Qin Theory: STUDY OF ART: 2011

Hands (Photography)

These wrinkled hands used to hold my tiny hands inside and protect me from the outer world.
These debilitated hands are expert ones that made me beautiful summer dresses and stuffed animals.
These shaky hands embrace me tight, every time when I have to say goodbye....

Hands-- my great-grandmother's hands in mine.

Today I can hold your hands the way you did when I was eight.
I had not looked at it this carefully since then.
I see the trace of time.
I see the sign of a great-grandmother's pride.
And I see the peace that lives in you when you wait for me to come home.

I miss you, great-grand mother.

Taken on 31 Dec, 2011.
With my 91-year-old great grandmother.

Clare:P

My first tablet painting.

This is my friend Clare.

She was beside me for the most of the time when I did this painting.

I am so happy to have a sweet friend like her.

@China~ An ODD self portrait

It is an exaggerated self-portrait.

I tried to free the brush in my hand.

I am melting there,

in between fire and ice...

@China~ "ME WALL"

I did a series of self-portraits in the summer.
My mom hung them on a wall and make it a "ME WALL" XD!

Let's look at these paintings one by one. I put them in time order:).

1. This is the first self-portrait I did with acrylics on canvas.

And then after this painting's existent, purple-yellow tone started to be call my "signature colour".

2. Haha, it is from one of my pictures in grade ten. I was 15.

I've got a crooked smile there.

3. My first oil painting:).

I was kind of chubby at that time....

4. Got the motivation after watching "Transformers III" 8D!

I want gold skin!

5. This is a "sketch painting".

it looks kind of like a sketch but it is actually an acrylic painting and I made my eyes LOL red...

I got Monkey King's "火眼金睛".

or if you say I look like a vampire, I will accept that too.

This is where it is located, on the wall above my piano at home in China.

@China~ Got a "Tulip Garden" at home

I did a few paintings of tulips for commitments (from family friends) this summer. I put assemble them a tulip garden in my house^_^.

(this is my TV...)

Aha, new style.

raining? reflection? near sight? I leave the imagination to you!

I enjoy the rich colour of its.

The last one is an old painting I did at the beginning of 2010 for my mom.

An additional one that is not included. Done it in 2009.

First acrylic painting ever!

@China~ Mama's Birthday Gift

This is the birthday card I designed and made for my mom's birthday on September 4th.;)

HAPPY 35 TH BIRTHDAY

MAMA!

YOUR ID: wanhong@1966.0904

PASSWORD: 1. moms are happy to be 10 years younger.

2. mama, you are the shortest.

DO YOU GET THE JOKE?

Hahaa! It was a family joke~

ANOTHER COOL VERSION OF IT

@CHINA~ My paintings eaten by bugs

This is a heartbreaking story :"(.

Do you remember these paintings from my old posts?
(Click the images to read their stories)

If you are a new visitor to my blog, these are my two textured paintings I made with edible flour.

Well well well.... If this didn't actually happened to me, I would never take note to imagine, such frigging oddity, that my paintings one day became a meal for bugs.

Bugs are savage this summer, especially in my house! I never find out the major reason or any clue of insect nests, although I'd considered about plants we had at home and food we sometimes left outside the fridge.
Anyways, two days ago, I looked close to a painting and I saw a line made up of powder on the counter at the bottom of the canvas.
At first I thought it was paints getting melt because of its poor quality somehow, but as I look closer, I realize that the powder is mixture of acrylic paints and RED BUGS!

GOD! I FOUND THE NESTS!!

The black holes on the figures are the hunks eaten by bugs. They ate the flour and left acrylics behind.

The dark line is left-over acrylic powder after the bugs finished up their "food".

what I circled are two fleshy bugs. you can see how well-fed they had been to grew this buff!

Of course I am VERY, VERY grossed out!!

The first thing I did was SCREAMING, although nobody was home to help. Fine, with my eyes closed tight, I immediately removed it and exposed it in the ruthless Chinese sun, and then I got some camphor balls from super market...

I swear I will take better care of my paintings from now on.

Oh AND! I will remind Shirley about bug prevention!

@CHINA~ DIY: Eco Shirt

So proud to wear a self-designed shirt and spread words of environment.

A. 2$ (12RMB) cost for a white T-shirt

B. Writing with acrylic paints

RECYCLE

PLEASE!

C. Handprint-- MY PLEDGE

Thinking about my direction of future, I want to do something practical with my art. Yes, ENVIRONMENT.

In the next year, I aim to apply my art and creativity to promoting environmental practice.

For next step, I’ll get some fabric paints and use this idea for fundraising at school.

@CHINA~ Taking a break from study

It would be my failure if you couldn't tell who she was...

I was about to take a break from study, but by the time I finished this portrait, the entire afternoon had elapsed...

It's been three days home. Nothing is too exciting but this life is perfect, simple and relaxing, like in paradise... so lucky of me to lead a life like this so slow and low-pressured in this country while everyone else is on the run.

What I've been doing these days:

1. Studying for a mandatory English test called TOEFL(Test of English as a Foreign Language) for my university next year. That is what I meant by "study" in the tittle and it's my only pressure this summer. I have a lot to work on my vocabulary and reading, and maybe listening and writing too... okay, that's actually everything... Well, my test is on July 23rd. I really have to work as hard as in the past few months even though it's in summer:(.

2. Family time. I get to spend lots of time with my parents and everyday after dinner we go out for walk, swimming or drive to the mountain for some climbing; I will be visiting my grandparents and other relatives in another city this weekend.

3. Eating watermelons. To my surprise, the temperature here is not unbearable, but I'm sure it's gonna be boiling hot in a few days... WATERMELONS, MY SAVIOR!

4. China is a "party" country, with numerous places and huge variety way for entertainment, just like one of my friends says "there's nothing you can't find, but things out of your imagination." China is a delicious country, but I've lost my appetite since I got here:(.

I always prefer to stay home for meals because my mom is a very very amazing cook!

5. I did some shopping online and the price and transportation are cheap and things are delivered very fast.

6. Reading Bible. I have a goal to finish the entire new testament over the summer.

7. Sleep very bad these days because I don't get used to live with constructions. They start so early every day and wakes me up at 7:00 every morning. By working so hard with so many workers, buildings rise abruptly out of the ground in China. :( it's crazy.

7. Foreign websites are supposed to be blocked in China, but lots of people use a special browser, a proxy server called Freegate to get through it. That's why I'm still facebooking and blogging everyday. So crafty.

8. Drawing and "showing off" my works to visitors to my houseXD.

Too bad my friends

I am thinking about making some money by drawing portraits for my old friends or schoolmates (free to my close friends:)), but it will be after my English test.

I hope I will meet my painting teacher soon:DDD. Excited now!

Well, about this drawing, Audrey Hepburn, I'm not a big fan but what a great actress.

@CHINA~~ First Time Playing with Oil Paints

I'm currently in Hefei, China.
Guess what was the first thing I did on my first day home?

TRYING OUT MY OIL PAINTS, haha~

Recent craziness, dizziness, busYness...

Wow, my first post in June is on June 24th. What a slacking blogger....

I finish school and exams this week, and you know what, I am leaving for my home city, Hefei, China on Sunday, which is about 36 hours from now. I will be staying there for tow month and a half, coming back on September 11th.

I've been working on a couple of projects during this super busy month. Sadly, i don't get them finish on time, and I have to leave them here in Toronto and continue to work on them after coming back in September.

Anyhow, this post is just to let you get a glimpse, and I'm not taking a break from blogging or painting. So stay tuned, cause you are going to see my achievements in Chinese painting.

Oh, well, I've been working on thist painting since April, however, it's only about 80% complete. This project is a great challenge, and it's also my first time doing a painting with palette knives.

Another portrait... it's really cute. You will see.

Here are some portraits that I haven't posted.

Gifts for my friends in China<3.

A portrait of my dad making a face~~~ XD so hilarious.

So these are the posters or cards I made from the sketch on my iPod for his birthday in May, and Father's day in June.

Forever a Child @ Heart

No matter what you are,

a child, a teenager, an adult, a parent or a grandparent...

Happy Children's Day!

For we all have once been children, and we all have children around in our lives.

Let's celebrate with a youthful heart,

Recollecting our childhood memories,

Playing with our junior friends,

Or...

Just dip ourselves in a childlike day on JUNE 1ST!

June 1st is international Children's Day, although I don't think every countries actually celebrate it as a confirmed holiday or on the same date. Children's Day and my birthday used to be the two days I looked forward to the most in a year when i was a child. I grew up in China. I remember before I turned 12, my parents celebrated Children's Day for me every year. They always bought me gifts, dressed me nicely and took me out, sometimes along with my friends too, somewhere special to have fun. Particularly, elementary school kids get the entire day off on that day, and schools usually held Children's Day performance and activities in late May.(it is no exaggeration to say that they do everything to celebrate this holiday.) I've only danced once in my life and I got kicked out a few days before the performance... well it's okay, my drawings are on the school shows every year, and sometimes writings too... the last time I drew with a bunch of kids on a super long white fabric for the art show was such a long time a go. 8 years?wow, can't believe it.
Yeah, not only some parents take a day off from work on that day to spend time with their kids, schools and communities are doing nice things too such as dinners/parties, TV programs etc. (yeah, I was on a TV show one year:D)

Since 1925, International Children's Day was proclaimed, I believe children's rights and wellbeing have been widely spread and accepted in the world.

I started to miss Children's Day after the June 1st in grade seven, a very short in class celebration in junior high, which was supposed to be our last year of Children's Day. And then we became youth.
I will become an adult soon next year.
Growing up is not bad at all.

Well, on this day, I would like to thank my parents for all they did on Children's Day when I was a child.
Wish everyone stay young at heart.

LOUD LAUGHTERS and FREE HAPPINESS.

Every Day is Your Mother's Day, Mama

A drawing of a beloved person is precious.

This is a gift for my mother on the Mother's Day. I started working on it Friday night while I was on a fever, so it's a quick drawing but I worked really hard. It is drawn with pencils crayon, pastels, charcoal, HB pencil and Qin's magic fingerXD... Due to the size of the drawing(11*15), I'm still looking for an art envelope as a protection and going to frame the drawing before I get back to my mom this summer(She's in China).

I didn't realize what a gorgeous woman you until I started to draw you

But you are always beautiful, Mama

On this special day, I am not able to deliver a carnation to you

as you are so far away from me

but I do have something special for you as every year

this drawing is my carnation!

Don't be surprised how much my drawing skills improved this year

This is how awesome your daughter is:)

I can't describe how much I miss you when the strokes I created made up into your face

Touching your beautiful smile with my fingers, I really want to say to your

I love you.

I'll do anything to make you happy.

你是世界上最幸福的妈妈。

I'll make every day your Mother's Day:).

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers around the world!

I'm very inspired...

Dropping by the art show in OCAD (Ontario College of Art and Design) University is the best part of my day. The fair is called Graduate Exhibition and there are dozens of awesome artworks, and I lingered for so long on the floors with the stuff I'm most interested in, drawings & paintings(I also saw some material and environmental design though.)
Some ideas are quite extraordinary, for example...;), they still inspired me to be honest.

It was my first time to visit an art school/school. The atmosphere of art and creativity really made me infatuated. Though I never expect myself to go to the art and design field, I started to imagine the life studying there and working among hundreds of genius. That way, doing what I'm so bloody passionate (well, if the word passion is red in my mind, bloody, I mean my passion is infinitely red ), life will be no flaw at all. Just imagination though... I think I may go crazy if I become an artist. I would fast myself for a project and I might commit suicide if nothing inspired me at all... I don't think I mean joking.

I visited the art exhibition by accident. A fantastic accident I mean:D. I was intend to take a look at OCAD University for a couple of minutes as I pass it by, and the art exhibition dragged me there until two hours later. Of course I was not prepared with a notebook and a pencil, but I took notes with my camera and and my iPod ↖(^ω^)↗, and I went shopping for art supplies afterwards.

Here are my inspiration.
(I may write it with my "codes" and I hope it's okay...)
- Sketch journal
- Pouring + texture
- Hot glue as texture
- Self-portrait series
- Black & white paintings ( maybe red and white for some particular paintings)
I don't know how to explain it, not because English is my second language, but I think I do have issue about expression.
- Paintings of cool photographs of me and my friends
- "Dancer" on wooden canvas
- Simple on long canvas
- woolen yard sculpture
- Charcoal on wood

I'm in a dilemma, that on one hand, I have so many ideas and so much passion to do art, and if I have a whole week off I wish I will do nothing but paint; on the other hand, I am so busy, so busy everyday... I really need to do well in school, I really need to pass my swimming lifeguard exam, I have to work for Student Council and so on, my mom asked me to learn French, and I'd better more exercise...
I'm always trying to be less horrible managing my time. No matter how busy and stressed I am, I unload all them when I'm doing art; if I have to give up on something, it won't be my art.

I couldn't stand the fact that there was a post without a picture of my art, so I add this...

even though it's something crappy.

I draw this in October 2009, on the night a friend of mine in China asked me to design for the mural painting which she was responsible for at school...

I don't think she ever used this as blueprint since she didn't receive it on time anyways; I do think she did a great job designing by herself.

This special drawing is about my memories in junior high in China and it was drawn on the other side of my gr 10 science homework, under the page in the photograph is my guitar text book.

No Garbage: Hand-made toys from grade 8

I'm currently working on a big acrylic painting on Thursdays, and school work and other extra-curriculum courses have occupied all the other days...

Thursday afternoons when I do painting with Shirley is the only time that can make me leave all the stress and frustration behind. I feel peace and joy from it.

Now, I really don't have much new stuff to upload to my blog but I have the pictures of the stuffed toys I made when I was 14:D.

They are actually all given to my friends or families as gifts, but I did keep the pictures before I gave them away. Let me introduce them to you one by one:).

1. A turtle!

She is the first stuffed toy I ever made. I made it without any instruction, supervision or even a map, using strings, needles, cotton and old clothings and buttons, learning everything from working with hands all by myself, and even under the table because my mom would seriously get mad if she saw me doing this instead of studying.

I started from cutting an old pink sweater I'd worn from grade four to six. It has really nice colors and patterns, and the two lines on sleeves can be made into the closure of its shell; pay attention to its tail is made of the elastic wristband from the sweater. I made one of its eyes half-shut because it looks like this expression: "-_-|||". LOL; the other eye is made of a button from my pants.

I gave this to my boy friend... Yeah, a boy friend in grade eight and we are still together though we are hundreds of kilograms apart...

2. The following toys are related... I mean it's a series of stuffed toys, from the same ancestor(my "zebra" shirt).
He is called 幺不 (sounds like "yob" or "yao-boo"), I didn't even know how to say it right when I looked at it after a few years... at the time when I made this, I look over dictionaries to find the words to name it. I don't think 幺不 is a great name for it though....
I guess the little devil-styled toys are quite popular in that summer.
The metal button is pretty cool. It's from my pants and that was the only one. I had to sew something else to replace it after cutting it off.

3. Another 幺不: older brother

I'm taller than La Tour Eiffel

4. It should be the probably the father 幺不 I believe....

You think I am a teddy bear? Watch out, man, cos I'm the stronger one!

You might ask, "what the hell is going one with those pictures of stuffed toys?"

LOL, well, I was really bored one night and I played the new app I got on my iPod... until 2 a.m.

I kown I was not supposed to play for that long I just can't help it because I'm making fun of my art:D.

5. Lastly, the baby 幺不!

I'm learning French so... haha. (I hope it's correct though)

Thanks for visiting;).

Making a Roman Soldier Costume

cThis is not really an art- or creativity-related thing but I'd like to share on my blog just because I am so proud that Chen Chen and I did something amazing during this holiday...

Chen Chen and I are two of the young people who took part in playing the skit for the family meeting on Easter Monday in my church. The skit is telling the story of Jesus's resurrection, and the roles we are taking are the two Roman guards standing outside Jesus' tomb after His death and flee after finding out the loss of Jesus' body.
We spent more than 7 hours each making our costumes at the church on the Good Friday. It was a long process and it is very fun and even fascinating, when the recycling boxes are turning into soldier uniform, and then I can't stop myself working on it.
Almost everything is according to an instruction on a web link, so I can't say there is creative activity. After all, it really helps me learn stuff like crafts and working with my stupid hands.

(Thanks to the girls who took all the pictures:).)

Chen Chen and I in costumes ;)

(Two Asian Warriors in Roman Soldier Costume!)

1. Materials and tools

- Lots of cardboard boxes (I don't know how many boxes we used because Shirley or Chen Chen'd got the board in advance, but we used them for a lot of large areas)
- Cutting materials (i.e. knives, scissors, and cutting boards...)
- Hot Glue/Glue gun (for all the joints on the cardboard), and some tape (for the belt part)
- Silver paints
- Brooms (for the crests on the top of the helmets)
- Belt (for the skirt)
- Plastic swords
- Red shirts
- Sandals

2. Helmets
I'm not teaching you how to make the costume, so I won't explain every single step in details. I have some pictures to show you how I made them.

The broom is the hardest part for me to put onto the helmet stably. I kinda screwed up my design but eventually I figure it out with the help from Shirley.

2. Body Armour
This is the biggest part of the costume, made of almost the entire a box, front, back and two sides.
Also we made an awesome shield for the chest.

3. Soldier's Skirt

It's a lot of work of of cutting and pasting. I'm glad Lucy helped us:).

Everything should be connect with hot glue and "anything else is a waste of time", however, we tape the strips to the belt. That's why one of them fell off right before the performance, which really took me aback.