This is going to be a LONG post..........

I bought the ticket for the Halloween Party on the boat for tues organised by SingSoc UCL, I am not at all pepared for it, I have no time to prepare for costumes and everything. I wonder why am I spending this 15 pounds,but I guess, I just want to sit on the boat and enjoy the night view of river thames, that sounds really romantic, even though the weather cast said that tmr's evening is very cold. I want to have some silent moment tmr, all to myself, but i guess it's going to be impossible, given that this is a Halloween Party. Once again, why the hell am i going there? I am beginning to not understand myself. I don't know if I want to integrate into this crowd or isolate myself away from the crowd, either way, I am not being myself.




Went to Gerhard Richter's exhibition at Serpentine Gallery on Sat. He is the so called "greatest living artist in the century" a German painter. I like some of his early works which he painted in realistic and almost romantic style, but as he ages his style changed, in his word, he follows a style of no style, meaning he loves to do art in all sorts of styles, he doesnt like to confine himself to just one iconistic style. Well, I do agree. This is this first of his 3 shows in England, it's about his recent invent of 4900 colours, each painting made up of coloured tiles arranged randomly. To be honest, I don't know what he is trying to convey, but still, it is to me, visually pleasing. I think I am able to understand more about non-figurative art. (photographs are not allowed actually, but I didn't know in the beginning, so i managed to 'steal' out a few shots) i think my classmates are more keen on gg to the Saachi Gallery instead...

In order to go to Serpentine Gallery, we have to go through this South Kensington Garden which looks really beautiful. I wished that my D80 was with me. I haven't had the time and energy to really bring out my DSLR for any photo trips yet but I hope, if I ever am going out for a photo trip, it could be some time soon.
Below are some of the photos I took on Sat and Sun.

It's almost the reading week for many many people except me, because, I don't have one. So there'll be one week which no one but yvonne and I have to go to school. So unfair, why don't the slade professors give us a reading week as well? It's always good to follow trend, the reading week trend, we artists must remain trendy...-_-'' okay, I know andrew will juz say 'stop bullshitting and go back to your work'...if he ever hears what i'm saying now.
And I think that my art has not been improved/developed/moving forward at all. It's stagnant, in other words, I am stuck. Now I think I can fully understand why so many artists have mental problems, it's just so depressing and scary when you are stuck at your work and idea and can't move forward. I hate this situation that I started off with a painting and I painted exactly the way I imagined it to be and then upon finishing, I suddenly feel that I hate the work and the idea and everything about this piece, and you will have this sudden strong urge of destroying the work. I am feeling this way for quite a few days now, I am quite a fast painter, but if I get stuck, I can remain stuck there for ages. I need to do something to this current series. I want to destroy them in a more subtle way. I am ging to add more elements to it so as to create more artistic language to the work, if not, I can't communicate with it.

these are the paintings that I'm very much pissed with. I really don't know what to do. So I went to the life drawing room and vent my anger there. Did a few weird life drawings, don't ask me why I did not draw/paint the whole body, I was just attracted by certain part of the female body, sometimes, somethings don't need a reason. (by the way, these are done on different days with different models)

So I starte off on another track : Photography. I would like to play with the darkroom developing soon, but not until I could get hold of a manual camera yet. I kind of got inspired by the many bikes which laid aroun the corners of london. So I used my canon IXUS60 to take some shorts, I like to see them in different contexts, giving an almost narrative value to the photographs though they are just static images. Somwhow, I have tis feeling that my works are turning more and more towards graphic design, I like things wit huge contrast, and I like B&W better. I think this sort of inclination is very clearly shown in the BIKEseries.

I started off with photography alone, and the colouring at the later part was plainly a pleasant accident to me. I was playing with the contrast of the photos and just as I was about to close and save the file, I accidentally pressed on the bucket icon and coloured part of the photo, and that's the grand beginning of what followed for the rest of the 3 photos. the final effect was (to me) very much design and graphic like.
This one is very commercial like, it has a very graphic design and poster look.

This is considered a failure to me as the big patch of colours just don't seem to fit in that nicely.

these two are my most satisfactory works. To me they look like a piece of art, really the pop art kind of feeling, screen printing just suddenly popped into my mind. The very 60s kind of style. I love the colour combination and the way in which the bikes are arranged ( they are positioned naturally), that adds to the atmosphere of the idea of forgotten and isolation and the sense of "neglect"

tried to put them togethr and realised that I ended up making huge posters, not even up to the standard of commercial posters. Later I decided to put them into my sketch book and make some sense outof it. I think I was out of my mind, but then again, this idea is still half developed, I just counldnt understand why I cant seem to finish up an idea, I always tend to stop at the 3/4 stage. shame on me.

This was Friday evening, after lesson I saw ppl up on the stairs, so I went to take a look. They are the students of Urban Design, presenting their projects and models. I felt kind of envious because they've at least got projects to do, not like me, just venturing in the art world blindly. I am very goal oriented person, I need to have some specific goals for me to achieve, right now, the target is too vague.

So I got quite depressed and took the tube to trafalgars square, so this artist painting right in front of the national art gallery. I am not sure if it is performance art, but he seems so at ease to make art, and here i am, so frustrated. I think, I am still just tooyoung to understand the essence of making art. the philosophy of art making. haha. so chim.

A little consoling present from jiejie, she went shopping for clothes but ended up coming homw with halloween chocolated, how cute. haha.

And I talked to jiayi on MSN for quite a longlong time on Sunday. the feeing was great. I ask for no more than just being able to talk to him like a friend. going back to the old days. hah, I can suan him and he can act dumb or complain or scold me or anything, we can again, just crap on random things and joke like nobody's business, 一种久违了感觉。是友情吗？我不清楚也不想费心搞清楚，因为我已很满足。我跟他说，上了大学才知道，许多曾经的人会变的让你认不出，但请留住回忆；是因为，我感觉到身边的人，我曾认识的人，已经变了，我只能留住曾经的记忆。但很遗憾的是，我发现自己已经没有兴趣去挽救什么所谓的曾经的友情。而我明白，当我对一件事情无所谓了的时候，就是该放手的时候。所以，我不再像以前那些年我们是多么的亲密，事实摆在眼前，我们已比此厌倦。我还跟嘉易说了，上了大学才知道，从现在开始应该把握每一个你能把握的人，放弃你留不住的人，不要因为想留住个别人而失去一群人。那是因为我懂得我留不住他，所以早已下定决心去把握未来，而我也希望他能明白，爱情是不能强求的，有些事情不能抓的太死，他也该是时候忘记那该死的暗恋，寻找属于他的天空了。我总是觉得他是个很坚强有很脆弱的人，是个不太纯的白羊座。我曾经说过就算我恋爱了，我的心中还是会有个属于嘉易的地方，是那种很好很好的好朋友的位置。我不再幻想，回到现实的我，只想再次牢牢抓住我和他之间曾有过的美好单纯的友情。我还是很喜欢他，但，不再带着野心，只是希望他好，我自己也好。这样的感觉，真好。

The B&W photos by mo

The ones I like the most are the bicycle and flower+cloud photos. I like the contrast in the bicycle one and the lack of contrast(therefore, dreamy feeling) in the flower+cloud one. arhh, generarlly, i like B&W photos. But they could be much more interesting if I can use a manual camera to take them and develop in the darkroom, so muh more interesting.

Yes, that's me, looking lazy and confused and anything but hardworking. I went to slade at 1050am just to sign my name and then I took the tube back home for lunch, went to the bank to settle my address problem( they have been sending my bank statements to my spore address). Then I went back to Salde again, instead to trying to be hardworking and start painting, I decided to sit on the UCL main building and sun tan. It's very nice to be up there, and it feels extremely comfortable to be showered with the sunshines, really, i love UCL more than ever now. But I guess, I need to wear sun glasses and put on sun block, I think half of my face is more red than the other, or should I tan more of my the other half of my face tmr? I'll see about it.

that's the sun, look at the sculpture it's trying to sun the sun as well, oh but, without the sun, the place would be freezing cold....

Okay, this isnt a photo taken by me, it's from the net but the reason Im showing this is to tell you where i was sitting, yep, right up the stairs, right under the blue nude painting (extreme right one). yep...so cool...at least i think so, im gonna do it again tmr, it's so much better than the heater in the studio.

Finally, after wasting one hour with the sun, I finally decided to do something fruitful. And I went back to my studio to paint. I think I am a person who gets bored of things really quickly, I was tired and bored with the one that i was painting ysd, it wasnt finished, but I just don't feel like continuing it today. So I started off on a new painting, in the same series. it's background is about the old houses in beijing, I always love to draw/sketch/paint them.

getting onto the right track though the tapes arent really helping, I have no sense of what is called "straight"!

stopped. haiz...

the result of 2 "half" days's work... -____-'''

I went to the Union to join the cubs today, paid 13BGP, I joined art, photography and spore society. I am aiming to join the exco in art and photography, cos the posts in art sounds interesting and as for photography, I want nothing but darkroom manager's post, I am really going to continue my 'career' as the darkroom manager, must try to reverse the "slack DM" image. Actually, sj can prove for me that i am quite hardworking when I was the DM in njps, just that, I got involve in too many outside DM's stuff, this time, my focus is just DM and DM alone

Went for the darkroom induction for UCL photogsoc, I was very on time, the darkroom manager Lorenzo was very pleased. I noticed that he brought a cup of coffee into the darkroom while telling me that no food or drinks are allowed in the DM at anytime, he winked at me, haha, well, all darkroom managers around the world are the same, haha, we are very easygoing casual people when it comes to art. haha.

everybody else was late, so he showed me ard the DM and asked why I was interested in Photography, after I told him what I did in nj, he immediately told me that I don't need an inducton anymore, haha, he's like saying 'you're off now, you know everything already!' haha, oh well, but I feel I need the induction, not everything's really the same as njps, like they have this really interesting entrance, they have the real huge sink and everything else, more high tech of course, and bigger. But one thing he told me is that, haha, like what we used to do in njps, they recycle their chemicals as well. I'm really excited about this UCLPS thing, I am all ready to embark on a new journey with them, perhaps, hopefully, a less jerky journey comparing to njps. haha, sj, you muz agree with me, don't you? haha.

SIJIE!

I saw your blog today, I think you can go change course to somethin like, literature, language art, political science, photography, digital art...haha, all these but not math and econs, like what you are doing now. You are such an ARTISTIC person inside lah. I really love yourblog, the thing is that it always end up making me think ( u know how hard it is to make someone like me to really think, my brain lacks exercise), really deep thinkings. well, si jie, you muz jiayou! And I absolutely agree with you on the condolence letter thingy, it sounds like a letter to showoff their victory against the dead, sounds rather triumphant actually.

as for US election, OBAMA will win, yeah, haha, and the global recession, I always hear about it from the econs students', they are always talking about how hard it is to find an internship right now and things as such, and I rmb telling them somthing like "why are you guys the ones worry about not able to get a job when your friend here, is taking a course which hundreds of years ago, ppl who took her course almost all ended up starving??!" haha, yeah, i mean, artists, we are unemployed since like ages ago, haha, but we live in the idealistic world. that's why, i think I hvnt really feel much about this global recession yet.

outside area, film developing
wet area, for chemicals and washing up and developing on paper
cute entrance to block away any light
enlarger

followed by really bad dinner!

just about 2 or 1 hours before I typed this entry, the fire alarm rang and I was like what the helll!! yes, cos I was wearing my silk night gown, very little cloth type -_-''' and I had to follow the rest and run down the stairs and stand outside in the wind for like 15 minutes. I hate fire exercises, I hate them even more when they are at night, I hate them when i was in china, i hate them when i was in spore, and now, i hate them when im in london. I just had one fire alarm exercise in slade ysd when I was about to pee. haiz....they always come at the wrong time for me.