señoritas

Spanish girls are totally awesome. To me they look like sun-kissed oranges. Tanned, warm and smiles as bright as the sunbeams. And their accent, ohhhh their accent... amd the way they talk, the sparks in their eyes, their spirit, their cuteness - they do know how to put a spell on you.

oh señoritas

A pause, a comeback, a new thing.

Graduating from college, sure, is a big thing.

But thinking about things I would learn in the years to come ( if I am fortunate enough)

it is short and swift as a blink, sweet and crunchy as apple strudel. Thank you, 2-years. I will hold the memorable things dearly and carry them with me to the exciting unknown. 

May I never to loose the spirit for things I love, for those that matter to me.

 

a thought about freedom...

"Freedom doesn’t mean the absence of all restrictions. It means possessing unshakable conviction in the face of any obstacle. This is true freedom."

Hoa sữa lúc nửa đêm gây bệnh cồn cào.

Cái nhớ à, cái nhớ ơi, cái nhớ mày ngủ cho ngoan

Nhớ ơi, hoa sữa đang nở thì hãy nhắm mắt tận hưởng chứ đừng nhắm mắt hồi tưởng

Nhớ à, tao mệt mày quá,

Hà Nội vẫn ở nguyên đấy chứ có chạy đi đâu đâu mà sao nhớ thế này.

365 days

The definition of a year seems vague. Neither it is short nor long. 

BY Rob Mulholland

I have yet to read the rationale behind this beautiful piece of art, but for me personally it has something to do with human - our reflection, how our looks remain the same while the inside is transforming ... it is amazing how all of us have reshaped; mails, words and all that thought-provoking outputs merge into one intangible moss, it keeps on growing and drying out, breaking  through this side and twisting on that side... How could a lot of events be stuffed into just a few days? How could bold statements collapse so rapidly? Is it internal or external? Yes I find it pretty fascinating, it's even more complex than rocket science, almost unsolvable. I love this simple, almost too-obvious quote of McLuhan: "I don't necessarily agree with everything I say"

However, now that I've look at it from both side, the sequences seem clear. 

Ephemera. everything is life is temporary. what we once hold so dear and close, might vanish the next day without any signs. Enjoy this moment, suffer from it, laugh hard, taste every bite of your "now". 

So fast, now that I am seeing the others dealing with their changes. How I  wish I could do something, anything to help them, though the best thing I can do for now, is keeping silence.

a thought or two...about communicating

been to the design conference today. needless to say, things like inspirational, eye-dropping and all. I spent the evening sharing every single thing I could remember with my mates. I recalled the sessions, felt this-and-that, did my works with eagerness and positiveness.

the only downward thing is that, I'm not quite a good communicator. I cannot deliver a question right. how disappointed. I thought I would ask them about how they have gone through difficult times when they first started the business, but it turned out to be a bitch whining about how she didn't know what to do and need money to live on. So, yeah. It, together with some other questions raised, actually left some negative feelings for some of the audiences. well, I felt guilty and supppperrr embarrassed by letting some people down even if they are strangers and it might not take them very long to get this thing out of their heads. But again, my communication skill sometimes just sucks. sucks big time. okay I'm not taking language barrier as an excuse. I tend to talk non-sense when in crowd.

people sucks sometimes, so it's just one of the important thing that needs to be noted down. so that we can all improve ourselves for the better.


but really, sometimes, do you think words fail? I know it's best to balance both, chill and laugh are the best boost for basically everything. but well, today is the day that words suck with me. Haha, I suddenly feel for those who had said a bad thing or two during press and interviews.


 do you think we should shut our mouths, listen and silently improve ourselves as we learn from them, like "không biết thì dựa cột mà nghe", or should we just go ahead, speak up, make mistakes and feel alright as a flawed human-being and try to work things out from there?

Type affair or the disappearance of Linh

Life goes on fast these days. And all days all nights are dedicated to the little Type affair of mine. I wake up and fall asleep with him.

Our relationship started a month a go, when Brief told me "Ey, I've got this guy you'd really like, he's gonna suit your Tohe project perfectly. The only thing is that, you just gotta give him sometimes and get to know him. Wanna meet up?"

These two are actually from Nguyen... but since it looks so beautiful as rain I can't help posting <3

Of course I couldn't say no. Friends, marks, lecturers, even my own head and soul fell for the deal. so I started it off by sketching him out, doodles and doodles, I even searched for guys I like on the internet ( haha, what a shame...), re-traced their contours, admire their X-height, bowls, tails, arms, legs, ears... and I told him to be patience and nice, because I'd help him, train him, guide him because this is what I've wanted to do, now that he gives me a chance, I will grab it tightly.

Apart from personal cuddles, of course we hang out. We were with flour and dough, get dirty with color drops and wax ourselves with candle lights.

Yes there are days when I feel so sick of him, I get mad and said bad things to him, I cursed, I overreacted, I almost neglected him.

But there is, there will always a way to sort things out. Or at least, I believe so.

We'd take a walk by the peaceful canal, drench ourselves in the tranquil and enjoy the evening with pleasure.

work it out

It's been a long long time since I last updated, I know... My project is running okay, a bit slow though... Typefaces, design posters, struggling with the grids and ideas, torturing myself "How to make it better?", "Where do I go from here", "This is not good, redo!"

But of course, sketches and scamps are coming out. Stay tuned, my dear.

Anyways, I met a friend of mine, actually a backpacker who visited Vietnam in Sept2006.  More than 5 years have passed by, and who knows,  we met again in Singapore yesterday! Life is so amazing, unexpected, we could never figure out the way it works. Then you realize that human being is only a part of the grand cycle of the universe. Talking about universe, please check this link out. It's an interactive flash that let you examine sizes of almost everything - so much information presented in the most exciting way. Scroll your mouse to travel through, from the tiniest to the grandest. 

Scale of the universe

To hear her talking about surfing is just... beautiful. Wish I had recorded it, I tried to recall her lines, but they are fragments now and one should not rephrase a quote lousily right?

I know it's almost possible for me at this time to even paddling along the shores, but I will try surfing, once I've got muscles and gain possibly 4 more kg? Ha, with the late-night bed conversation yesterday with my roommates, I decided to set time for working out. Ahhh... It feels SUPER great to let loose, have a good stretch and the only could get into your mind at that point - is music.

Fill your head with bass and pump it up! This piece of soundtrack also get me through noisy studio. Maximum concentration. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross also take care of The girl with the dragon tattoo OST. Simply love these guys.

ordinary tales

I was looking for some photos, now I don't even remember which one I was looking for. Because while browsing through folders and folders of images, I came across those who I have left abandoned for quite a long time. 

Yesterday when we were talking about time and how we memorize our near-past, I told them I think about a period of time based on two things: people and projects. Who I had met, who I had parted, who had influenced me... Projects I've done, projects that is half-way, things that need editing but I never get time to do that... 

All these images were taken from around August 2011 to present. Each has got a story to tell, which I will try to write it down. Soon again, they will fall back into a thousands hundreds photos I've stored

 in a mess

 in a swarm,

which would take me forever to open the chest again.

 

1.  Colors in da house

So I was finding interesting, strange-looking stuff for my Image assignment. I was running in and out, digging here and there and it didn't take me long to realize, there were so so many color paints in my house ( the result of having 5 people who were/are in art school)  so I left the brief, took everything colorful I would find, together with Nguyen we arranged them and ...here comes.

Isn't it lovely to live in such a colorful world? Me and Khuyen never have our hands 'clean' in da house. There's always sth that has to do with colors: refill the ink cartridges, sketch with ink-pen, experiment with wax and watercolor, pastel and texture paste... We are so greatful, for we are able to play like a child, this time without a fussy mom to stop us.

 

 2.  16min challenge.

 I have a cousin who I really like. One time he showed me one of his project that involves drawing in 1min per piece. I saw the video and said the lines were too clumsy, even for 1min. So he 'challenged' me to do the same to see how it really worked.

Yes, I admit, my drawings are no better than what the artist had done in that project. A minute is really too short to polish anything. But I am proud to say that, I didn't think before drawing those, I just grabbed my pen and move my hands as swiftly as possible. But the result, personally speaking, were no worse. After 1min drafting, I spent another 10mins polishing it up, adding the details, and 5mins to add shades with a brush. The above photo is shot during the process, you can see the drafty lines hehe. The final looks like this:

3. Spring cleaning

2011 was coming to an end, and everywhere around our neighborhood, people were spring-cleaning their houses. There were tons of cool stuff left under the ground floor,  so we just carry them home! The red end-table was dragged 400m , at 2AM, we felt like living a thief's life really haha. But nothing fancy really happened until our lovely lady next door gave us this bookcase. We changed and moved everything around, we went to IKEA and I couldn't help buying the handsome square photo frame ( at 12S$ hur hur...) but considering all the free good stuff we were given, a ew clock a photo frame are good investment. Leaves and feather are from my 'collection' ( Yes, I've got a box full of feathers and another full of leaves) Nguyen made the frame and they go perfectly together. Bottle was 'stolen' from a housemate after he finished his drink; the map was torn from a very old encyclopedia ( I had to talk Nguyen into it, she never ever before tears or takes anything out  of her books, for her books are to be read and cared in the shelves, erhhh for me books have the potential for a piece of art). I love the reflection of the map on the flat mirror, it seems like a projection of "flat world". Underneath is a poem by E.E.Cummings, one I really love.

For the first few days after this transformation, me and Nguyen spent 10mins before going to sleep, laying in our beds and just looked at it - our little corner. Now this is really Linh's room <3

4. Chasing cars

when I was cleaning my brush, I noticed how drops of color slowly blended in the water, which was quite beautiful. So we just shoot footage of color drops on water, tried out different dropping technique: with a needle, hands, swirl it, straw...It was greatttttt fun and the result looked amazing. And so random, Chasing cars by Snow Patrol was playing on one of the computers, and we thought that was it, this thing and Chasing cars instrumental, no argue. However, it's take a while until we sit down and edit everything...

 5. Advertising 

Last year I was under Jessica for Advertising module - a very fierce yet amazing lecturer. This is a copy-ad for X-Acto penknife. First I was playing around with typefaces then print it out, but the impact was minimal, noone really liked it. So she suggested me to literally cut everything out! This was done with tremendous help from Nguyen, as always. She is the one who helped me cut all the tiny letters! Anyways, after cutting these I am officially addicted to die-cut...

6. Haircut

Last time, I did not went to fancy baber to fix my hair. My roommates did it - yes they cut my hair. I trusted them wholeheartedly, even sometimes, there were 2 scissors chopping at a time!  But this is not about my hair-do, but about the aftermath. After finishing, we were left with hair all over the place. I don't know what has gotten into us, but we started to play around and eventually it became a short stop motion. This is just a snap shoot of the whole thing though.

yes, this is my hair. and we are now collecting hair for art purpose. 

I know we are weirdos.

7.

A little girl, about 9 years old, made this watch for me when we were decorating a friend's wedding. Isn't it cute?

 8.

And yes, finally, what I have been doing for the past two months.

We went to the village, met the people, talked with them, we had lunch, we ate starfruits from the garden,... People from Xuan La village are the best.  Right now I have so many things to execute, analyze, so on and so forth. Thank you everyone for supporting me along the way. I will try my best not to let you down :)

Well, fin.

Warm blanket and two cats...

After days of tracing To he, today I finally got sometimes to chill with my buddies. Despite the dreadfully wet weather, we curled up inside our cozy corner, ranting about signs, traits, people and our little happy/worrisome lives.

And after a long rainy day, there's nothing as sweet as dim warm lights, jazz, creamy liquor and the soft purring of your two lovely cats. It's quite funny there are days when you just feel better than the others, without any reason. Like today, tonight, I think I am the happiest person in the world.

Just want to share with you guys an amazing artist - Dana Tanamachi. She's a chalk letterer - a type of Typographer who specializes on chalk. At first glance, they look nice and all - but as for an art student like me, I re-drew one of her artworks and there lies a dozen of typeface choices and the way she caters a handful of information in one single board... it's just amazing. I know the flag style with vintage fonts like this is getting more and more trendy which is quite sad, but the good stuff always stand out themselves. Be sure to check out her time-lapse videos too!

 Let's wrap up the warm blanket with a few jazz notes. Dream a little dream of me by Doris Day.