Monday 31 October 2011

Officially A Junkie

The thing is, among the stuffs that I grabbed the other day a the art shop is this.


These are magic colours! I'm totally back to kindergarten! Who cares, anyway.

So, to make it less lame than what it is, I came out with these... 

This one went to my roomie, K. 

this is what I'm looking at every time I wanna plug in my MagSafe... 

This was dedicated to my babe, S but the physical of it went to my girl, R.

Alright, that's all. For now. Stay tuned, guys! :D


P.S.: This is what happen if I don't have assignments... with assignments, I'll just go crazier but without assignments, I'm back in the zone. You know what I'm saying. 

Weirdness,

Saturday 29 October 2011

Of Weststar Art Shop and KLCC.

It's Saturday and it's the opposite tradition of my family where I'll go off campus every Saturday. Therefore, as for today, I went out to Weststar Art Shops to replenish my art supplies with a classmate. 

We took the bus from the campus around 12 noon and took a cab from Wangsa Maju station to the shop. it's gonna take a long while before the bus going to move from the station so... 

After we went to all Weststar branches around there, got all the stuffs we need, we took a cab back to LRT station and headed to KL Sentral. Well, that was the plan. 

We went to KLCC, and after hanging out like 20 minutes in Kinokuniya, my classmate went off to see his brother at KL Sentral. Leaving me with Steve Jobs' biography.

 

I read like 30 pages, check out some more books on the second level where awesome architecture books filling out two-third of the area, and read some of the latest releases by my favourite author on the 'vampire' section. 

I went out of Kinokuniya around 4.30 p.m. and while I was on the way towards the elevator, I saw this. 


It's Faber-Castell's mini corner right in front of it. As you guys already know, I did missed the launching of the awesome exhibition in Pavilion KL last month, so I decided to just take some pictures. Though there are not much of things to see, still... Just bear with me, okay! 


Would love to get some of these paster colours... 


Still got to ask few questions to the sales person. Do you guys know that on the pencil colours, especially the expensive ones that are being used by professional artists, they have stars on it and every star represent 25 years of durability? 

Around 5 p.m., I went down to grab some drinks and Auntie Anne's pretzels and headed back to campus right after. 

Yes, babe... drool some more! I know they're your favourite!

Okay, peeps! It's time for another tradition - Horror Night. For tonight, I'm gonna watch A Nightmare on the Elm Street, 2010 remake of the '84 movie of the same name, directed by Samuel Bayer and produced by Michael Bay. BTW, the movie original score is damn good. Scored by my favourite composer, Steve Jablonsky, who're also the composer of Michael Bay's Transformer's Trilogy original scores. Check it out!



Enjoy your weekend, y'all!


Awesomeness,

Friday 28 October 2011

Charcoal.. Again

As for the GC class yesterday, we're working on the entourage, in this case a group of people sitting together and therefore to accomplish this, some of us (including moi) took turn to be the models while others draw within half an hour.

I was in cadet when I was in secondary school so being still for half an hour is almost effortless. One trick will do just to make it through the whole time of stillness.

At the end of the class, me and some of the classmates are planning to go to the West Star Art Shop most probably this Saturday. Good plan I guess, as I need to replenish my colour supplies too. Probably gonna get some medium charcoal to explore some more on the medium itself.

The truth is, this is the most relaxing week I ever had since the 3rd week of this semester. of course, I have to use this time to read some more on colouring techniques and finishing up the reading on Built Environment topics.

I borrowed this book from Universiti Malaysia Terengganu via Inter-Library Loan, entitled "Environmental Science: A Global Concern" as our library's copy is still in process. Lots of easy to digest contents! Totally recommend this for those who want to read on pollution, natural resources, and global environmental issues.

As for the assignment, (finally!)  we're required to pick a full body picture of someone and tried to re-produce it i.e. re-draw it. I'm high on Pirates of the Caribbean movies right now so I'm probably gonna draw jack Sparrow or something. Hmm, nice! This adds another theme on my sketch book!


Alright, guys! It's almost 3 in the morning! I probably need to get back to bed~


Stay awesome!
E

Tuesday 25 October 2011

Introduction to Charcoal

To be honest, the only time where I saw charcoal drawing is in Titanic... Wait up, some said Jack actually used coloured pencil..

Anyway, today in GC class, we were introduced to another medium, charcoal. After showing us some examples, we all then got our hands dirty and tried to draw using soft charcoal.

We're sitting in a big circle and then we're required to draw the person who was sitting right in front of us. I drew Nabil... and Mirwan. I don't wanna go into the details so I left out their faces... of course, some went disastrous, some just go crazy with it, while some just go with the flow - like me.

I don't really care about the turn outs as long I'm trying my best. Well, that was the first time I draw a person figure so as long as I got my proportion correctly, I think it's more than enough.

I'm going to get some charcoal to practice some more. probably I'll get those hard ones so they won't smear so much. Bro. Zack said another method to draw using charcoal is to ground it and spread it on a paper then by using fingers, erasers and whatnot, we tried to work those graphite sprinkles into shapes. I haven't tried it out but it does sounds interesting.

Names like Marcel Duchamp came out so we did a little discussion on some of his works.

...and for the very first time, we don't have any assignment for the next class! Weeeeeeeee~!!!! This actually gives me some more time to work on my previous assignments.

For those who want to try out this medium, be prepared with wet tissues or good soap to get rid those dirt on your hands later. =)


Signing out! ... To the Math class!

Thursday 20 October 2011

GC: Assignment #10 Part I

As for today, we walked from KAED's Tutorial Room 4 - where my usual class is being held, to the Main Hall in Cultural Activity Centre (CAC), went to the top of the tower - the one that you can see the river as if it running right under it. We even saw some students were kayaking on the river!

Finally, we ended our little tour in CAC's garden... 
For this assignment, we were required to choose either one-point or two-points perspective view. Me and another classmate chose the same spot, which is...


Looking at this, I'm planning on not to draw this view according to the original view which mean, I probably going to edit few things that I don't want to appear in my drawing later...

When the time's up, I was only done with the lines sketch and same goes to some of my classmates which is why most of us we'll be coming back to this garden this Saturday, all with the same purpose - to finish our drawings.

Other than tired after walking for quite a long way just now, I'm still feeling slightly disgusted with what I found in the tower earlier today. Believe me, you guys don't want to know.

Anyway, I'll see you guys in the part II of this entry...


Warm regards,

Wednesday 19 October 2011

Campus Tour Series #1

So we finished IBE class a little bit early today so I decided to go around E0 building. The reason to do this? I need some materials for my sketchbook.

I think E0 is where most of the Engineering Faculty's administration offices are located. Anyway, enjoy the rest of the pictures!

One of the hallways... 

Compare to other Kulliyyah i.e. faculties, I love KoE's fences the most.
Across this path is Cultural Activity Centre (CAC)...








As for the last 2 photos, these were actually taken from the bridge that's connecting KoE and KAED. 


That my friends, is KAED. Well, from the back. I couldn't spot Jeremy from up here though. 

Okay! That's all! Next stop? Well, let's just wait and see. 


Signing out!

GC: Assignment #9... Part I

It's almost 2 and currently I'm sitting in front of this... Can You guys guess where is this?


So... after trying to get the rough sketches like 2 to 3 times... and shivering as if I got pneumonia or something (it was raining, man!) I finished up the lines and I'm going to decide on what medium I'm going to use on the drawing later...

Well, most probably watercolour pencils... Or maybe watercolour... 

Alright, that's all for now! Need to get up and go back to KAED for IBE class! 

Chill out, peeps!


Regards, 
E

Tuesday 18 October 2011

GC: Exercise #6

As for today, we learned about two points perspective drawing some more as the lecturer gave out some more examples.

After that, we went outside the studio to find places with this element and ended up in Kulliyyah of Engineering's garden in the E0 building.

For this exercise, we're required to sketch using pens i.e. pigment pens...

...and this is it!


Of course, this isn't finish yet as we couldn't stay longer as it was starting to rain. Which also means we finished class earlier than usual.. weeee~!!

The assignment that is to be submitted on Thursday is we need to find another place with the same element of perspective but draw it this time. I'm thinking to just use the same garden but draw other thing instead... I'll post about it later!


Anyways, do tell me what you guys think!


Regards,

GC: Assignment #8 Part I

The thing is, I already submitted a one-point perspective drawing of my mahallah's i.e. hostel's middle area and it seems to me the final drawing isn't really good. Therefore, I decided to go and look some of the potential I supposed we could say material for me to draw and while walking around the campus, I saw this.

You know that kinda feeling of seeing something for the first time even though it's been there since forever but you just never notice it?


Okay, I guess this makes the first candidate... 


I'll post some more later on... 

Monday 17 October 2011

New Weapons

...Kidding! As you guys all know, I'm doing this heaven subject, Graphic Communications... Therefore, when my parents came all the way from Sabah due to some reasons previous weekend, I took them to the Neu Weststar Art Shop, located at Jalan Bandar Melawati Square,  Taman Melawati, KL to buy all the stuffs I need for this subject.

Throughout this entry, I'm going to show you guys some stuffs that I bought at the shop and some that I bought earlier so you guys can make this entry as KAEDian Starter Kit list or something...

First, let's go to the paper sections. I bought few sketchbooks... Well, bought like 6 or something as only 18 sheets per sketchbook...


Next, to the 'weapons' section...


Three T-Squares (35cm - easier to use for A4 sized papers, 60cm - for A3 and A2 papers, the 108cm - for drafting tables in the studio later), and Faber-Castell's Adjustable Set Square. I bought the Maped Compass Set, the 360º protractor, drafting brushes, Rotring Squares sets, Rotring French Curves when I was in Sabah.

Next, to the pens and pencils section...


Faber-Castell's Ecco Pigment pens (ranging from 0.1mm to 0.8mm) and Castell 9000 pencils (12 grades, ranging from 8B to HB, F, H and 2H). If you buy these pencils separately, the cheapest would be RM1.0 but if you buy this set at RM12.80, you'll get eraser and sharpener for free. The pronto eraser is awesome especially when you need to erase small area - erasing shield works too so I'm planning to get it later. 
By the way, I grew up with Faber-Castell's pens and pencils so... 

Next, is the best part of all... The colours section... 

In the shop I bought Prismacolor markers in 8 colors as other required colors are not in stock so I have to wait until early next month, Artist's Alpha Water Colors - with the brushes and palettes, and Faber-Castell's Watercolour Pencils. I bought Faber-Castell's Colour pens yesterday at Dar Al Kutub in Azman Hashim Building and as for the 20 Stabilo Pigment pens, I have them since school and just replace those that already ran out of ink with the new ones as they can be bought separately... These pens are awesome especially during the brainstorming sessions... 

and... Not forgetting this one... 


Poster colours... 

I guess that's all for now... I did bought some other stuffs but I'm going to post them later... 


Signing out, 

E

Sunday 16 October 2011

Do I Really Want to Go For It?

Big question. Do I really want to be an architect?

Should I just proceed to Applied Arts and Design Department instead?


NO!

I want this so bad I can't even sleep at night, thinking of what buildings I'm going to work on later. It may be in next 5 years, maybe in 7 years... But right now, all I need is to focus on what in front of me right now, and really strive for the best. 

Surrounding. I'm tutoring 2 people for my Mathematics class. This given me much more opportunities on learning about people's character. Their needs and interest. I don't really give a damn about this before but I need to change my mentality on this certain topic. Because I'm sure one of the best quality of an architect should have is excellent social skill. 

So, how do I fight negativity? Less motivation? Unwilling to work hard on certain subjects? Time management? 

Needless to say, we all have the same issues. We all are university students. Therefore,  it goes without saying we have problems in these things. 

For me, one thing remains. My goal. My target to be in Architecture Department next semester. I have to remember that it is not a given opportunity by the members of the faculty unless I appealed to them with high scores in my bridging subjects. 

Simple as that. If I get lower than 3.0 overall CGPA, don't even think of stepping into the studio. 

This is it. It's up to me. The future is in my hands. Either to hold it tightly, or just hold it with 2 fingers and eventually let it go. 

"And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We're always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it's only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important." Steve Jobs

Thursday 13 October 2011

GC: Assignment #7

Second assignment for this week was to create pattern, at the same time to show some examples of the usage of colours, to choose either one colour and degrade it into few different tones or choose 2 colours for example blue and yellow and try to have different tones and get mixtures of the two colours i.e. green in the middle of it.

As for me, I chose the first option as I did this exercise before with my serial planes. Wanna check them out? Click here.

Thinking of this pattern, I came out few things that I want to include in this pattern design. So first, I came out with the theme which is graduation. It's graduation week so it's inevitable to see people with robes everywhere. Literally.

Thus, I decided on purple. One, because it's KAED's colour and two, because it's S's favourite colour. Plus, I have 3 extra Buncho poster colours - leftover from my serial planes project, so... 

Then, I started to think which pattern fits the most. I chose IIUM's logo for a start and  I just went on from there.

So, this is it. Might seemed a little bit messy but it's okay as those purple squares represent us, the students.. None of us perfect, so here it goes..

Assignment #7
As you guys see in the picture above, there are 5 tones i.e. I degraded an upgraded (is it the right term..?) by mixing the purple colour with white and black. For purple and white mixtures, I did 3 tones (the ones outside the IIUM logo), as it represent the Architecture students from Year One to Year 3 (Part I - Bachelor of Science in Architecture) and for the purple and black mixtures, I did 2 tones as it represent the Architecture students from Year 4 and Year 5 (Part II - Bachelor of Architecture), and comes the black square in the middle shape like the trencher or in American, mortarboard or simply the graduation hat, representing the graduation or convocation itself. 

Other elements in the pattern, such as repetition where the squares are repeating, covering 95% of the design, and focus as the pattern is heading towards the same direction.

Took me one whole day to conceptualize the pattern, deciding on the colour and everything and took me the whole night to finish up the colouring process. Well, thanks to the 1cm x 1cm squares... 

I was so excited while presenting this in front of the class as designing pattern is something that I do all the time. Thanks to COLOURlovers.com ...

I think that's all about this assignment. Feel free to drop some comments, kay! 

As for today, we learned about one-perspective drawing and as for the assignment, we are required to find a place and draw the one-perspective view. 

This one is linear-perspective so it's kinda easy to find one but the challenge is, we need to colour it. Hmm...

Still considering what medium I'm going to use this time... Most probably, I'll go with water colours pencils. 


Alright, peeps! It's time for lunch. Au revoir!

E

Tuesday 11 October 2011

GC: Assignment #6

After taking a lot of consideration of which corner I want to draw... I think I would like to draw the most complicated corner of my room...

Well, don't really have any choice actually as other than this corner, only the walls and bed.. You guys know how small the standard undergraduate room is, right? Unlike those post-graduates room in Ruqayyah... ~sigh

Since we haven't actually learned about perspective drawings, so I have to read it myself to get an idea about it so here goes...

Assignment #6
Before, as we draw mere objects, now we have to consider on how to draw multiple objects, their placements, the limit i.e. same space... and etc.

I used 3B & 5B pencils, as well as H pencil to draw the construction lines... The challenging part would be the IIUM-designed grill that placed on windows... My room is on the ground floor so that's why... Again, I have problems with drawing the creases of the curtain (same as before for my shoes assignment). Still working on it..

overall the perspective lines isn't that great so... I'll work on it for next assignment...

As for today, we learned about colours and patterns... The colour wheel, type of colours media, the mixtures of colours, and so etc. As for the exercise, we're required to design our own pattern. I love this part, really. But the limit is to try to design something that's practical i.e. we can actually colour it using water colour or markers. Thus, I came up with different patterns and ended up creating something that is more symbolic than focusing mere on the design  and at the same time fulfilling the assignment's elements.

Anyway, as it still working on the concepts and everything, I'll post it on the next entry...

So, this is it, have a nice day people!

E

Thursday 6 October 2011

GC: Exercise #5

After the presentation, the lecture presented us with a dried coconut and a pumpkin... He placed it on a big leaf (that he cut from outside the tutorial room) on a desk in front of us... 

For this exercise, we were required to draw using pens i.e. pigment pens as this is the continuation to the previous exercise...

Exercise #5 Pen Medium
The lightings in the room isn't that good so it's quite confusing for the shading process...

Anyway, this is it.. Feel free to drop comments!

As for the next assignment, we are required to draw a corner of our room...

I wonder which corner I'm going to draw.. hehe


Signing out!

GC: Assignment #5

I spent the whole evening after dinner trying to figure the right placement of my subject for this assignment. I tried more that 10 placements but it didn't feel right.

I guess this is what you get if you choose high heels... Plus the lightings didn't give any help. If I place it nicely, the lightings just went weird as my high heels kinda have smooth finishes so the light bounced back in a very complicated way.

but then I guess, it's better this way...

Here goes...

Basically this is the second sketch of it. I didn't really like the first sketch as it kinda in the wrong placement. 


Yep! I chose to place them on my studying table so it's easy to draw them in front of me... I'm so going to get myself a drawing board this weekend!


This is the line of the subject... Something wrong with the heels points... It's okay, i think I'm going to fix them later using the shading and all... 

Assignment #5

This is after the final touches... Of course, I still need to improve my hatching techniques. Our lecturer seemed to like it. Let's hope for fair evaluation as I'm a beginner... =)



Regards,

E

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Basic Computing Skills

Salam and hi! To those who're taking this subject for the current semester, first of all I would like to advice you guys to be very open about this subject. Why? Because for some of you who are up and high on computer stuffs and get really techie when we talk about computer (but still didn't passed the qualifying test for this subject), or want to upgrade your overall CGPA before entering the Kulliyyah, please prepared yourself to go to the very basic of knowledge of computer.

I took this subject last semester and yes, I wasn't informed about the qualifying test so I ended up by taking this subject with an instructor from KICT.

The class overall was quite fun actually as I got to refresh all my knowledge about PC world as I've been using Mac OS X since 2009... Therefore, I did put some extra juice on Mac world among the notes given out as it also part of the discussions we had in classes before.

I hope you guys have fun while taking the subject as it actually quite an easy subject. Don't be intimidated by storied from other students as I believe that if you think that this subject is going to be fun, it will. But if doesn't, you're not some 6 year old who don't know how to make it fun. It's computer by the way... There's no way it should be boring...

Good luck!

E

P.S.: If there's anything you guys are not clear about, just drop some comments and I'll try my best to answer them...

Tuesday 4 October 2011

GC: Exercise #4

As always, after the presentation, we got the next lesson on rendering techniques and for this lesson we are required to draw using pens. Well, pigment pens or technical pens to be exact. As some of the guys didn't buy any of these pens, the kind lecturer had to provide to most of us (except me as I brought mine all the time) and some just preferred to do it with ball pens.

The subjects are a bottle of mango syrup, some glass-bottled juice, and Petronas' Mesra Mineral Bottle. Yep! The one with multi-angled surface.

I used the Faber-Castell's 0.1 and 0.3 pigments pens and for those who're wondering what is a pigment pen, this is an example...



unfortunately, the drawing of shades didn't turned out that well. The hatching lines weren't that smooth and I kinda over-shading them.

... Let's just horror ourselves with it anyway... 

Exercise #4
Since the time was already up, I just sent it in...T_T I learned a lot from this exercise though... 

I promise I'll get better with more pen-sketching later...

The next assignment is to draw a pair of shoes. Be it a pair of sneakers, high heels or crocs. The challenge here is to make sure the drawing of right and left shoes are different of each other and of course, we have to think of good placement of the subject together with its lightings.

That's all for now...

Regards,

E

GC: Assignment #2 to #4

As I mentioned in the previous entries, this is the subject of my assignment, Japanese-Post-Office-box-shaped money box...


...and these are the drawings I did yesterday... 

The Lines
The Shades
Together...

According to the lecturer, the shades for the darkest part should be darker than that. Agree. ...and he likes the placement of the object i.e. I tilted the subject to the right a bit. 

So I think that's all about the assignment.


Feel free to drop comments... 


GC: Assignment #1

As you guys know, last week we just learned the very basic of graphic design, which are the dots, and lines together with some letterings and of course some lesson on pencil medium, on how to do the shades and its technique so by the end of the class, we were given our very first assignment on line and its composition, and we got to choose random object to be the subject of our lines, tones, and values assignment...

Thus today, I submitted them and all of us needed to present our drawings.

This is for my lines compositions + lettering...
Assignment #1
I have no idea of what I should call this thing but this is actually a combination key. Some sort from outer place thing as in something that is supposed to be placed in the middle some spaceship to navigate the whole thing. If this was to appear in physical, you need to turn the layers of circles into a right combination in order to unlock the screen in the middle. (This thing kinda remind me of Katy Perry's song 'E.T.')

Tell me what you guys think!

Sunday 2 October 2011

Inspirations

I have 4 assignments for the weekend and I haven't done anything yet.

Still finding some inspirations and reading some materials.

As for Graphic Communications, we are required to have this book, Design Drawing by Francis D.K. Ching.

I bought the latest release of the book last week even before I started the class. What a nice coincidence, right? =)

As for Introduction to Built Environment, the required book is 1994's The Built Environment: A Creative Inquiry into Design & Planning by Tom J. Bartuska and G.L. Young but the one we have in the library is the revised edition, released in 2007 with the title of The Built Environment: A Collaborative Inquiry into Design and Planning edited by Wendy R. McClure and Tom J. Bartuska himself.


The assignments aforementioned are consist of 4 drawings, the first one is the composition of lines while the other three are from the third week topic on tones and values, rendering techniques, and shades and shadows.

As for the first assignment, I'm thinking of using pigment pens to draw those lines. Should be okay, right?

I am thinking of using my money-box as the subject for the three assignments but I know it's gonna be tricky as it has many lines and shapes on it still, I'm gonna try anyway.

Alright. I think I'm done with finalizing the things I need.


Signing out!