My summer, three months after it ended

I finish my first year of Graphic Design (and second year in London).

To see family and friends in the sunny cosmopolitan Singapore.

Taking a tour into the frenetic India on a short holiday.

All in all, pretty good.

Ah-Mah's Journey

Well, that took three days. Three whole days (although Saturday hardly counted, as I spent most of that time eating cake and YouTubing.). Although I went to Polina's party on Friday so that wasn't too bad. Nevertheless. I have had enough leg-ache from this project to last me a while.

I'm kind of posting this up now, because I'm still floundering on how to present this tomorrow. Should I print it out? Lugging my laptop to school to show this totally isn't worth it. But trying to fit all that into a bunch of A4 pages will be annoying time-consuming. Grrr.

Anyway, rant over, and on to the actual story:

For the strangest reason, when Ah-Mah first told me the story of her trek from southern China to Bangkok as a child, I always imagined her to be this hardy, resilient little thing, determined at all costs to reach the other side. Even if it meant literally swimming across the gulf all the way there. Obviously, I was a child with an overactive imagination and little concept of time management.

Of course, as I grew up, I eventually realised how ludicrous the whole thing really was, but that didn't stop me from wondering how cool (not for her, of course) it would have been if it were actually true. Us Chutaprutikorns are made of strong stuff! Ho-ho!

Thus, part-truth-part-child's-fantasy: the journey of my dear grandmother.

Hidden Histories.

I've decided to do our 'Hidden Histories' project on my grandmother's migration from China to Thailand. The above photo was taken when she just arrived by boat; apparently, as soon as she arrived, like all other immigrants she was shoved in front of a camera to record her arrival.

I find it quite amusing how she looks so unsuspecting, but I think as an 8-year-old stepping into a new land and not really knowing the language, it must have been very scary for her as well.

Her past is something I wish she'd discuss more to me, since I find it quite fascinating. It makes her seem more vulnerable and gives her more depth than the reverential grandmother figure she always seems to portray to me. Even to learn just a little bit about her past greatly elates me.

Her story, of how her family in China were so poor they had to boil rocks in salt to season their rice, of a long boat journey to Thailand (on which she proceeded to be seasick for several days) and of her dreams for a better life evokes such vivid imagery - I dream of an exotic, beautiful yet hard Orient, full of hardship and struggle, yet also of hope, of dreams, and opportunities...resulting in the grandmother I know and love today.

I did a few practice drawings; my grandmother is the cute-as-a-button girl in blue. I really want to do an animation, but I don't think I'll have the time; thus, a comic would probably be just as good.

You know, for some reason I don't understand the image has the thumbnail but no link to the actual picture. Because my internet is being slightly dodgy, I am too lazy to correct this. Ta-ta!

WIP - "He never meant to hurt you. But he did, all the same."

A personal work, in progress. Unfortunately, it seems my drawing/colouring style has taken a turn for the 'taking-forever-to-do-a-simple-drawing' category. Consider this: I started this in July, and this is all I have managed to do so far (no, I mean I've done more frames, but this is how much colour I've put into them). I've tried to simplify my style, but it seems quite impossible.

Some background information: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, wishing to be rid of the character that made him famous but also confined him to the same stories over and over, decided to 'kill off' Sherlock Holmes by having him die in the chasms of the Reichenbach Falls.

However, due to public backlash (not to mention ailing funds), he was forced to resurrect Holmes. Holmes returns after a three-year hiatus from the dead - the excuse being that he was forced to pretend he was dead in order to escape the clutches of Moriarty's henchmen - in 1894. All is well again.

My point is that I could have hardly imagined what Watson must have been feeling at the time; not only had he lost a best friend, but the reader may also know that only a few months afterwards, his wife will also die. To have to lose the two people you love most in so short a period of time is heart-breaking; to have it happen to someone with so big a heart as Watson's, the pain must have been more than he could bear. It seems that life is determined to make the best people suffer the most.

What irks me even more is that Holmes cannot contact Watson to let him know he is indeed alive and spare him the grief, for fear his attempts to contact Watson might expose him to Moriarty's henchmen, bent on revenge. However, he does still contact his brother Mycroft to ask for funds as he travels. Mycroft, knowing that Holmes is alive but Watson believes him dead, bears the burden of knowing he cannot do anything to help ease the pain.

In this scene, Mycroft approaches a visibly pained Watson, attempting to offer Watson some kind of condolence; however, Watson is having none of it. He brusquely brushes off Mycroft. Mycroft, knowing his brother is still alive, can only wonder if Sherlock fully understands the consequences of his actions.

Yes, melodramatic, I know. I would have been a good soap opera writer.