} arty-farty spirit

Yes! Yes!!! YESSSSSS!!!!

Whee...! I feel so terribly and overly and ridiculously happy this morning. But then, I guess there really isn't much reason to be otherwise.

For one thing, it's a really really great morning. NO, it's not the sun-is-shining-and-birds-are-singing kind of morning...it's a really really cool morning, like, literally. I seldom wake up at this time of day, cos usually when I have to go to school, I have to wake up way earlier than this, when the weather is either freezing or too warm. But at this time, at around seven-something, it's just perfect, really. It's cold, but not too cold, and it's the time when I can actually see the sun rising, not when it's already risen or when it's still set. In fact, if I just push away the curtain a bit and look out the window now, I can just see, really clearly even beyond the trees, the blinding glare of the rising sun.

(Blinding glare of the rising sun...that sounds rather poetic...I should remember that phrase.)

OK, so maybe it IS the sun-is-shining-and-birds-are-singing kind of morning, but the birds' singing are just annoying me, so I won't count that into consideration.

Another reason to be happy is that today, I know I'm not going to sit around all day doing nothing. I swore to myself last night that starting from today, I'm going to TRY to limit my internet time and finally get down to doing some homework and maybe jog a couple of rounds around the block, 1)to keep fit, 2)to try to cut down internet time, and 3)to disturb my neighbour's dog. But the last point is completely unnecessary of course - I just like doing it. He's so easy to annoy. He's a really protective dog, so if I get just a few feet close to his owner's house, he'd bark and bark and bark... but there's an iron grill just in front of him, so he can't get me. HAH.

I guess I wouldn't want to do homework, but if I just push myself to do some grammar, I suppose that would do it.

The third reason why I'm so horribly (and annoyingly) happy is that I had a total miraculous art breakthrough last night. It's like, after a whole month, I finally managed to come up with something decent. The last time I managed to draw something which I'm really proud of was in the middle of my exam week, when I suddenly came into an arty-farty spirit and began drawing 1)for the sake of it, and 2)to help get rid of exam stress. Mind you, it worked. So maybe the next time you study for your exam, you should doodle on your textbook to release stress. I mean, seriously. For geography exam, one of the chapters I had to study was about natural vegetations, so I drew all the natural vegetations on my notebook, complete with a camel and a cactus on my desert vegetation and a Santa Claus going 'Ho Ho Ho' on the temperate coniferous forest vegetation. See? My method worked so well, I still remember everything now... My friends thought I was weird to study that way, cos they study by copying notes from the textbook (which never works for me, cos I only end up copying the whole textbook itself). But in the end I got a better Geography result.

I guess I went off my point. ANYWAY. How I came up with the idea of the drawing last night is a rather long story, but I'll tell you anyway. I was surfing the internet for some Lord of the Rings stuff (look in archive for the entry about being crazy about LOTR) and I found a really really good site, TheOneRing.Net. They have a full section dedicated to the LOTR fans. It contains fan art, comics, media and about a ton of other stuff. I had never been interested in looking at fan art before, but at that time, I decided to take a look. And lo and behold, that section was full of marvellous art, not the junky type of art that I draw, in fact I swear some of them deserve to be put in a museum or something. The fan art includes not only drawings, but also paintings and sculptures and anything that involves art. I was so shocked. I mean, you would be, too, if you try taking a look at this. Or any other work by that Hope Hoover, whoever she is. (Hope is a girl name, right?) Not shocked yet? Look at this then. After that, look up all the other art done by that Jody. STILL not impressed? Then consider clicking here. That Crystal J is a BLOODY GENIUS. Actually, till now, I'm still wondering if that picture is just a photo or an actual hand-drawn picture. But I recognise some pencil lines, so I assume that it's real art. The last linked picture, the one by Crystal J, is the picture that inspired me to do my drawing last night.

Unfortunately, it didn't exactly turn out as good as that, or at least how I wanted it to turn out. But it was much, much better than I expected, and for once, I'm able to draw a guy without making him look like a sissy. So, I'm really proud of that drawing.

Although I get the feeling sometimes that the head is too small for the body. Or that I drew the hand all wrong, and I got the outfit wrong too. But it was the first time that I tried drawing Legolas, so obviously, there will still be a lot of room for improvement...but I'm going to try to draw him again, and this time, I'm taking note of all the mistakes that I've made and making sure that the drawing will be even better than the last one.

WOW. I'm actually going to LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES. And that means that something out of one of my principal's 'short' talks is actually getting into my head. Or at least, I think it's from the principal...maybe it's from the vice-principal. Or one of those crazy councilling-troubled-teens people who did a workshop the other time. I forgot. But anyway, something got into my head, and that's good, I guess.

Although, the guy who did the talk on myopia and short-sightedness probably wouldn't be too happy, because I spent more than two hours drawing that thing last night. And doing near work for hours without taking breaks at 30-minute intervals is NOT GOOD. AND drawing is considered near work.

That is, if I got his facts right. I wasn't really listening, only half-listening, so maybe I could've gotten it all wrong. But then again, my mum is always saying the exact same thing when I'm surfing the internet, so it HAS to be correct. And I assume it is.

What the hell am I blabbing about. I don't give a shit about that.

So I guess I succeeded in telling you why I'm so overjoyed right now, even with my mum pestering me to clean up my desk every half-a-minute. I actually managed to come out of my 'artist's block', if there is such a thing, and came up with a half-decent drawing. That's more than I expected.

I'd better make sure that this time, the drawing comes out three quarters-decent, so I'd be even prouder of myself.

*beams*

2002-11-11, 7:07 a.m..
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