first try
Since we have some rather advanced tool for oil-painting at home, I gave it a try. I was quite afraid of making mistakes by mixing the colors, obtaining the wrong tonality and when I let my first strokes lean against the canvas. I already had the image I wanted to draw in my head, I was thinking about drawing an elaborate of clip-art of the Deserted Island Project. As you can notice from the photo, I had troubles in finding the right shade for the sea and the sky, even though I found a rather good gradient for the deeper ocean (bottom of the painting). It’s about 15×10 cm so It’s a very small canvas. It made me feel I was back in junior-high school and I can say I pretty much like the feeling of putting colors on a blank sheet… if only I had the talent for drawing, that could be a good profession/hobby. I have always been terrible with a pencil in my hand, all my sketches look like if they were made by a three or four years old child… : )
Me & Wei Ju
Until these days, I’ve never had the pleasure of having professional camera to play with all day. I’ve always used those point-and-shoot compact digital cameras models that are extremely rugged and portable but with less shooting capabilities, fitting my traveling style. Finally, having the chance to practice with my girlfriend’s DSLR, a Canon EOS 1000D, I’ve recently tried to take some good shots while in Italy and Indonesia. I have to say that using a DSLR is a complete different feeling from all the other cameras: it’s clearly noticeable even after the first shots that there is much more sharpness and shallow depth-of-field on request and in general, there is enough room for customization. Nevertheless I have always been more fond of the beauty in videoclips rather than static pictures, I now start to recognize some artistic features out of a good photo. In fact, astonishing art can be “easily” achieved through complex photographic techniques. So, I’ve added a new link-button to the website’s menu (bar on top): Photography. It’s a sort of photogallery where I will one by one add all my best works…
I’ve always wanted to learn an Asian language, since I was a kid, fonded of watching some old ’70-’80 Japanese anime to name a few Daitarn3 , SaintSeiya ,Dragonball, Devilman, Jeeg, Orange Road etcetera. Somehow I’ve always postponed this thought in order to give space to advanced english and other european languages like spanish and french. Later on I instead found out that instead most of the interesting stuff coming from Asia is not exported or translated. Well ultimately i’ve set my mind and decided to learn an Asian language, starting from zero, with time and patience and from the first letters of the alphabet , like a primary-school kid. But which language will it be? It didnt even cross my mind to study Thai , Indonesian or some other 3rd order language, cause I couldn’t see it applied in my needing. So there were 3 choices on me: Korean , Japanese and Chinese. I was dreaming to learn Korean to help out the North Koreans in a very secret mission to kill their communist leader Kim Jon Il … but more practically I initially thought of Chinese because it’s statistically spoken by millions of people. However giving a closer look at my passions that include technology and anime I decided for Japanese, which will not limit me in any case as it could even set some grounds for written Chinese: taking a look at the Japanese writing, I’ve seen that it’s full of Chinese glyphs. Thanks to さなえ and みき.
I can play guitar! This is the first song I’ve learnt (or almost) … It’s based on D , G , C , Am , F# chords , which is so far the only notes I can play, but I already improved the speed of my fingers on the tabs , so I will be able to switch to other songs soon! Download my first guitar playing test , after around 20 hours of practicing. Don’t mind about my voice that is absolutely not tuned, just pay attention to the strings.
Philippines, Cebu , shooting range
Alan Rooster is also taking a course for firing guns !! Thanks to Jennifer’s brother (Jonathan) who is working with the SWAT and is a very good shooter, I had the occasion to fire some pistols at the Cebu shooting-range. It was the first time of my life handling a real gun, the sensation was incredible when I first fired: I thought it was like in the movies, very easy, like a game, but actually it was so difficult to handle even if the caliber of the pistol was small. I have been told that taking a good control of a gun requires professional skills. By the way you’ll feel like a sensation of power in your hands. Definitely something to try at least once in your life. Thanks again to Jonathan that offered me such a great experience. Don’t forget to check out pictures and the video.
