I began to take on a different interest on things around me. Like my tool and materials on my drawing desk, the clothes on the door, and even the dinner Kat cooked for me.

[caption id="attachment_474" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="My Tools and Materials"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_475" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="My Jeans on the door"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_476" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="TV Dinner"][/caption]

I call it TV dinner because we are always watching TV while having our dinner. Kat cooked a very unfamiliar meal this evening. Giant eggplant and baked potato all covered in cheese.

[caption id="attachment_468" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Night Sky"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_470" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Arrival"][/caption]

Night scene - darkness falls so quickly these days as winter nears. This was about 5.20pm. The sky was a very nice glowy kind of blue when I stepped out of the office through the back door. The moon was like a white hole in the sky.

Besides, 2 items arrived at my door to my delight. The first is the book published by Danny Gregory, "An Illustrated Life", which I have waited for weeks, and the other, the Obama sticker. This is me posing with these items.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="An Illustrated Life"][/caption]

An Illustrated Life - Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers.
After several weeks of anticipation, the book finally arrived at my doorstep, literally as the UPS guy (who has the look of an ideal American man from the 50s) "threw" the book and left without waiting for us to open the door to receive the package. Anyway, I was very much delighted to see the book since I was facing a little dry spell myself for the last couple of days. The book is going to be an inspiration.

Here's an Amazon review:

Amazon Best of the Month, December 2008: Danny Gregory's An Illustrated Life is a visual delight of color and texture--a funky and frenetic "book about books people have made," perfect for chronic doodlers, journalers, and art lovers. Sharing vibrant excerpts from the notebooks of 50 illustrators, artists, and designers, each accompanied by an introduction by the artist, it's a gorgeous, intimate exploration of the creative process. Gregory's passion for the "illustrated journal" is infectious--for him, artist's sketchbooks represent a nonthreatening place to record "risks, mistakes, regrets, thoughts, lessons, and dreams." Whether you are charmed by the illustrations of Amanda Kavanagh, or intimidated by the musings of Stefan Sagmeister, poring over this eclectic group of fledgling and famous "artists" will inspire you to tackle an illustrated journal of your own. --Daphne

Like what the author wrote in his introduction, I've been looking for such book for a long long while. Unlike Danny, I waited passively for a long long while. Danny went ahead to reach out to many artists to publish such a book in order to reach out to more artists and artists alike. His act of pro activeness has benefited many, including myself.

At first I was reluctant to buy it. I was half expecting myself to treat the book like another technique book. There are already many technique books out there so why get another. Eventually I saw it as a collection of lives scribbled, sketched, doodled and even scratched. Our less than perfect lives in this present world are reflected by the less than perfect lines used in the sketches. What a way to see it. Many artists went all their way to perfect their lines, but many chose to present their art and their lives as they are, no decoration, nothing to hide the truth.

So I bought the book and I'm reading it right now. :)

Weekend is always a time when we would eat out with friends. This weekend we were having a farewell party for friend. Like most Asians we party by having lots of things to eat. Inevitably this became a pigout weekend. We began our food hunt with a brunch of Shanghai-nese Dim Sum - a common breakfast for many Chinese. The menu included different types and ways of making dumplings: fried dumplings, dumplings served in soup, dumplings stuffed with shrimp and etc. We had our fill.

[caption id="attachment_450" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Dim Sum at Tim Tai Fong (Acadia California)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_451" align="alignnone" width="492" caption="Dim Sum at Acadia (California)"][/caption]

After which, we visited a desserts place called Genki Cafe where we shared a huge mango shaved ice and tiramisu crepe stuffed with fruits - a very popular Japanese and later Taiwanese sweets.

[caption id="attachment_452" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Some pix of dumplings we ate"][/caption]

After 3 hours of karaoke, we proceeded to Jazz Cat Cafe which is well known for its Hot Pots. What a way to spend the weekend. And of course we took many pictures to remember the occasion by - and I could clearly see my face bloated a little with every restaurant we visited.

[caption id="attachment_453" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Jazz Cat Cafe at St Gabriel (California)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_454" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Beef Hot Pot"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_455" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Jazz Cat Cafe - Kat posing"][/caption]

Sunday was a time for rest. Here are some sketches done for the day. Not many but enough.

[caption id="attachment_456" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Stove - while boiling water"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_457" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Tibby in her new bed"][/caption]

My weekend was over - I had a very fulfilling day. Thanks to the company of all my friends. To view photos go here. Now, time to start another week of work.

I have seen his work on his site but hasn't met up with him personally. This exhibition was a great opportunity to meet the artist and to see his work up close, and another good reason to meet up with friends for a good time at the show's party. Co-incidentally, I met another friend (Jawn) who knows Christian personally and got him to introduce us. Christian is really a nice guy, both talented and hospitable. I secretly wished i could visit him at his studio. Anyway, we took a group picture and another couple of them to remember the occasion by.

[caption id="attachment_444" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="At the Gnomon Gallery with Christian Lorenz Scheure"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_445" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Posing in front of our favorite painting."][/caption]

Here's a link to Christian's website portfolio:
http://www.christianlorenzscheurer.com/htmlpages/htmlmenue/homepage.html

Just a random sketch and painting to test out Corel Painter's Calligraphic Pen tool.

[caption id="attachment_441" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Stress and Depression"][/caption]

Home Made Augmented Reality with a PC from Don Low on Vimeo.

Augmented Reality - is overlaying virtual objects on physical objects seen through a camera. A more concise definition is: Augmented Reality (AR), also known as "Mixed Reality" is where virtual and real objects appear together in a real time system.Source: www.artag.net

For the last 2 weeks or so, I've been testing the AR system I downloaded from the above source to be used on my own 3D objects. To make it more fun, I created an avatar of myself: a box figure (which looks like the paper box figure I created of myself). I managed to understand and change the config file so my virtual objects can be recognized by the system, and I successfully "tag" it with a marker. See above test.

I hope to understand it better to make my own AR game.

I have been looking for settings that artists use in Corel Painter so that I can have a good reference to what kinds of brushes and brush settings they use to achieve a desirable inking result. Here's one that do not use the scratchboard tool but modified the Oil Round to get a good inking brush. Comparing it with the setting used in Scratchboard Pen Tool, the Dab type was changed to Circular rather than Rendered. However I find that the Rendered Dab Type gets better anti-alias on an inked line. Anyway this is not very critical as most artwork are created larger than the print size. As long as it is created at least 1.5 times larger than the print size, the line would appear well on print.

Read more on: http://frenden.com/painter-x-inking-video-brush-settings/
and : http://apps.corel.com/painterix/training/tutorial_inking.html?trkid=tpc1006ft

[caption id="attachment_432" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Corel Painter: Inking Tool"][/caption]

Here's a sample of an inking practice I performed in Corel Painter.

December is here!! And I am posting the last of the last sketches from November!! I am also preparing to come up with a book print of all my sketches made before and after I left Singapore. It is more like giving myself a pat on my back. Well, enjoy these!

[caption id="attachment_411" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="By the Pier"][/caption]

Marker and watercolor washes.

[caption id="attachment_412" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Cafe 1"][/caption]

Marker and watercolor washes.

[caption id="attachment_413" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Cafe 2"][/caption]

Marker & Watercolor washes.

[caption id="attachment_414" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Cafe 3"][/caption]

Marker & Watercolor washes.

[caption id="attachment_415" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Cafe 4"][/caption]

Marker

[caption id="attachment_416" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Boiling water"][/caption]

Pen & Acrylic paint.

[caption id="attachment_417" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Dolls"][/caption]

Pen & Watercolor washes.

[caption id="attachment_418" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="XBox Show Gal"][/caption]

Ink & wash.

[caption id="attachment_419" align="alignnone" width="496" caption="Doll 2"][/caption]

Ink & Acrylic paint.

[caption id="attachment_420" align="alignnone" width="429" caption="Waiting"][/caption]

Brush pen and washes.

[caption id="attachment_421" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Tree Study"][/caption]

Watercolor.

[caption id="attachment_422" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="More waiting"][/caption]

Marker & Watercolor washes.