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!!

Proust and the Proust questionnaire

Even my dearest friend who studied literature thinks Proust's text can be quite painful to swallow, it might be hard to imagine someone who was trained to be an engineer loves Proust. Yes I do. But his work is not meant to be swallowed. It has to be chewed, carefully, thoughtfully, until it resonates with your mind, perfectly aligns with your feelings, and you will understand why he is one of the most sophisticated writers in human history.

Still in his teens, his friend asked him to answer a series of questions about life, feelings and aspirations. These questions were very difficult to answer even for adults. But our dear Proust, not surprisingly, nailed it. If you are interested to know Proust's answers, read here. Since he was so famous, the questionnaire was then named after him.

Here is my take. I had fun thinking through each of these questions. I strongly recommend you to try them too! Enjoy! :)


1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?

I don't think perfect happiness really exists. But the illusion of perfect happiness can exist retrospectively in a form of consciously or unconsciously manipulated memory. And people are happy only when they have the desire to be happy.

2. What is your most marked characteristic?

Contradiction: Simple and complicated. Artsy and scientific. Passionate and cold. Timid and adventurous. Everything comes in pairs.

3. What is your greatest fear?

Not being loved.

4. Which historical figure do you most identify with?

I can only think of Yves Saint Laurent.

5. Which living person do you most admire?

I thought there would be many. But in the end I can only think of my mom.

6. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

I can't force myself to do the things I don't like or stop doing the things I like.

7. What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Dishonesty.

8. What is your greatest extravagance?

To have an unlimited amount of time to do only the things I love.

9. What is your current state of mind?

Slightly upset because Q8 seems to be unachievable.

10. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Courage. I consider it a necessity instead of a virtue.

11. On what occasion do you lie?

Either to someone so important that I can't afford to upset, but not important enough to sacrifice my happiness. Or to others who are too unimportant to feel guilty.

12. What do you most dislike about your appearance?

It depends. Sometimes nothing. Sometimes everything.

13.  Which living person do you most despise?

Those who pretend they like you more than they really do, to get the attention more than they really deserve.

14. What is the quality you most like in a man?

Elegance.

15. What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Elegance, too.

16. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

"I don't care!"

17. What or who is your greatest love of your life?

Myself and this is very sad.

18. Which talent would you most like to have?

To love everything I think I love truly, deeply, madly.

19. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

To live my childhood again with my current mentality.

20. What do you consider as your greatest achievement?

I make a few people happy simply because I exist.

21. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

Myself as a man but with the memory of being a woman.

22. Where would you like to live?

Paris. Anywhere with someone loves me I love.

23. What is your most treasured possession?

My boundless curiosity.

24. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Living under the fear of a miserable future.
Wake up from a dream where you see the one you love who is lost forever in real life.

25. What is your favourite occupation?

To lose track of time in art of all forms. Writings, paintings, music, nature, love.

26. What do you most value in your friends?

Communication through the brain to share the thoughts and feelings. Not through non-sense or emoji.

27. Who are your favourite writers?

Oscar Wilde. Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Milan Kundera. And the painters who put their creative mind into words, most notably Vincent Van Gogh.

28. Who is your hero of fiction.

If life is considered a work of fiction, then Yves Saint Laurent.

29. Who is your favourite artist?

Renaissance artists: Michelangelo, Raphael. Portrait painters: Velasquez, Rembrandt. Tortured masters: Goya, Van Gogh

30. Who is your favourite musician?

Chopin.

31. Who are your heroes in real life?

My future husband.

32. What is it that you most dislike?

Losing control of my time for someone/something that doesn't worth my time.

33. What is your greatest regret?

I have lost the feeling of being a child as I grow up.

34. How would you like to die?

Right after my own funeral. So that I know how I would be remembered.

35. What is your motto?

"Life is too important to be taken seriously"  - Oscar Wilde