time using stippling in most parts. The original has a nose that was way too long and so I had to fix it a little bit with my graphics program.  The top portion looks more like Tony and the bottom portion looks like someone else. But I like this method definitely. Tony represents a very genuine and warm person for me. It doesn't bother me that I couldn't draw him well because while I was drawing, I am just feeling him through his music. After watching the clip tvbtiger gave me of a brief retrace of his and Andy Lau's career, I think he has a much more relaxed way of life. Andy on the other hand really works too hard. I wonder if Andy even takes the time to smell the flower. Btw, my favorite track is no. 2 In The Past in this album. That is Tony at his best in singing! Followed by track 5 Single Bed, track 7 The Name Of  The Story, track 11 You Are So Hard To Forget, Track 12 Secretly Love You, Track 13 Troubled in Love.


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Okay, I have to confess. I find that drawing Tsuyoshi Domoto is easier than drawing Koichi Domoto because Tsuyoshi has more pronounced features to him than Koichi. Tsuyoshi has a fatter face, a jutting chin and often interesting hairdo's. I drew this while listening to Si and Coward album of his and I would say this is not an exact replica of Tsuyoshi Domoto although I am not going to deny that I tried to draw him but did not succeed totally in an exact replica of him. For that, I just need to use a grid or a graphics program, make it monotone and outline and it would be an exact replica...haha...This one is free hand. I spent almost an hour trying to figure out how to draw the side profile from the nose downwards over the mouth and the chin. To be honest, I started out drawing a black singer with a big mouth and Louis Koo but I kept looking at this magazine photo I have that has a lock of orange highlighted hair that kept calling me. So the motivation to draw this was actually the colored hair, not Tsuyoshi himself...haha... But even my husband thought I have improved finally in drawing people.  It is actually my goal to fill this blog with portraits of my favorite stars, truly, so that surfers will come to look in from time to time if I have drawn so and so yet... Translation of news and articles are not my key goals anymore.

My eyes are really tired these days. I think I have really overworked them last week translating way too many long articles. Even when I sketched some fashion figures, my eyelids wanted to close. But th DK Eyewitness Chinese guidebook really perked me up this afternoon. I tried out some Japanese color pencils and they are not really that good. I seriously have to buy Prismacolor 48 set for around US$39. Sigh...or set of 72 for US$69....*faint* But I am now prefering to work on miniatures. These little ones are super tiny when I drew them. But the graphics program seems to have enlarged it.


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