ah-ha-ha-ha stayin' alive, stayin' alive

stayin' alai----hi--ay----ay-aive

hello, give me some credit please, i was trying to type out the words in the same way those beegees sang it.

contrary to belief, i haven't died yet.

no, i've just been busy as a bee. in fact, busier than a bee, and just about as busy as a queen ant. in the last 3 month's, i've returned from a holiday from singapore and japan, had an argument with my roommate, been put in a situation where we didn't talk for over a month, went to view apartments, and i mean at least 40 different places (no kidding), packed up and moved out of my old place and into the new, forgave my old roommate and talked things through, found a new roommate, bought and installed new furniture, decided i had to kill myself because i had so many clothes and no where to put them...

and all that while going through regular classes!

you have no idea how tired i was!!! oh man!

it was really hard. trying to keep up with being a full-time fashion student + moving house (especially when you have as many things as i do) is not recommended.

i know a lot of you have come back to visit this blog and sent me messages asking if i've disappeared. after i've manage to build up a reader-base, it was really silly of me to stop posting for so damn long because i probably have like zero readers now... or worse, more like minus 5.

basically it was a very difficult 3 months and i had very negative qi. my ex-roommate and i could not get along and she spent her days practically thinking about "revenge" and how she could send me emails that would anger me. to be honest, her emails did piss me off at first, but after a while, i realised it was so ridiculous and it became like a joke to me everytime i got one of her emails dipped in poison. i knew i had to move out of the place because i definitely wasn't happy there and it didn't help that we hated each other. i was coming home extremely tired from school and keeping to myself in the room, only leaving it to go to the bathroom or the kitchen. i had never experienced something or someone like that before, and believe me it was a real eye-opener.

anyway i moved into a new place about a month ago, and guess how many boxes i left my old place with? 3-fucking-0!!! there were big ones and there were small ones, but there were 30. crazy shit. i wanted to slap myself. the room that i have now is way smaller and i've had to learn about being organized. but it's quite newly renovated and it's in an amazing location. my new roommate seems really nice. she goes to parsons too so we can bitch to each other about our crazy teachers and how tired we are and how expensive the school fees are. yay!

my ex-bosses (roger and yvonne, a husband and wife team) and edmond, a great mutual friend came over to new york at the end of february for a few days. edmond used to live in new york for 10 years, back in the days when it was still very dangerous and the parks weren't safe and the lower east side wasn't a shopping area. so he brought us around to his favorite restaurants and it was so hilarious watching this grown man get all excited saying, "ohmygodiusedtolooooovecominghere (breathe) thefoodisamaaaazing." and he'd give us instructions on how to eat this and that. yummm!!

el faro (823 greenwich street, 212.929.8120) is a spanish restaurant with sme very homemade dishes. the space was cramped but edmond made reservations so we didn't have to wait, and he had made orders ahead of time so food came pronto! and the garlic bread, is the devil. in a good way. like i want it everyday. *lick lips*

edmond's friend, steven, lives in new york and works at artsee eyewear (863 washington street, 212.414.0900), a really cool shop with unique glasses and sunglasses in the meatpacking district. he brought us to this tapas bar called pamplona (37 east 28th street, 212.213.2328). we ordered like everything on the menu and holy crap it was so so so good. some of the stuff we ordered aren't even shown in the pictures above. particularly amazing were the celery root soup (coming from a girl who hates celery and celery root), the dates wrapped in bacon, fried chickpeas, and the peanut butter ice-cream!!! hello!!! peanut butter ice-cream!!

they stayed at the W in union square on the 20th floor. who knew new york could have pretty sunsets?

spring break just ended yesterday. a friend of mine from japan, yuka, came over for a few days so i was tour guide for a week. it was more tiring than i thought it would be, because literally, i was planning each day!!! i'm such an ass for complaining, but she basically came over with no clue as to what she wanted to do, and she didn't really care so much about what we'd be doing. so that made planning even harder, because then i had no idea where i should bring her and all that. but we got through it, walked a hell lot, ate even more, and spent too much money. sounds like fun eh?

i don't know what the hell i was doing shopping with her when i'm not even on holiday. did i mention that i'm broke and that i had no space to put anything in my puny room!!!!

and oh my god, did we eat or did we eat.

i regretted not taking more photos with her while she was here. i think we took like 4 pictures together. the rest of our pictures were all of the glorious food we had.

what disgusting pigs!!! we just ate and ate and ate more!!

pizza at lombardi's (32 spring street, 212.941.7994). some people hate it, i think it's yummy and i love the crust, and the meatball toppings! it's apparently new york's first pizzeria, but who cares about history when you've got amazing mozzarella and meatballs in your mouth! hee hee.

cupcakes from magnolia bakery (401 bleeker street, 212.462.2572). made famous by sex and the city, i'm sure there are many more cupcake places that must be better than this place. but for the moment, it makes my sweet tooth happy and who can resist all those cute colors! (although i have to admit the purple icing was way too much even for me.)

korean fried chicken at bon chon (314 5th avenue, 212.221.2222). introduced by a korean friend of mine, this restaurant is apparently also famous in korea and every korean in new york is supposed to know this place. the thing is, this is the best fried chicken i have ever had in my life. i've brought 4 different groups of friends there, and we can't get enough. you know it's good when you're so full you're about to puke and you still wanna gobble some more. it's fantabulous.

at the hershey's store in times square, 4 outfits from the project runway challenge were on display. jillian's (the one of the red corset) was really pretty amazing.

we had a huge lunch at the peter luger steakhouse (178 broadway, 1.718.387.7400) in brooklyn. i was told that the single steak wasn't as good of a cut, so we ordered the porterhouse steak for two, which was actually steak for 17. it was cooked in 4 pounds of butter or something and we all know how good that smells and tastes. also amazing was the bacon that we ordered as appetizer. give me a strip everyday please. the second shot was taken while on the subway back to the city.

i hate making the rich richer, but dylan's candy bar (1011 3rd avenue, 646.735.0078) was too cute not to mention. never mind that a lot of the stuff were all about easter when we went. the whole place was so colorful, even the stairs were cute! the place was also stocked with tons of very nostalgic sweets. i wonder if the kids these days even know what those are! i used to have those lollies that you wear as a ring and all that! loved them. and yuka spent like 70 dollars buying a basketful of pez! crazy girl! she collects them!

i also brought yuka for cheese fondue at the bourgeois pig cafe (111 east 7th street, 212.475.2246). i love fondue and i quite like it here. plus, the place has pretty great atmosphere. i had a glass of champagne with a strawberry reduction. it was so delicious.

our last meal was at florent where fries are always amazing. i had a huge bowl of mussels. i don't think i've ever eaten that many mussels at one time. i was telling yuka that i doubt it'll make me full, but halfway through my tummy was overfilled. they gave us these paper placemats with empty faces, so it was fun to fill in the blank looks. i think if i ever had a restaurant of my own, i want to have something like that too.

at the m&m's store in times square, there are m&m colors that i had never seen while growing up. there's also this huge-ass machine in the middle of the 2nd floor where you stand under and they tell you what color you are. i had never tried it out before (very embarrassing), but since i had yuka with me this time, we both decided to join the line. yes, we were the only grown-ups in line. among all the 5 year old kids. ugh. as you can see, i'm sugar and spice but mostly spice. i think this fortune teller is pretty accurate. it was so funny! i'll have to go back again one day to see if that has changed.


and lastly, on saturday, after yuka left to go back to tokyo, i walked out to the supermarket and realized that there was this ultra-funny event taking place outside the union square subway station. pillow fight!!! the air was filled with feathers and i didn't wanna step nearer even to take pictures because i could see the people who had stepped away from the fight, and yes, they had feathers in their hair, on their coat, in their nostrils. there were soooo many people, i would imagine getting a neckache after getting slammed on the head one too many times by someone's hard-ass pillow!

so that's it, i've been away from my blog for a while, but if you've read this far, you'd know where i have been:

fat camp.

i'm so disgusted with myself i could hurl. yuck! stop eating you fat pig!

today's get-up 22dec2007

it was my last day here in new york before i go back to singapore for the winter holidays. i had thought all the while that i would be spending my first christmas here in new york... in new york.

but i guess, things worked out differently and instead of having a possibly white christmas (although it really isn't all that cold yet), i'd be spending my christmas this year back home, hot and sweaty at 30 degrees celcius (about... 80 fahrenheit i guess?)

just as well. i haven't been home for christmas for the past 4 years. although my sister has come up to tokyo to visit me almost every winter since then, i guess nothing beats being back home. i also don't know what my plans would be for summer and if i can go back home at all, because i might stay in new york for summer school, so i thought it would be a good chance for me to just get on back to singapore even though it's on the other side of the globe!!!

the sadder truth is also that even though i've been here 3 months, i've been so busy with school, trying to catch up on school work,and tiring myself out, then trying to catch up on sleep, that i really haven't made all that many friends yet. most of my classmates have all gone home for the holidays, and i don't really wanna be stuck here in this cold ass place myself.

school ended on friday, 21st dec, and so after sleeping the day off, i finally got off my butt to do some last minute shopping and errands for my sis and friends back home. unfortunately, it got dark pretty early...... and then the most terrible thing happened....

tourists.

the town was flooded with nothing but tourists.

oh my god. i could hardly walk. i wanted to stretch my arms out in front of me and push them all away. unfortunately most of them had already stretched their arms out and pushed me away. and i'm not trying to make any racist comments here, being chinese myself (although i will highlight that i am singaporean before i am chinese), but i hate them dammit. and all those korean aunties with curly hair too. one chinese woman kept banging her friggin' baby pram onto the back of my heels from behind, (you know, the most painful part that people call achilles heel), and she continued doing it despite the fact that i turned around to glare at her a few times. then i just couldn't take it and turned around and told her to fuck off. of course, to make my point clear, i said it in both english and repeated it in chinese. bloody hell. which if you think about it, it ain't racist at all, cos i would have said it to any asshole who kept ramming anything into the back of my heels.

anyway, i do love how cold the air is, i really do love winter. but it truely is rather depressing when there isn't someone special in your life. the scary thing is, although it gets lonely sometimes, i'm almost comfortable being alone. besides i'm so darn busy with school, i can't imagine even devoting my time to anyone else. we started off with 18 people in our class - 3 have either dropped out of school or changed majors, 2 are going to change majors next semester, and 3 more are contemplating the same move. out of those who are still in fashion, 2 have broken up with their boyfriends.

can i just repeat for emphasis how busy and exhausted we are!! one of my friends, who will drop fashion next semester, told my teacher, "this is not what i consider enjoying life."

to which my teacher said, "oh i have seen many a break-up."

boy, that sure is comforting.

i think it was a little sad when i went back to school to get some stuff from that design teacher of mine, and since her design concept class (which is the bane of all our anguish and sorrows) had ended on tuesday, i had finally gotten some sleep and was a little well-rested, and perhaps for the first time in a long time i wore some make-up to meet her. (well, i usually stay up all night before her class and go to school looking like one crappy old hag.)

she said, "oh you look so bright today! you're just... twinkling!"

i'm like...,"i slept. and i have blush."

aha.

• plaid jacket by comme des garcons
• white embroidered dress by anna sui (all hail sample sales)
• black tights
• patent flats
  

this is the "somewhat" editorial wannabe pose


this is the "do-it-wrong-and-you-look-constipated" pose. if you're thinking of applying to america's next top model, keep this in mind. (by the way i think tyra banks is insane.)

whatever. i'm no model.

i've been lining my eyes recently when i do bother with make up, to sorta go along with my darker hair. it's weird cos i had pink hair before this, and i bought a diy color kit which was black. however, it went over my hair and the parts that weren't bleached before is now a brown-ish black, and the parts that were once pink, is now blue.

i think this is what they mean by "kill two birds with one stone".

uh.... and if i request for christmas presents, i guess i'd want a teeth whitening gift voucher! eeks!!! too much coke ain't good for those pearlies, kids! it's true what your mother tells you!!



ps: ok i'm like retarded with the computer. i used to think i was quite an average techie, but i proved myself wrong. i've been trying to figure out wordpress and moving to my own domain. however, after reading through all those help pages and forums, i decided that they all look like russian symbols to me. so hopefully i can find a copy of "wordpress for dummies" (wordpress = the system i wanna use for my blog, dummy = me) before i board the plane tomorrow, so i can read it over the 20-too-long-hours flight. or can i exchange technical help for a cupcake? any takers? no? shucks.

new york illumination

i was running around town trying to get some last minute shopping done and also a shopping list provided by my sis and some friends, and ventured into 5th avenue, which might have been a big mistake. there were just sooo many people, and i wanted to just get out of the crowd. (read about my "ordeal"!!) but i forced myself to stick around and take some pictures, because i'll be going back home to singapore for christmas, and decided that the next time i'll see such a scene would be a year from now.

i somehow made my way to the famous rockefeller center with the famous ice-skating rink and christmas tree.

uhh... ok. i honestly didn't think it was that spectacular. i took this from quite a distance, and only because i realised there were security around who made sure people "flowed" only in one direction and i couldn't enter in from where i was, as it was the exit!!!

this is the walkway up to rockefeller, the tall building in the background.

what i did find spectacular, was the crazy number of people who actually bothered to go around the block to enter in from the "correct" entrance, and fight with everyone just to get their perfect shot. crazy crazy!!

across the street from the rockefeller center is saks fifth avenue, who had pretty cute window displays. i had to shove through people to get to them. not the most pleasant way to pass a gorgeous evening like this. heh heh.

super cute ehh? for those of you who can watch videos on your computer, i made a little movie thing. i'm not an expert ok!! this is the first time i'm opening up that imovie program! i had to look at the help file! hahaha!

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

it's like 6:40 am, and i was just done doing some work. the room was getting too hot and stuffy even though i hadn't turned the heat on, so i thought i'd open the window to let some cool air in. i looked out and saw this:

do you see what i see??

it's snowing!!!!!!!!!!!!

obviously it's never snowed in singapore, but i've seen snow many times before in japan. and i get excited everytime!! i feel like a kid looking forward to christmas. this is my first snow in new york, and it's just kinda exciting.

sorry for the lousy photos, i was in my pajamas and couldn't be bothered to put on shoes and a robe to go out in my balcony to take some photos.

can you believe it's already snowing???? it never snowed this early in tokyo. i mean, it's the start of december! then again, it's new york and the friggin' temperature is like -6 degrees celcius! whoah!

i'm going to bed now and i hope the city's totally white when i wake up in the morning. i'd love that!


OH NO!!! I HAVE NOT ENOUGH COATS AND NONE OF MY SHOES CAN BE WORN IN THE SNOW!!!! i need to go shopping.....



update:

it snowed on for a while all morning, but the snowfall came to only about an inch or so. apparently there were like major snow stormish things around other parts of america and a really really bad accident where some people died.

you can see here how foggy the skies were.

when it gets really cold and my cheeks are freezing, i feel sometimes like my ears and my teeth might freeze over and drop off. seriously, if i talk and open my mouth, my teeth get cold. am i the only one here...

my friend, mr jew

before i start, i just want to say that all smart-aleck comments by yours truly, is meant only as a joke. it's meant to be funny. so don't take it to heart, because i love jews just as i love you.

--------------------

ever since i came to new york, i have been stuck at home doing work most of the time. i haven't had the chance to make any friends outside of school, and all my friends from school are just as busy as i am. really, it's completely opposite from any glamorous lifestyle.

so when i complained how bored i was, andy told me to come to his apartment building's halloween party. i didn't think we're really go, until about an hour before the party was supposed to start.

obviously, i had nothing to wear.

so i just went as me.

BORING.

on the other hand, when i reached andy's place and met him, i could not stop laughing. when he told me he was gonna dress up as an orthodox jew, i thought he was joking. (andy is jewish himself but not orthodox.) when the elevator's doors opened and i saw him standing there, i went into hysterics.

it was so fucking funny.

it was even funnier when we reached the party and there was another "orthodox jew" in the house.

ok. i giggle everytime i see that photo. hee hee.

obviously, the look doesn't suit me. boo boo. i should have tried on the glasses and a beard too. shucks.


well, the fun kinda ended there. the party was a little boring and full of people who couldn't speak english. where the hell did they come from. so we left, had take-out in his apartment, and decided that we were both really tired. he took a nap in his room, and i fell asleep on his couch. fast forward to 2 hours later, our plans to go bar-hopping changed and i went home to do work.

my life is just full of exciting moments.

halloween fever

i had some shopping report that i wanted to get done, and after drowning myself in cold tablets and antibiotics, i felt better for the first time in two days. at least i wasn't blowing my nose out and having everyone within 10 yards shooting me disgusted faces.

so i made my way down to the patricia field store again. now, her window displays are always gorgeous, but i really loved this halloween theme!!! it is brilliant!!

when i popped inside, something else that was lying on the register counter really interested me...

ooh, so exciting. i hear that carrie's wedding dress was borrowed from vivienne westwood all the way from london. and my friend who lives on bleeker street tells me that they film there all the time. bah. too bad i'm too busy to even lead a life, there's just no way i'll ever get to catch them on the streets!!


speaking of halloween, what are you intending to dress up as?

i have never had a real halloween before. i think the closest i'd ever felt "halloween-ish" was last year when i went to tokyo disneyland!!! i got invited to a huge bash this year and it is apparently the craziest one in new york. which will be my first halloween in the states, and i'm a bit excited! i don't wanna spend too much money on it though, but it will be pretty cool to be able to really dress up! i just can't think of what i wanna be. well in fact i don't have much time to actually think about it! boo!

what are your plans for halloween this year and what was your best costume ever?

mom comes to visit

so my mom was here in new york for a week from the 4th to 11th. it was her first visit to new york but i guess she came to see me more than the city, just to find out how my living conditions are, and stuff like that.

problem is, i am just soooo busy with school, that we hardly had the time to go out. so most of her one week was spent like wandering around by herself and then we'd meet up for dinner. good thing we managed to squeeze in some tourist-y things to do during the weekend!!

we started off in times square and boarded the double-decker open-top tourist bus that takes you around the city. before we got on the bus, we wanted to take pictures at the famous times square buildings.

but the naked cowboy was there, so we thought, heck we'd go take pictures with him. i mean, that's what a tourist in new york would do, right? i've seen him there a million times and have zero interest, but he was standing where i wanted to take photos from, so it was a "might as well" situation.

he is basically a character who parades himself on the most prominent corner of times square dressed only in his cowboy hat, boots, and underwear. i think he looks retarded and sure ain't good looking if you ask me.

well since it was just my mom and i, i thought i'd get someone to help us take photos. turns out that the naked "cowboy" has a manager who was handing out leaflets for his website, so i asked rather politely if he'll help us take some photos.

guess what he said?

"are you gonna tip me?"
"uh, okay." and i reached into my wallet.
"are you gonna tip him too?"
"uh...okay..."
"so you are tipping me right?"
"yeah."
"ok. just making sure."
"if this is a paid service how come you don't have a sign for it? isn't tipping like a gratuity thing? are you supposed to ask for it?"
"well i ask for what i want."
"what?"
"so yeah tip me and him."

i got so pissed off i put the 5 lousy bucks i had in my hand back in my wallet and took out two bucks. the way he said it, the tone of his voice and all that, was just disgusting.

then we took our photos with the cowboy and we got robbed - totally molested and it's not like he's some gorgeous dude that i'd even want to get molested by, you know?

i might be smiling in those shots but trust me i wanted to kick him in his balls. actually i'd rather kick his manager's, since he was the real bastard. then i took my camera back from that slime and gave him his two bucks. i mean, that bloody fuck isn't even worth a ten cent that had dropped on the pavement that i wouldn't even bother to try and pick up.

he took it and walked away but guess what i overheard him saying to the cowboy?
"she gave me one lousy buck. how the fuck does she want me to pay for my kids through college with one lousy buck!"

well i've got one thing to say to you, asshole. buy yourself a better attitude. and if you can't afford that then you've gotta sell your ass to the gays cos with that attitude of yours, that's the only way you'll probably ever make money. bloody dumb ass.

so if you EVER come to new york, don't even go near that stupid prick. it's NOT worth your time, nor your two bucks.

anyway.

it was really hard juggling schoolwork and going out with mom. like on the weekdays i'd be at school till evening time, then we'd go out for dinner or something, then i'd come back home and while my mom slept, i'd stay up till like 4 or 5 a.m. to finish up my work that i needed to get done. i was really tired and i was getting like 2 or 3 hours of sleep maximum, each day.

i brought my mom to la bonne soup, which alex and i had gone to twice when he was in the big apple. my mom loved it too. i'm telling you, it's really good. we went there for dinner once and then for a late lunch again! haha!!

with my lousy schedule, we only managed to have one great dinner, and that was with some really old family friends - ron, debbie and laura sheiman, and andrew. ron and debbie have been friends with my parents since like god knows when; i think before i was even born. i met laura before many years ago when we were still kids and the sheimans came to singapore, and i remember her and her sister, jill, so well because they taught us this really hilarious, full of hand actions, song. it was called "joe and the butter factory". have any of you heard of it before?

it's been years and i can't remember exactly, but it goes something like this:
"hi... my name is joe... and i work in a butter factory. i have a wife, a dog and a family. one day, my boss comes up to me and says 'hey joe, are you busy?' and i say 'no'. so he says 'churn the butter with your right hand'." then left hand then right leg and so on, you get the picture.

ok it's so corny but hey, when you're like six, it's the coolest game ever.

laura's getting married on the 20th, and if you recall me saying, it is her wedding dinner that i'm gonna be attending and i still don't know what i'm gonna wear!! help me!!!

andy's mom grew up with debbie, so she introduced him to me, just so i'd know someone in manhattan. she can't stop singing his praises and that's because he's smart and funny and at 23, doing really well in the real estate business. when i found out his age, i immediately felt old and like a failure. ugh.

well that dinner was so fun and i had such a great time. it was SUCH a pity though, that the waiter who helped us take a picture, did such a lousy job!! i'm so disappointed that the photo turned out blur.

after dinner the sheimans drove us around the city to show my mom how it is at night, and we stopped by grand central station. check out what i found on the bins!

Gilda's Club is a free-of-charge, non-profit organization that aims to provide meeting places where men, women and children living with cancer, along with their families and friends, can join with others to build a personal network of social and emotional support as an integral part of cancer treatment.
i made a small donation, and if you can, please do so too!!

my mom left at 6 a.m. on thursday, the 11th. on the 10th, the weather had gone really funky and it went from hot and humid to really windy and cold! summer to start of winter in one lousy day! where did my autumn go?!?! i haven't even had the chance to wear any light jackets and coats that i love!!

i walked my mom out to the cab and came back to sleep, but when i woke up, i had the worst headache ever and my nose was stuffy and my throat was itchy. i thought to myself, 'this is just great!!! my mom leaves and i get sick when i'm stuck here all alone and can't have anyone cook for me!?!?'

i guess all the stress and lack of sleep finally caught up with me and my body was telling me that it can't handle all the shit i'm doing to it. i was really tired, but getting sick now is just making the situation worse. i don't have time nor the luxury to lie back and rest!!!

my flu and sore throat quickly went from bad to worse and i'm really quite sick now. i had to force myself to go to school on friday morning cos we were having a quiz. but in the middle of it, i suddenly felt so nauseous i had to run to the toilet to puke. i was feeling horrid, but i think the toilet was so gross that i puked more than i was supposed to.

then this girl asked me if i was pregnant.

". . . . . . . . . . . ........."

huh? no i'm not. does my tummy look big?? ack! my nose is stuffed up and my throat hurts and i've got a temperature and i sound like a toad but no i'm not pregnant! and does my tummy look big!?!? ack!

so i'm on this antibiotics now and it's really helping a lot, although i still sound like crap and i carry my own box of tissues even when i leave the house. somehow i felt well enough on friday evening to go do my shopping report downtown, and i went to the patricia field store again. (more on that later!!)

sex and my city

i just had to drop a quick note to scream, "YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!! hoorayyyyyy!!!!!"

cos whatever ayumi told me a couple of days ago, was totally true!! (i mean, she should know, she's worked for pat field for 14 years.)

sex and the city is in productions! filming has begun!! i'm thrilled beyond words and may (the month the movie's supposed to be released) cannot come soon enough!! i think every girl who has watched the movie would agree with me, that everyone just wants to be in love. there's no better feeling in the world and we can dream about that while watching sex and the city. the way mr big looks at carrie, the way smith loves samantha... i always bawl myself silly every single time i watch the last episode of season six. when smith jumps up and cheers samantha at the cancer event, when mr big tells carrie's best friends that if they think she's happy in paris, he will disappear and never appear in her life again.

i love it love it love it!!

and it's happening all right here in new york city!!! woohooo!!!! i'm crossing all fingers, toes and limbs praying that i'll run across one of the filmings on the streets of manhattan.

PLEASE GOD, PLEASE!!!

update!!
you can get carrie's super cute and unique eiffel tower bag from patricia field now!! it's impractical and totally cute!! hee hee!

gouache newbie

i've worked with watercolors before (well, i started using it 2 years ago for the first time) and was pretty confident with it, cos i knew how to manipulate the paint and colors to get an effect that i like. so when i found out that here in parsons, we had to use gouache (pronounced gwash), i thought i could handle it.

boy was i wrong. it's so difficult!!

i got so frustrated today when i was doing my homework.

it was a nice, bright and sunny day today so i decided to move out into the balcony to do my work. but all that good weather didn't put me in a good mood at all. i was going, "UGHHHHHHH." every 5 seconds cos i couldn't get the paints to do what i wanted it to do.

sitting out in my pajamas. it was kinda cold!!


my extremely messy table. i didn't even have a water container and used
a take-out sushi bento cover. how disgusting. i'm disgusting.

we were supposed to get pictures from a magazine or online, and use it to practice our figure drawing and painting skills. the drawing was okay for me but seriously i'm hating the gouache. i took forever to mix the skin color and i still could not get a color that i liked. i repainted (like redrew and then repainted!!) the whole thing twice but hated both pieces. i ended up with a really muddy color which no real person could probably have. well i've never met such a person anyway. i hate that i didn't know how to work the paints and blend them into each other properly. like i tried to paint in the shadows but ended up with super ugly blocks of color. yuck. i hate it.

we're doing swimsuits in class now, so i also did like 50 croquis, which nearly killed me or at least took away 26 of my 27 lives. these are also colored with gouache. it is not a pretty sight. i'll upload some of those when i've finished outlining them, so that you can agree with me.

are you a gouache expert? PLEASE give me some tips!!!! i'm on my knees!

the tv is on now as i'm typing this, and they're talking about a pickle festival that happened on sunday in the lower east side. shucks!! i was THERE in the lower east side that day, and my friend and i decided go take a look after hearing about it. but we stopped on the way to see so many other things, by the time we reached the place, it was closed!! i was so disappointed.

all that was left was this booth selling pickle pizza, which did not look appetizing at ALL, but my "i'm always hungry" friend ate a slice. ewwww.