Works in Progress_ Sketchbooks and First Assignment

School has started since a week ago. Pretty much all my classes are settling down. Although still kind of not used to getting up so early every day, I'm doing fine in general.

So these two copper pieces are meant to be part of my assignment for AP Studio Art that is due next Wednesday, September 8th. Originally the assignment was titled "shoe", but since I have these two pieces (which were intended to be shoe-looking objects and failed to), I'll probably make something different. Since I started, I've realized that sculpture pro-folio is really not an easy task to do...

As for the sketchbook, we were assigned to draw/make something about "opposite". Some of the pictures shown here aren't really related to that, but the one with the angel and demon is related. These are works that are still "being processed" and should be finished very soon.

Sketch for the opposite

Blue marker, very messy and hastily done

Part of my summer doodles, on a back of a note pad

Back from Las Vegas_ Summer Ended :O

I spent the last three days before moving into the dorm with my cousins, aunties, and my mom at Los Angeles and Las Vegas. It's been a lot of fun. We went to Santa Monica Beach at LA; it was really hot but we got to enjoy the pleasantly cold water and the comfy sunbath afterwards. After having dinner at 鹿鼎記 (though it was actually called "Duck House") and staying at Comfort INN for a night, we left LA for Las Vegas.

Double-Peace Sign at Santa Monica

We didn't really do much at Los Angeles. Other than Santa Monica Beach, we also visited China/ Chinese Theater, where celebrities' hands and shoes impressions were left on the concrete floor. It was a lot hotter than bay area, but staying at the beach made everything a lot nicer.

This was my second time in Vegas. Nothing really has changed since last time I was there. Well but I now can really appreciate the ceiling installed glass art-works at the hotel Bellagio and the intense amount of work the artists put into the installation. We watched a show titled Viva Elvis at a fairly new hotel Aria. It was more like a tribute than a circus show compared to Cirque Du Soleil's other performances (at least to the only other one I saw, KA). But still it was a really fun and mind-blowing experience.

Glass Installation at Bellagio

School is starting in two days and apparently not many people are ready for it. It seems like it would be another tough year since college application has already started and my class schedule is also getting busier.

Eddie Murphy!

Foundry Class_ 5 Days at the Crucible (West Oakland)

Bronze Pouring (Driver-shank, Deadman, and Skimmer)

As I mentioned in the first article I posted, I went to the Crucible at Oakland for a foundry class from August 9th to August 13th. Class size was pretty small; there was 7 people at my session. I really learned a lot more than I expected despite that it is only an introductory class. Ranging from wax working, resin-bonded, green sand casting, ceramic shell, bronze pouring and final finishing, the class really make metal working tons of fun. I was also thrilled to see so much people at the Crucible who share the same passion and initiative to learn art and appreciate art.

The Crucible really is a great working environment; it has pretty much all the equipments you need to create whatever sorts of art work you are creating(well, except for painting I guess). At a tour given by staff (Annie and Denise, thank you!) at the Crucible, we got to take a peek at their woodworking room, grinding room, blacksmithing room, neon tube bending room, mold-making room,....and so many other individual, specialized rooms for different kinds of art forms.

Me and Molds Ready to Cast

After the five-day session at the Crucible, I had 4 pieces of work in total. Three of them is made of bronze and one aluminum. One bigger bronze piece, the crawling man, was made through the ceramic shell method. First, we made out mold from victory-brown wax (which is actually pretty hard for me to handle because it melts so quickly and solidify pretty fast, too). The mold can be, unlike sand casting, in very dynamic shapes and can certain have some "undercuts"(although some shapes still can't work because the shell would be hard to clean out at the end). And then there were gating, veining, and welding the whole piece to a hollow cone made of wax. Afterwards, we dipped the mold into slurry and different types of artificial sands(RG1, 2, and 3) between intervals. Finally, we melt the wax and let it drip out of the shell (which was recycled), and we were ready to pour bronze while the shell was still hot. After the metal cooled down and went through the shrinkage, we broke the shell and did our finishing work. The whole process took about 4 days since we only had 6 hours a day and that we were learning other techniques meanwhile. But it was simply amazing to work through the whole process.

Dipping

My First Wax Mold

The other two bronze pieces was sand-cast, and the aluminum piece was cast with sand blocks (I forgot the name..).

Second Wax Mold

Third Wax Mold

The last day was actually a bit of a rush because we were just cleaning up our pieces in the grinding room, which is pretty nasty and time-consuming(due to the fact that my molds weren't very perfectly made lol) in nature. Nevertheless, it was TONS of fun and I got to use some tools that I would never imagine myself using, like the sand blaster and the rolling blades (I forgot the actual name..).

Overall, it was a fantastic experience and I am definitely going to take class again at the Crucible. And the tuitions are also pretty reasonable.

I will be finishing some of the pieces I made at this session after school starts and hopefully I can post them here and talk about it more when they are taken care of.

Bronze

Part of the Crucible

  

Summer Doodles

These are some of the doodles I did during the summer. I have been doing a lot of doodles since about 7th grade; I can't find a lot of them, but some are still kept in my storage box at Priory. They're mostly done on random pieces of papers and with pen. Someday I would probably photograph every one of my doodles and file them. They are kind of like my recorded memories, except in a wordless form...

In sketchbook (pen and blue sharpie, increased contrast and temperature)

On the back of DL 44 (application for driving license) (color pencil)

On a flyer (pen)

In sketchbook (pen and color pencil)

On another flyer (pen)

On posted of Holidays Inn (pen)

In sketchbook (pen and color pencil)

Self Portrait_ Color Pencil

This is another practice of looking at a photography and sketching down what I see, except this time I did it on my own photo. I only spent about 2 to 3 hours working at this piece from beginning to end. I feel like a lot can be improved in this one, especially the proportion of the face and the colors I used. Again I used color pencils, both water-soluble and non-soluble. I spent a little more time, however, on checking the correctness of the shape of my face. At first my chin seemed to be sticking out too much as you can see below so I actually had to erase the mouth and the chin and redo them.  

=Work in Progress=

Outlining

(I used iPhoto to enhance this and the following pictures so it's easier to see... a little bit..)

Outlining

Putting on My Jacket..

First Layer of Coloring

Comparing with the original photo

Lin Style Cheesecake

Last time I used the oven was during Christmas in 2009, long time ago and probably my first time since I came to US. This one came out to be way more successful than I thought it'd be. OREO is a really good ingredient for the bottom because its cookie part is not sweet at all (of course, not including the cream...; the cream was taken out) so there goes the ingredients(all-estimated proportion, no flour required):

=Cake Mixture 1=

-445 gram Cream Cheese

-40 gram powder sugar

-25 grams melted butter

-4 egg yolks

-1 egg white

=Cake Mixture 2=

-3 egg whites 

-70 gram~80 gram Graduated sugar 

=Bottom=

-OREO cookie part & Butter about 3:1

* the amount of sugars really depends on personal preference

The temperature I used is 428 Fahrenheit for the first 15~20 minutes and 300 Fahrenheit for another 40~60 minutes. Hot water is put on the tray to keep the moisture in the oven, you need about at least an inch deep. I used 8-inch round mold.

A reminder: don't try to take the cake out of the mold until it is completely cool, and the texture and taste will be a lot better if you leave it in the fridge after it is taken out of the mold for at least 6~10 hours.

If you want a complete steps of how I make this, contact me personally or leave a comment.

PEACE

Happy Father's Day_ Dad's Portrait

Happy Taiwanese Father's Day You All!! And especially to you hardworking fathers. At Taiwan it is August the 8th at this moment so I thought it would be cool if I draw a portrait of my dad for his contribution and dedication to the family.

Dad, you have always been a cool dad in the family, and you know that we, as a family, all appreciate and understand your hardships and struggles. 雖然時間流逝, 滄海桑田, 身為人父的你在我們心中的位置是不會變的. 經過這麼多年的努力, 你的事業成就已經不是人生的目標了吧？I still remember you telling me that you wanted to try out skiing when you were young. Although I do not think it would be a good idea to do that right now, but I hope you and try out something different, something that excite you when you can still do so.

Anyways, I drew this with color pencils. It took me about 5 hours. Hmmm, it's kind of hard to draw(especially human face) without sketching out the line with pencil first.

=Work in Progress=

Outlining

Shading (face)

Coloring

"Trimming", more coloring (different lighting)

glasses are giant... eyes were later modified a little bit

Sun-glasses version lol

Happy Father's Day!

Summer Work_ Air-dry Clay Sculpture, Head

So this is my summer art work, 3D; idea and concept are based on Alberto Giacometti's overall style and his Bronze metal work "Head" that I found at Chicago's Art Institute while I was there this summer.

However, I did not really look at Giacometti's work while I was working on my sculpture, so it is kind of hard to tell that my inspiration is from his work. For the material, I used air-dry clay (paper clay) instead of bronze. I do so one because it's much cheaper and that I do

not want to burn down my aunt and uncle's house by setting up a torch station since I will have a foundry class later anyways.

The paint I used to (attempt to...) give the metal look is Golden Acrylic Paint, made from

plastic basically. I think overall the texture of this sculpture can be improved a lot by using

material other than air-dry clay. This is really because it took a lot of patience to smooth out the surface of the sculpture due to the chunkiness of the clay. Next time it'd better if I use other materials, probably like plaster or clay used for ceramic.

I do not know the actual process(or more common process) of making a head sculpture, so I ended up using a wooden

stick as support for the neck and a styrofoam ball for the head.

Head, Grant Lin (side)

Head, Grant Lin (back)

Head, Alberto Giacometti, Bronze(front)

Head, Alberto Giacometti, Bronze(back)

Alberto Giacometti on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Giacometti
Two Other Artists: David Casella, Ju Ming 

Chow Fan(炒飯)_ Mixed Style with Asian Pride!

I guess I should really call this article the rebirth of my previous blog on Wretch.cc.

So I do have been making food over the past few weeks. As I did before back in Taiwan, I took pictures of them just for fun. Yet really I am thinking about making this whole process beneficial not only to myself but primarily to you who are reading this at this moment(or not if you just don't like food, art or whatever other reasons and you just happen to be here). One thing to clarify about this blog is that I will be posting articles about my artworks, my "food production", and some of the interesting and probably informative part of my life. So there it is, I am currently blogging!

This is a summer inspiration on the technique of making chow fan. Since I will be home alone most of the time during my summer spare time, I usually cook by myself for breakfast and lunch(breakfast however is rare case because I don't usually wake up until 11am or so). And this time I really try to make left-over something that really doesn't seems like a left-over. What I am saying is I attempt to make good food out of very accessible ingredients in the US, or in California at least since food I make will probably be asian style most of the time. But hey, you don't have to be asian to like asian food, right? So really, food wise, I will make different kind of dishes, sweets, or anything you can think of (well...maybe). And I will

post the ingredient and steps that you need to follow to make one on your own.

Another little reminder, I'm not a professional at making food or anything, but the point is to get feedback and learn with every one that might have similar interests either on arts, sports(like running), food, or just anything.

I made this Lin's Style Chow Fan probably a week ago but I then I have also made a lot of similar type chow fan during these days. It is basically a combination of western ingredient and traditional chinese sauce and cooking techniques, very garlicky but in a good way. It's about 1~2 servings. Peace!

So first of all here is the ingredient list:

-2 sausage of any kind, here I used chicken sausage with apple in it, sliced or chopped into small pieces

-2~3 bowls(small) of over-night white rice (not freshly cooked*)

-a quarter of a red onion, chopped into small squares about a quarter-inch

-1 green onion, chopped into quarter-inch segments

-5~6 garlic, chopped into very, very tiny pieces, tinier than rice!

-rice wine(米酒頭) 2~3 tea spoons

-soy sauce(paste) 4~5 tea spoons, adjustable

-1 teaspoon Sriracha hot sauce

-3 teaspoon hot water

-tiny-bit salt

-cooking oil

*rice must be put overnight in the fridge(or at temperature that it will not spoil) because freshly cooked rice is too watery to give a good texture/taste when making chow fan

Equipments you need:

-a medium frying pan

-chopsticks or a turning shovel to fry

-bowls if you don't want to eat directly out of frying pan like I do, ha ha

-more chopsticks for more people

Then you can now follow the steps:

1. Before turning on the fire, mix rice wine, soy sauce(paste), Sriracha, hot water, and salt together

2. Obtain a frying pan and put some(at least 2~3 teaspoon) cooking oil in the pan. Turn on the stove to medium fire.

3. Heat the pan until you can feel the heat pretty well above the pan without actually touching it.

4. Put chopped garlic and turn to low fire until it turns gold-brown-ish color, remember to stir a little bit

5. Add sliced/ chopped sausage and onion and stir fry until they turn brown(how thick the sausage is determine how long it takes to cook thoroughly)

6. Apply the mixed sauce from step one evenly over the stuff in the pan

7. Stir while putting rice into the pan

8. Make sure the rice is evenly heated and coated with sauced

9. Right before/after turning off the heat, add all chopped green onion into the fried rice and stir evenly.

10. Serve and Enjoy!

If you have any questions, comments please leave it right below =]

Guggenheim Museum_ "Haunted" Exhibition

Yes. Summer is almost over believe it or not.

From roommate assignment to textbook ordering, I already feel like there is no time for playing or 12-hour sleep everyday. But the truth is, there is still time to have fun. I am going to be taking a foundry class (an introductory level class) from August 9th to 13th every day from 10am to 4pm at a place called the Crucible at Oakland. And I expect it to be very rewarding. So we will see.

Back to the main topic of this journal, I visited Guggenheim Museum (the one in New York) in June this summer when I was traveling with my brother, looking at different colleges. There are, in fact, more than one Guggenheim Museums around the globe (there are a bunch actually). The one in New York is designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is well-known for its mass collections of impressionist, early modern and contemporary art, etc. When I was there, the museum was holding an exhibition named "Haunted". However, there were also other permanent collections such as those of Pablo Picasso.

So Haunted mainly consists of modern photography, painting, films and sculptures, with which the artists(mostly young) comment on the mass, accessible media in contemporary society. Through their work, the artists analyze human's deepest fear and show a ghostly compassion/passion toward their past. At the film section, the artists use repetition and rhythm to showcase the recurring yet alluring aspect of life. Among many films exhibited, one of my most favorite was Anthony Goicolea's "Nail Biter". Nail Biter was a approximately 4 minute-long film recorded under night-vision mode. The film starts with a dark room with an obnoxious-looking boy sitting on a bed, biting his finger nails and letting them drop all over the bed sheet. The camera then focuses on the facial expression of the boy; it is completely distorted and very easily for the audience to taste the fear within his mind. Not knowing what is the cause of the boy's fear, the flashing black shadow that appears on the screen once in a while becomes the only possible reason. Similar to the Nail Biter, many other film possess a ambiguous fear and anxiety that the audience can easily perceive. The films at the exhibition are all replayed for many, many times; some of them are a lot longer than the Nail Biter. Yet they all seem to telling audience to perceive an emotion while looking at their works.

Haunted also has plenty collections of, as I mentioned, photography, sculpture, and painting, nonetheless film seems to be most captivating for me. I have always appreciated the transformation of art into motions that can like wise convey a central/ general idea created by the artists.

Therefore, as I walked through the exhibition, I really focused more on the "moving" parts rather than the still ones. There are also other cool installation art at Haunted. One of them is made out of a collection of the artist's (I can't recall the name..) senior pictures and head lamps. The artist blurs the pictures to the extent that their faces are nearly unrecognizable, and above each face is a head lamp that emphasizes the facial features(while blurry) of each face. It is created to convey the idea that pictures are ultimately images that cannot preserve the past. They only serve as memory because, as a matter of fact, some of the faces in the pictures are already deceased at their young ages. So really, I was amazed by the ability of these artists who really put their thoughts and emotion into their art work and meanwhile, very successfully communicate with the audience and let them be part of their emotional experiences.

Sadly, I wasn't able to take pictures during the exhibition because it is photography-prohibited.

link to the show: CLICK HERE