Xiangshan Campus + Sketch Studies + Basic Form Project.

The second day of the Sportsfest. As far as I know, high jump and track and field events were held that morning.



The other day, I was trying to practice tennis against the wall when my ball flew out of the court and out into the road. I snapped some shots as I went to fetch it. XD

This is our tennis court. It's right beside the smaller Shannan basketball court as well as the Shannan cafeteria.





The [back of the] Shannan cafeteria. *mouth waters*



The Shannan dormitories. (I stay at the Shanbei dormitories.)





Buildings along the South Gate.





This is my first shot at copying a portrait. (I'd copied plaster busts before.) The nose looks punched in I mostly tried to pay attention to the shading, but, it still came out too gray... OTL



Anyway, remember when I studied -- for like a single session, cos I got bored -- under Chen laoshi in Hong Kong? Back then, I knew zilch about anatomy and portraiture procedure. My mom sat for three hours as I drew my first ever graphite portrait.

... and, I made her look fat. XD But, anyway, she was uber happy -- she insisted that I take a photo of her and the portrait, as seen below.



The other day, I thought I'd take another shot at drawing my mom using this very photo as reference, and this is how it came out.



Frankly... it almost looks like her, but, I feel like I've redeemed myself anyway! /*D*\

Please take note that all of the fine art pieces that I've been posting up are just self-studies -- I've just been living off tutorial books, as well as comments and advice from classmates and friends.

We have FA classes scheduled in the following months, and the profs most certainly won't be teaching from the basics. Afterall, most Chinese students in art colleges nationwide likely have trained for 1-4 years before taking their entrance exams, and so carry over considerably mature FA skills to their college classes.

As for me, I'm trying to learn as much as I can now, hoping not to lag too far behind behind when the time comes... Points for effort! \@A@/

"The first principle of the science of painting is the point, then comes the line, then the surface, and then the body bounded by a given surface." - da Vinci

For our Basic Form project, we were asked to pick three mediums, and use each to illustrate (1) the point, (2) the line, and (3) the plane. That's nine 18 x 18 cm, b/w images in total. It's really quite a simple project, but I ended up spending most of my weekend working on it anyway.

I'm not saying I'll get a high score for my project, but, the fact is, I'm quite proud of it! It's the first time I drew something in other than manga-style, and using 100% traditional media. We were also asked to back each picture up with cardboard in case we chose to use plain paper, but I went ahead and made this mini-album package...



For my three mediums, I chose (1) drawing pen, (2) cotton buds, ad (3) a fork.

This first image is supposed to illustrate the line made using cotton buds. (The black I used is leftover calligraphy ink.)



Flip... The left image is supposed to illustrate the point made using cotton buds. (Anything can be a point -- even this ink monster!) The right image is supposed to illustrate the plane made with the drawing pen.



Flip... The top image is supposed to illustrate the point made using a fork, while the bottom image, the plane made using cotton buds.



This is how the very inside of the album looks like when fully opened.



These two images, both made using a drawing pen, are supposed to illustrate the point and the line respectively. (Longnu~~~)



Finally, these two images, both made using a fork, are supposed to illustrate the line and the plane respectively.



As for the very last image, I guess it's turned out to be some sort of Halloween tribute. I was just going to draw a skyline against the night sky, but then what looked like a skull appeared amidst the clouds, so I went along with it. Creepy. XD

Advance Happy Halloween!