Jibun ga suki janai no*

Cross-posting from a very rarely-updated blog on a Latvian social network.

If there's an emotion/thought state that makes me utterly hate myself for feeling it, then it's pity. Surpassing clingy wishes. Surpassing knowing that a promise has been left unfulfilled from my side. I tend to believe that the latter two, while embarassing and guilt-trip ensuring, are, to an extent, corrigible/reversable, don't inherently change the views about another person, and can, sometimes, be used for gain, either your own or the other's.


Whereas pity, in my opinion, is a misfired insult to the (evolutionary advantageous) human sympathy towards other human beings about issues that the object is experiencing, whether real or perceived by the pitier. It is useless, because, in its deepest sense, it robs of any sense of equality or real empathy between the pitied and the pitier. It can be misperceived by the unwise (or inexperienced, happens to the best of us) as love (thankfully, I've learned to not be fooled by that), or be the plough that prepares the soil of the mind for sowing contempt, should there be other triggers for that.

Dear pity, I need pesticides for you.

*transcription of a half-a-line of the lyrics of Beautiful World, song by Utada Hikaru, meaning approximately "but I don't like myself"

Slowly Getting into Making ATCs

I think I'm slowly getting back to drawing, and the trigger for that was probably arranging an art trade with the talented Flavia, because I knew that after finishing my part (so that I wouldn't leave her on a limb, like it has happened with a few trades I've taken up this year (but will try to correct that before the end of the year)) I would also have to rework some reference material for her part... which I'll try to do by the end of the week.

We had agreed on making ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) and I'm really starting to like the 2.5" x 3.5" (6.3 x 8.9cm) format - it gives the pressure to try adding more details than I normally would in such a relatively small amount of space. Here are the first two ATCs I've done, first one is for Flavia, 2nd - dedicated to a friend whose name's day in his country is today (in Latvia we also celebrate that), and I just wanted to see if I could draw something even remotely looking like an owl~ Apparently, the first ATC had more time spent on it, but adding some colour to the owl was a nice pastime while listening to the Molecular Biotechnology lecture today.





I hope this creative streak will last for a while and I'll be able to move along some more plans~

Day Trip to Tūja (picture-heavy!)

Decided that I should stop spending all my weekends at home and that I should go on a walking trip. I had wanted to visit one of the stony beaches in Vidzeme, the northeastern part of Latvia and chose to go to Tūja (pronounced "tooya"), one of the villages on the coast. Riga (not shown on the map) is just a bit southwest of Carnikava (shown on map).
I got my friend Edite to come with me and we arrived to the Tūja highway turn bus stop a bit after 11am after an hour-and-a-half's ride from Riga. After checking out the bus return times on the spot, we went a bit through the forest, where we found some late cowberries:



It had been raining and snowing (wet, immediately melting snow) the previous day so the forest was somewhat foggy.







While searching for a place where we could exit to the sea from the village without ruthlessly crossing private property, we encountered a huuuuuge puddle. That's me in the red skirt (despite the looks, a long skirt is actually pretty comfortable for walking on day trips and warm, too :V )



Edite had wisely put on rubber boots and feared no puddles.



Somewhere along the way I gave Edite a crash course on taking photos of flowing water - wide apperture, long exposure, tripod (which was absent here, lalala).



In the end we gave up and asked someone on the road about how far we'd have to go to get to the beach without crossing someone's property, and he just allowed us to get across his yard. Yay~
We found a water spring forming patterns in the beach. Edite took a photo of me taking a photo of stuff floating in the water.











At some point we started gathering sea-polished pieces of glass and each went home with a handful of these. Hands are mine.







While taking a stroll through the dune forest, we came upon this shriveled fly agaric. Shroom jokes ensued, because I had been telling about how Siberan shamans use them while on our way to the sea. Then, coming again to the beach we noticed a conformation of clouds, which without a doubt resembled a mushroom. More giggles.





Slowly marching back to Tūja~





Fooling around with Edite's hat before reaching the finish line - bus stop again. I know this is an emo angle of taking pictures and, frankly, I don't really care. :B



All in all this was a very nice trip. Tiring and I didn't get much else done today, but a pleasant change nonetheless. With that I bid you all goodnight.

FIN

Gull. Notes to self about drawing #1

One of the newer uploads on my dA profile, although the picture on it's own is quite old, a Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) at the Central market in Riga, hugely zoomed.



Artblock is torture gnawing at my sides. I've come to the realization, though, that the root of it most likely lies in my lack of knowing many basic aspects of drawing and the untrained eye for seeing, so in the nearest time I'll be trying to spare a bit of time every day to read and doodle a bit. Basically, it will be a journey of learning to draw from the basics, in hopes that I can regain the joy that drawing brings and maybe some day be able to create pictures in a way I see them in my mind.

--> This is a useful site with tons of drawing lectures, by the way. <--

Starting from the top, today's lesson, discovering my natural hatching stroke direction(s). I'm left-handed in drawing, so my strokes seem to work best when executed from upper left to lower corner, or straight down. Any other direction either leaves curved pressure marks... or is just freakishly irregular. I'm going on a day trip tomorrow and hope to try out the paper rotation trick in the evening.

Dream #1

10.10.10. (morning)

I meet a black dragon (shaped much like the Night Fury form HTTYD; I had viewed fanart of this movie on the previous evening) in a conifer forest at night, seated on a rocky ledge, surrounded by a clearing. I am afraid that it will burn me, but it doesn't. Gradually, over days we become acquaintances. There are some meetings with people in-between, about which I remember only that I was afraid they would find out that I had made friends with a dragon – I perceived that sharing this knowledge will make both me and the dragon vulnerable. After a while I silently lead the dragon to a wooden shed and it willingly enters it, to be transported by air to where I live. The dragon can only fit in the shed by curling up, but it doesn't seem to have anything against this. I fight an undefined antagonist while on the way home with the shed and the dragon, and he falls to death through the clear blue sky. At home I enter the shed and touch the dragon's cool, smooth skin. Then I learn that a former classmate (who in reality had recently moved to study in Southern Germany) had died and that it is yet questioned if her body will be transported home.

September Requests

I'm still in an art rut, so I took a few requests on the DragCave forum. One of those is still on hold/in progress, because, sadly, I've been quite nervous of the pencil lately. /sigh

Ice dragon adolescent for which I received no feedback from the requester. :-/


Shuckle (Pokemon) in its shiny variety for satyr76.

New Cat Portrait - Mackerel Tabby Kitten (September 2nd, 2010).

Hello there.

Speedpainting sketch for Martin

A friend with whom we went watching Bee-eaters two years ago has birthday today, so I thought I should draw something for him. I ended up running pretty late, out of which came a pretty spontaneous, unfinished picture of a dragon-like bird with the colours of an European Bee-eater (Merops apiaster).

About an hour of brainstorming.

100 Themes - 29. Happiness

Seems like most, if not all, of my summer's artistic plans have slipped away in heat, watching movies, reading books and... generally thinking about something else.

Due to the recent lenghty artblock I started taking requests on the DragCave forum and finally came up with something somewhat noteworthy, even if my camera completely ruined the colours. The Sunsong Amphiptere is one of the relatively newer species in the Dragon Cave game but one of my instant favourites. This is an airborne species and in the following picture is portrayed on the very occasion of sitting in an upright pose. The cheerful colours of this species are what made me decide to name this piece "Happiness" - even more so because I can add this to the 100 Theme Challenge, which was started in late Autumn 2008. *giggles*



The bottom line of this entry is probably that I'm more or less back to productive drawing... whenever my lower left arm isn't dripping with sweat. :)

A Patern Yet To Be Matched

Hair and 3/4 angle failure. At least it seems like my artblock is giving in a bit.
The title is a phrase from the song "Pagan Poetry" by Björk.

Also, I got my Bachelor degree in Biology today.

It Has Eyes On It's Butt

Decided to get done the picture for our dA group's May challenge early because I've no idea how much time I'll have later this month. Inspiration from a stock picture with peacock feathers. I'm highly prone to forget the inner ring of blue.

I should seriously be writing my Bachelor thesis, but seem to be sinking back in my last year's stress Angst :-/
Also, wisdom teeth think it's time to come out and it's painful to chew anything on the right side of my mouth.

Girl From India

April Out of the Comfort Zone challenge piece, theme - anthro - suggested by Keydan . However, at the end of the month I found myself mentally exhausted by study/thesis pressure, so I stuck with a familiar animal to me, Blue Peafowl (Pavo cristatus), female for a change.

Indian jewelry is kitschy. The lotus was fun. Not entirely sure about the colouring, came out a bit too "caked" for my taste and way more time consuming than I'd imagine judging the quality of the work. I must indulge more into learning basics if I'm to get anywhere.

In the end I chose to upload the first image to DeviantART.. At first I thought the texture was a good idea, but then realized that it looks cheesy and the image became blurry, too.



Version 2 with texture;

Cheshire Cat is High on Jpop

25k kiriban (on my DeviantART page ) prize for Apofiss . He asked me to draw him a Cheshire Cat and then in the meantime we talked about Asian pop, so that basically explains everything about this piece.

Cheshire Cat should be a clever, noble trickster, but he looks like a 'tard here >__<
Back to the drawing board...

Chasing Cats

Some cat photos I've taken over the last two years, more a reference entry for myself than advice. Speaking of which, the only things I can advise to you are to just hope the cats are moderately tamed and won't immediately run away, look for interesting moments and just keep on shooting.

....
When I'm in a mood for some cats, I usually take a bus to Bolderāja, a district in the north of Riga. While there are other places that are full of cats, too, the environment in Bolderāja somewhat appeals to me the most.



I call this one "grandfather" and haven't seen a cat like that neither before nor after this encounter.






...
Two strays from behind the Central Market in Riga.




...

Relative's cat with a fantastically wild look.




...

My own sleeping on the ironing desk, a friend's and two pictures of a stranger's housecat behind in the window.








..and from around our yard, we had very nice ferals there last year.



Then, where I was living in Bremen last year, we had a few cats on our street that seemed to belong to anyone who would feed them. I don't have a photo of Brandy, "our" cat, but this one came by on one evening when I was about to go out for a little.



And another evening met this very demanding example.





And that's about it for now. I'm hoping for a nice cat-shooting season once some semester duties are done.

Meow :3