More self-portrait

I used to think training myself as a portrait painter by drawing self-portraits is a good idea. Yet it is still sort of a good idea except you have to put up with a bad model.

Salute to all the models I have painted. Now I understand how difficult it is to hold a smile that doesn't look actually creepy. 

The inevitable self portraits

I think it's quite obvious that I developed a distinct passion in making portraits. I can comfortably call myself anti-social but interestingly I can connect to people by looking at them, not by talking to them. I believe everyone was born with a unique kind of beauty, but it's way too often destroyed by the popularity of photos. Actually people are so used to look at photos they lost the ability to appreciate the beauty of men in their purest form. They are trained to admire makeups and photoshops instead. How sad!!

Every portrait painter that I love with all my heart, namely Rembrandt, Velazquez, Van Dyck, Mancini and Morelli are all famous for their self-portraits too. This may feed the common misunderstanding that all artists are narcissistic but no, it’s not (always) the case. The fact is, to make a good portrait you need to feel connected to your model, if there is one at all. Therefore self-portrait is inevitable in the journey of becoming a portrait painter. Who else, except yourself that you can understand better? Of course not everyone understands themselves that well to begin with but that’s exactly what makes self-portraits interesting too: they change with time. It reveals a lot about the painter’s inner self, probably more than he would love to, but there is no way to hide. Real art can’t lie.

So the purpose of writing the above paragraph is 2-fold: 1) to let readers understand how important it is for a portrait painter to make self-portraits and 2) to mentally prepare readers that there will be A LOT of self-portraits coming in this blog. Yah I mean it. And no I am not narcissistic. I promise. 

Quick update

No I haven't given up anything: I am still drawing (and now painting too!), reading, cooking, home decorating, exercising, learning french (among many other things) and wanting to write my blog.

But from the extended list you understand it's really hard for me to find time to sit down and write, especially when I (still) have a full time job :-P

So last week, as part of my routine, I got myself some white flowers. Yes always white. Whatever they are, they have to be white.

Peruvian lily is always my favourite. But they are from Amsterdam and we do not always have them in Hong Kong. It happened I bumped into something as lovely as this one. I have been calling it

*My secret fountain of grace, elegance and inspiration*

I am not exaggerating. 

Totally inspired by this beautiful *secret fountain of grace, elegance and inspiration*, I made 5 drawings at home. I cannot be more grateful for how they stayed exactly the same as the photo for nearly 2 WEEKS! My dear, I really can't ask for more.

So here are my works, in chronological order of the time I made them. :)

I promised myself I will write more often *ahem*

A sketch of eternal elegance

I have been really into Hepburn recently. She is an inspiration to me in many ways. Of course no woman on earth doesn't want to look exactly like her. But chances are even if you do, you can't get her grace. It's beyond the clothes you wear, the handbag you carry, the make-ups you put on. 

So much has been said about how inner beauty is eternal, I am not repeating the trivial facts. Everybody knows what is the right thing to do but why there is only one Hepburn?

Because it's all too easy to forgive oneself for making the mistakes everyone else is making. It's comfortable to be average, and it takes way too much energy to be different. 

(Er well...this is a getting a little embarrassing but really, ** never say never ** :p )

Portrait of a real model

This is by far the drawing that I am most satisfied with. He's a friend of my teacher and he was very kind to come to the studio last Sunday and let us draw him.

This drawing didn't take me very long but when I was done I just couldn't take my eyes off it. I know it's not perfect but I, for the first time, feel a hint of the presence of the person that I drew. 

Yes I know, presence is a very abstract word. But this is how the drawing of a photo and a real person is different. If properly done, you feel life, you feel the personality, you feel the warmth and texture. Time is frozen and the soul is kept.

Not that I am suggesting I did it. But at least I know where should I go, and it's all that matters :)

The epic fail of a numbers game....LOL

One of my great friends sent me this video the other day for me to appreciate the beauty of the divine symmetry of a circle. I am certainly grateful to his thoughtfulness, especially when I found it infinitely amusing to watch and I almost fell off my chair laughing...because...

* It was so outrageously wrong *

And the mistakes were so trivial that I have to write about it... haha..

Now watch it first..

For the sake of whoever reading this I am skipping all the mathematics. Let's not miss the fun part. But in case you want a full mathematical proof, tell me. This video claimed that the theory was from Nikola Tesla [Read Here]. But I really doubt it. If to my total ignorance, that any of the things I mentioned below is wrong, please let me know.

#1 God may have created the beauty of a circle but he did not make it 360 degrees. Human did. There is nothing divine about it and there is no code.

As to the first question why there are 360 degrees, you can take a historical approach [Read here]. I believe we keep using it because it is a handy number (i.e. it has a lot of factors). If say, we have 100 degrees in a circle instead, how many degrees are there in an internal angel of an equilateral triangle? 16.66666666666666... degrees (instead of the elegant 60). 

#2 When we bisect a circle and sum up the digits of an angle. It doesn't always 'reduce' to 9. 

First of all, why do we have to sum all the digits of an angle by the way. This is making no mathematical sense. But since it's the rule of the game, let's follow.

If a circle is a cake, we cut it once, each slice has 180 degrees. True.
We cut it twice, each slice has 90 degrees. Still True.
We cut it 3 times, each slice has 60 degrees. *FAIL*

His theory only works if we cut the cake in a power of 2 number of times. i.e. 2, 4, 8, 16....

#3 The sum of the internal angles of a polygon doesn't always 'reduce' to 9, too

Well...there is actually an easier way to do so. The sum of all interior angles of a polygon equals to:

(no. of sides - 2) X 180

So what about a polygon with 13 sides? 1980. *FAIL*
(Of course if you sum 1 and 8 it gives 9 too. But there is nothing magical about it. It's just a characteristic of all multiples of 9....)

#4 No. We don't call this a "singularity"...

If we divide 1 by 0, this is a singularity. It appears when a mathematical function is indifferentiable or discontinuous. [Read here]

#5 Nor a "vacuum", unless he's referring to quantum mechanics... 

*shake head* [Read here]

#6 These are not vectors "communicate" an "outward divergence", unless he's referring to fluid mechanics...

*sigh* [Read here]  

#7 This is not linear duality either. It's a programming technique for optimization...

*cross arms*  [Read here] 

#8 Yes this is meaningless. But no this is not even numerology. This is just a (failed) numbers game.

*face palm* [Read here]

# 9 And above all, his explanation of all these "reduce to 9" thingy left me speechless....

"9 models everything and nothing simultaneously"... I wonder if I should understand this sentence as science or literature, because neither way seems to make any sense....

My infinite astonishment converges elegantly into a single exclamation of

W.T.H.

Fail again. Fail better

Let me explain why I haven't been posting my art recently. It was because...I failed. Again and again,  I failed.

I failed so many times I think I am allowed to feel defeated. Then my friend said to me:

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

-Samuel Beckett

I wonder why he can never run out of good quotes.


I failed not because I couldn't draw accurately. Instead I was non-selectively accurate, making my drawing extremely trivial and vulgar. I knew something was wrong but I couldn't find the missing link.

I thought it was my very naive lines. I tried to copy my teacher's drawings it didn't work. I tried to copy the Italian masters it didn't work. I hit a dead end. So today, I decided to have a little chat with my model - a plaster cast.

I looked at her closely, noticing she was strikingly beautiful. Slightly plump by modern standard, but nonetheless extremely elegant and feminine. I asked her why was she so elegant. She looked down, and ever so slightly she smiled. It was a very dreamy smile, as if my question had just woke her up from a beautiful dream.

Was she sleepy? No. Sleepy was not the right word. She was calm. Very relaxed. Very comfortable. She was surrounded by a magical aura.

So then I got back to my seat and started to draw as she continued to give me that dreamy look. Eventually, my teacher signalled a bare pass.

I believe I failed because I didn't understand what I was drawing. I drew the correct shape but the soul slipped right through my hands.

And it seems my effort on the lines was not completely wasted. Out of nowhere I started to create my very own dancing lines... Ok may be they are not dancing yet. They are more like just tapping the feet (off the beat).



But at least, I fail better.

Hey! Buddies!!