Hallo Everybody,

And so it starts again.

You know it’s coming. You unconsciously count the days… then the hours… then the minutes. You see the students start to flow again, fill the sidewalks, fill the campus. The cafeterias start to open on a regular basis again.

Yes.

It’s that time again.

The start of classes!! Oh the joy!! ^_^

But then again, it’s also the end of vacation, winter vacation in this case. Ah well, nevertheless, that breif period was wonderful.

For me, I took advantage to do some things I hadn’t done in while, one of them was sleep , the others… well, keep on reading.

First, I had the chance to travel a bit inside Taiwan. This time, my friend and I went to the Pacific Coast on the northeastern side of the island, more specifically to LuoDong, which is the county of Ilan. We made the trip from Taipei to LuoDong by train, which was really nice, since there are parts along the tracks from where you can see the sea. On the way from Taipei to LuoDong, we stopped at Fulong, which is along the coast. There, after admiring the beach, we had Fulong Bian Dang for lunch from the original stand in Fulong, which is right next to the station, and that was just delicious (I’m actually still craving one).

Beach at Fulong

↑ (this picture thanks to my celly)

admiring the beach

in line for Fulong Bian Dang or Lunch Box

Taking pictures

↑ (this one also thanks to my celly ^_^)

From the train

From the train

These pictures were taken by 子晴 (ZiChing) ^_^ (since my camera decided to not take pictures anymore )

In LuoDong we met up with our friend, who took us to see the traditional art museum. Really nice as well.

Another day, I also had the chance to go to the Palace Museum for the first time. They have some pretty nice pieces there, though I only had time to go through the second floor, which is filled with pottery and caligraphy and paintings from several different Chinese Dynasties.

Palace Museum

Inside the Palace Museum's lobby

Garden outside the Palace museum

The downside of the museum visit was the amount of people there, but of course, since I went during the week of Chinese New Year.

This was only the first two weeks of vacation.

Afterwards, I attended the TIARA Winter School on Star Formation, which was incredibly interesting and informative. The conferences were really interesting, spanning several days  and treating several areas of star formation, such as models of outflows, jets, high and low mass star formation, the interstellar medium and both theory and observational data. There were several experts giving the conferences, which gave it variety.

Overall cool.

As for the rest of my vacation, I dedicated it to drawing and playing around with some paint techniques.

A while ago, I had bought myself a set of watercolor paints and hadn’t really used it much. So I decided this vacation to use them and do a little experimenting with them. So here are some of my results.

First I tried doing something with this year’s daily planner, since it seemed too bland.

daily planner front cover

^_^

Next, since I had some paint left and didn’t want to waste it before I started another project, I decided to play with it a bit, so I took some pieces of paper and a wide flat brush and just started painting to see what came out, and this is what came out:

sunrise... or sunset

and

forest at sundown

Then I started doing one for a friend, which came out like this:

beach

Here I only used a thinner brush for the girl in the image, for the rest, I used a wide flat brush (#4 flat brush)

This vacation, I also started a small lettering project, in which I asked my family to give me a word they liked and related words. I only got to half painting one and just penciled two others. I have still two more to go. But here is my progress:

Pijama

This one is for my soon-to-be-one-year-old niece ^_^ My niece happens to just love bright colors (and dislikes pink!! yay!!) She also likes yellow a lot, so I made this one for her. I still have to do the shading and details, but that will soon come.

Mountain

This one is for my Mom, and it says “Montaña” which is Mountain in Spanish.

Sea

And this one is for my Dad, it says “Mar” which means Sea, in Spanish as well.

This project started after I did my niece’s name in much the same fashion for a folder for her daycare:

the difference is that I did this one with ink, while the “Pijama” one is being done in water color.

I really like the effect that inks provide to an image, and they are relatively versatile. The problem is that if I don’t finish a project in one sit, any leftover ink is wasted. This is not the case with watercolor, where any ink that dries up can be reused by just adding water. Needless to say, both methods can achieve some interesting effects. ^_^

And last, I also did some pencil drawings, though I only managed to finish one: a self-portrait.

self-portrait: greyscale

self-portrait: color

I did it using a mechanical 0.5mm pencil and a normal 4B pencil. Afterwards, I used a paperpen to smooth out the shading. I only used red for the scarf. I then scanned it in greyscale and in color. I really like how the greyscale accents the details, while the color accents the red scarf. Though I still suspect my scanner to be badly calibrated, since it always scans rather odd in color scale.

Finally, I did two other projects that I haven’t yet scanned or taken a picture of, but I’ll post about those as soon as I can.

Well, that is all for now, this post has come out quite long… but most of it is images, so not to much ramblings.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it. ^_^

Now, another semester starts. Let’s see what comes of it.

Cheers, NM