I bought access to an online class about intuitive abstract painting two weeks ago. I've been wanting to explore this side of the art world, and I have been failing miserably. It is really frustrating me because I used to get into new areas of arts and crafts with some kind of result. I normally excel in this field, it's my expertise. I love arts and crafts and my love will at least resulted in some level of success.

I've been struggling so much trying to get into abstract art, this makes me question everything. I dream of becoming an established artist and making a living through selling my artworks, but am I capable of doing this? Why am I so bad at this, when I have good stuff to work with? Am I not understanding of basic principles like colors and shapes? Maybe this is not for me. Maybe I only have talent and eyes for putting ready-made things together but not creating art from scratch. Maybe I'm just not built for painting.

I went through my stack of 'failed' watermarbling and gelli prints, and yes they are not exactly the way I envisioned them at the beginning of the experiment, but these results still excite me. They look gorgeous as my journal background and they often give me ideas on how to further accentuate the page resulting in even more beautiful pages.

From all the abstract pieces that I've done, most just frustrates me because they look ugly and I am clueless on how to make them 'right'. I can't use them as anything, either. These are just exercise pieces I need to do in order to get better at intuitive painting. My intuition is dull, and I'm not sure if that can be fixed.

I spent the whole day yesterday trying to make something and when I wasn't satisfied with the piece, I got irritated. I blamed everything including fandom for not giving me anything to be excited or happy about. I kept saying to myself maybe I couldn't get it right because I'm using art as a way to kill time as a distraction while waiting for BTS' comeback.

I know, I know, artists spent years of their lives to perfect their techniques, so I shouldn't be whining for a few failed pieces. Maybe I need to be more humble, get off my high horse and take basic classes on colors and shapes. Maybe I need to loosen up, not think about how to perfect a technique all the time and try to have more fun. Maybe I just haven't find the right thing for me. I should explore more techniques, different mediums and variety of styles.

I've honestly been underestimating Paperclip all this time! Paperclip is basically a local stationery store which can be found in malls or in office buildings. It's dull. After living in Japan, I DESPISE stationery stores here because they're so dull. Japan is HEAVEN for stationery lovers. I dislike Paperclip because the store looks like a warehouse. It's awful and makes me not wanting to go in and everything that they sell just looks like crap. I just don't like it!!!

However, I really needed an A5 binder last weekend to re-organize my clear stamps. We went to Kelapa Gading Mall, I was looking for HSBC counter to redeem my points into shopping vouchers. My mom was shopping for clothes at a bazaar right in the center of MKG 3, and right in front of the bazaar, was Paperclip. I went in thinking that I'll just quickly grab an A5 binder and go straight to the cash register but... I was mesmerized by a whole aisle of Liquitex goods. I've never seen this many of them, there are EVERYTHING. I was particularly intrigued with liquid acrylic what the hell are those?? Mediums, gels, gesso, clear gesso, palette knifes, everything that aren't easy to find in regular stationery stores. I've seen Liquitex being used a lot by American Mixed Media Artists, but I've never encountered them even in bigger stationery stores like Gramedia. I don't think I've seen them in the one art store with the most comprehensive variety of things 'Toko Prapatan', either. WOW.

I really want to try gouache and haven't found them yet and there were so. many. types. of gouache. there! I couldn't believe it. They have some on their discount rack with very low price. Granted, it's Chinese brand and it's probably low quality, but I'm an amateur so I don't need anything fancy. I just need something to try out with and see if gouache is for me, so I bought a set of Taiwanese gouache with a cute pink box. I got 18 colors in tiny tubes and the result is great! Very vibrant just like I how I love my paint :3 Also they got neon pink, I never can resist anything that comes in neon pink.

Mails!
Last week I got two beautiful portrait art in the mail (♥_____♥)!

One is from Kriss!! (I felt guilty because I thought mine was lost but she received it today, yay!) And I squealed when I saw that it's LUHAN!!! OMG! I love it! I really need to know how you used your gloss, too, because it's always so clear without any trace of brush strokes.


And the other one is from Ksenia whom I exchanged art with from Postcrossing forum. SHE DREW ME, based on my postcrossing profile OMG. And she drew with white charcoal on black paper (was that even it??) and I was so amazed because I've never accepted anything like that. And she put some leaves on the back, it was really nice :)



Water Problem
The reason why I posted this late was because a leak in my apartment room has kept me busy. Man, it was raining SUPER HEAVY on Friday night. I was awake until 2 am trying to dry the pool of water coming into my room, until I decided to just go to bed. I woke up with almost the whole floor covered in water, geez. They said it's because the next door is doing construction work and they probably damaged the other side of my wall which caused the leak. Whatever it is, I hope they can fix it soon (T_____T). You can't see it in the picture but, the whole floor was covered in water. And then I went home to my parents on Saturday but the rain has damaged one of the electrical wire so half of the house had no power. Great.

New Translation!


Finally I got rid off my only private student so that I can focus more on my translation job. I have finished Jiraishin Diablo which was NOT my kind of manga at all, and now my editor has offered me a new title, Shoukoku no Altair! It's exciting to start because the drawing style is pretty ♥. But also a little bit intimidating because it seems to be a popular series which still continues until today. (Usually I got to translate old, boring mangas only, lol)

When krissasaur said to me yesterday that she was wondering about the package she sent me, she was close. Because it arrived at my place today! \o/ And it's super cute!


It's an EXO logo heart <333 I've been hoping to get anything related to EXO I even shamelessly wrote that I like them on my postcrossing profile (and I doubt anyone on there even knows who they are). I'm so happy to get this! And a beautiful paisley postcard <3 I LOVE paisleys, this is so beautiful with all the details and contrasting colors. Plus there is a Rilakkuma badge which is so cute and so Kriss. This mail actually made my day 10x better. Thank you so much, Kriss!

Ebon Heath is an artist who lives and works between Brooklyn, Bali, and Berlin. His works are AMAZING. STUNNING. It's crazy. I love typography, and I love art, I never knew a way to incorporate the two into a whole different level of art; visual poetry. AMAZING.

( more of his works under the cut )