Hmmm a plateau in drawing?

Finished 2 portraits in a row, both of them from a photo by Irving Penn.

Don't get me wrong I still enjoy drawing people a lot. But I am also screaming for something new.

Wish I have the skills I need to visualise the things beyond what I see....

A beautiful book: A beautiful fall

It all started with a Yves Saint Laurent movie that I watched back in early Dec 2014. I wrote about it [Click]. And I drew something like 4-5 Yves Saint Laurent in a row [Click and Click]. Then I bought a book, and it took me nearly 2 months to finally finish reading it....

Well in fact, I think I have spent more time on Google and Wikipedia than on the book itself.

The Beautiful Fall: Fashion, Genius and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris

[Click here to reach amazon page] because you probably can't get it anywhere in Hong Kong

It was not a huge book (around 400 pages). The kindle version is selling for only USD 11.99. Considering the author spent 5.5 years running around the world interviewing some 130 celebrities, this book certainly worth your time and money. As a matter of fact, this is actually the only book that I read EVERY SINGLE WORD from forward to epilogue, even the appendix and thank you notes. I think I don't really need to tell you how much I love this book.

But beware. You need to enjoy the book with an open mind. You need to be completely open about people being gay, about people taking drugs, people acting completely reckless, living in ecstasy and ready to burn themselves alive. It's a brutally honest book about youth, about how the most beautiful people turned into sad, old and lonely souls. How talents turned into sorrow, fantasy turned into depression. The first half of the book takes you to the wonderland of Paris in the 1970s, "the glorious excess". Then the second half of the book kicks you back to the reality, where you can almost see with your eyes how exactly these "beautiful" people "fall".

I'd call it a very sad book despite it is all about the most glamorous people on the planet. Life is cruel and whatever happened to these people will happen to me and you, too. You'd see a little bit of yourself from everyone. You can be a kid who refused to grow up. You can be a successful person who stuck in your past. You can be completely clueless. You can be striving hard. No matter how you're living your life, time flies. The sands in the hourglass will keep slipping through your fingers. And one day, you will wake up and wonder how your hair turned grey.

There are a lot of quotes that I'd love to share from this book. But I have chosen these 2 by Yves Saint Laurent, both in his later years. It perfectly resonates with the emptiness that the beautiful book left me:

****

"People think decadence is debauched. 

Decadence is simply something very beautiful that is dying. 

It's a beautiful flower that is dying 

and sometimes you have to wait a very long time for another flower to come along."

****

"The magnificent and pitiful family of the hypersensitive are the salt of the earth. 

I, without knowing it, was a part of that family. It is my own. 

I did not choose this tragic descent, 

but through it I was able to rise to the heavens of creativity, 

where I come across the fire-makers that Rimbaud spoke of, 

discovering myself and understanding that the most important encounter in one's life 

is that with oneself."

*I don't belong to the hypersensitive family...do I??

Je suis Charlie. Nous sommes Charlie.

Sorry if it's a little too scary. But it was indeed scary.

The victims are now forever separated from their families. What have they done wrong? What harm did they do?

I am Charlie. We all are Charlie. We say what we have to say.

My heart is with Paris, my favourite city in the world.

15 mins sketch of Picasso

This is a very quick sketch. It took me no more than 15 mins.

I drew Picasso on a black piece of paper using a white pencil. Very rough. Very brief. Very messy. But at the same time very interesting. 

I really love the texture of the pencil I was using. It was very soft and dry. It felt like using white chalk on a blackboard. The white was very intense. The problem was I couldn't sharpen it too much and the white powder was all over the place. The process however, was really enjoyable. I really love this speedy sketch. 

LOVE IT! <3

Hope I'd gain better control of the pencil as I progress ;-)

First sketch in 2015!

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Here is my first sketch in 2015. Started yesterday and completed just now. Another one of the Irving Penn series. :-)