TO BE CONTINUED

THE MANDALA PROJECT

I am not very good at illustration. I cannot draw an image on top of my head. I have to be copying it from somebody else. However, I am realising now that I'm very good with patterns. Anything abstract seems to just flow when I start something on paper. For me it's like connecting the dots and placing anything that would look nicely to fit the consistency of whatever it is I've started doing. It's something I find so easy.

I've been inspired to start this Mandala project when I was applying as a student to get in the Faculty of Design at Swinburne University. The assessor, as I would like to call him, would be the one to decide on whether I have the design skills to get in. I scheduled an interview with him. So whilst my assessor was browsing through my works, he stopped flipping at one particular illustration and said "Oh this is nice, it's a Mandala.." and I was like "I didn't even know I was doing a Mandala". Apparently, a Masters student he was supervising was doing a thesis about Mandala/s. Anyway, after my folio assessment, he said I could enrol. So I passed!

When I got home, I googled what it is since I wanted to find out more about Mandala/s. From Wikipedia, it says that a Mandala is a sanskrit word for "circle". It comprises of concentric diagrams that have both spiritual and ritual significance from religions like Buddhism and Hinduism. It's often used as a spiritual teaching tool for establishing a sacred space and aid meditation... So I figured, oh so that's why in the movies, they always draw a circle and place candles and they go inside the circle to meditate.

Anyway, I've made a few more Mandalas (images above). Maybe when I get a bit more time, I'll illustrate one that's really intricate. But this'll have to do for now.

BRIGHTON BEACH

So I finally got permission from Tita Gi to upload these. It's one of my first ever commissioned photo projects! I hope there's many more to come. The editing took hours to complete. I had to google how to create that vintage effect in photoshop and I was so slow in figuring things out. Nevertheless, here it is. It was a good practice.

This is what I've been doing recently

You don’t know me. I am not known. Perhaps I never will. But let me introduce my creative and pedantic folio, the other side of me – the outspoken when I am quiet, the focused when I am confused, the disciplined when I am lazy. A positive thought in me where there is none. Pushing me farther and farther to go beyond limits even when at times, it’s easier to stay just where I am.

I am skeptical. I feel I am not that young enough to start this. A totally different pursuit in an unfamiliar field when those, who I know are undergoing career progression. Lucky are the ones who have determined early in life what they have always dreamed of doing!

I am not an expert at what I’m doing. An oil painting cracked. My colors come out blurry. I make mistakes and I try to conceal them in separate layers. I’ve a lot of erasures. A whole day’s work put in the trash. People criticize. I feel disappointed when they do. Ideas come and go and when they come, they come in heaps of haze. You think it’s very simple to transform them into actuality but it’s hell. I form concepts on top of my head – usually in abstract form: surreal and very aesthetic. I work on them and most often that not, my works using my imagination is so much better than what it is I’ve come up on paper.

Folio is one of my concepts. He knows how to dictate me. He breathes ideas into my mind prompting me to pursue what I am keen to do that’s why I want to bring him to life. He would be all of my works enclosed as a result of both my dreams and frustrations as an artist. I will work with him in hope that people may see our works as something beautiful even if not divine, tasteful even if not astounding and expressive even if not overly impressive. We don’t have a lot of works finished, Folio and I. Nevertheless, I am happy seeing little by little, works of completion.

Someday I know, just as long as I keep on working, my portfolio will be the key to get me a job so I can work as a graphic designer. It’ll be a bonus to get paid for what I love doing! I hope my passion for all things classified as art transcends as you flip every page.