Watching Case 39 recently had me google for the amazing child actress, whom I found out to be Jodelle Ferland who also starred in Silent Hill the horror film that had created a lasting impression when I saw it about four years back, and both were filmed around the same time. She’s 15 now, no longer a “child”, but I think Jodelle has really unique features that you might find a wee bit asian, if you squint (my mind keeps morphing this drawing into Inoue Mao lol). At the age of 11 she pulled off such a difficult and easily stereotyped role in Case 39, which was truly impressive. I can’t even comprehend what I was thinking at that age, let alone make putting myself in another’s shoe seem so effortless.

It’s been a while! Two sketches born while taking a break in the office; obviously #2 took more time, because awww she’s so so so cute <3 (but I drew a terrible hand, what happened!) Oh, and my hair’s wavy like hers now.

Work has been good so far (y)

もうわかんない。
すごく疲れた、本当に。
time-out
shut down
restart.

on the new job tomorrow, hello K.

Wedding card design (mainly illustrations) and production for a friend, Elijah who’s based in UK, and the lovely Rowena. The scene is set against a European backdrop, with a couple running for the train that represents the beginning of an endless, lifelong journey together.

Digital illustration on Photoshop with a tablet. The 160 wedding invitations took about two months (Mar-Apr) to plan, illustrate and produce.

The folded card is 100mm x 210mm, printed on both sides of white glittery paper. Envelope is in metallic grey of the same material, additionally handcrafted with a tag for writing names secured by two metal tacks, as well as a sticker seal for each set of card.

( More LOVE under the cut! )

1. KINETIC

Not physics, just plenty of anxiety to wait out the coming week with before I officially hop on their spacecraft as ‘interactive designer’. Will a close-knit team accept *blind deers?

2. CRAVINGS

When Curry was there to indulge in my **washoku cravings, the goodness doubled. We ordered much more than natto intended and couldn’t care less, bill. Let’s make this a fortnightly affair ^^

3. A MINOR

I tap a casual beat and dance my fingers across the keys, awkward, based on more muscle memory than consciously comprehending notes. Four pages of a quartet, yet. Getting complex.

4. BOY

The endearing thing looked exactly like he walked out of the book cover of Rental Children. I cuddled Yu, thinking seriously, if no one wants to adopt you, I do.

5. MONSTER

No, I mustn’t let it consume my consciousness like how the zombie was devouring my head last last night; it’s too precious a song to get tired of so quickly.

6. RED WINE

Composure shattered as the glass toppled and hurled it towards her, I couldn’t stop apologising. At eleven years old, she dabs her drenched phone without looking too hurt. I’m grateful.

7. APRIL SHOWERS

May flowers are blooming slowly, steadily, mild sunshine warding off the looming shadows of rainclouds; at least the worst of downpours is behind us. What will lay in store next?

8. ARTSY CAFE

Most ideal for a therapeutic session from work and random frustrations with the like-minded artsy-lovin’ friends. The list of places keeps growing, yet my dear savings deplete by the day.

9. OUTBOX

My texts refused delivery one day after a blackout, screaming for a new phone; it’s time, after all. Rebooting trice worked, however — cause it’s too (pretty) functional to part with.

10. MULTIPLY SIGN

Besides, nobody else understands those abbreviations. / For once he commented, yet impersonal sounding; prove that he’s still as unreadable. Almost Figments on hold till I find better reasons to continue.

* You may attempt to answer the silly riddle: what else can you call them?
** Washoku 和食: Japanese cuisine

–

Yeah it’s so obvious I let my laziness hide behind those 30-word so called elaborations. And I’m talking like they even make sense to you. (Let’s just pretend they do <3)

*screencap from online sources

Most people I know have the tendency to loop songs when it comes to those they take a liking to. Looping excessively spoils it for me, so I hardly want to kill my favourite Jap tunes. Classical music is different though – a case in point is Gustav Mahler’s Quartet for Piano and Strings in A Minor – yes that’s the ominous melody you majorly hear in the Civil War room scenes of good ol’ Shutter Island, my new favourite film. The piece is good because it’s sticky, the heavy notes tend to strike so vividly like a gunshot on a winter day, and unforgettable, the way it’s succumbing to the endless spins on the record player, as in the film, in my head.

The tune, a blend of piano and soulful strings, has been playing over the laptop speakers for two days now, while I did my art and things, such that at a point of time I thought it began to not sound like Shutter Island; I don’t know for sure if that’s a good thing or not. Surfing for the sheet music which I found and had printed, all of 18 pages, I unwittingly (albeit excitedly; was in the mood for something new) sat at the piano and attempted to decipher that distant language now so foreign, transcribed in black and white forms, barely got past the first page and thought the move was quite silly considering I can’t really read notes.

Well, if you insist, I can but count them note by note by the lines, using my knowledge of what’s left of what little I had learned during the music lessons when I was much younger. Actually, I still can’t figure which octave the bass clef is in. Often I imagine how awesome it would be if I could also play by reading scores, instead of playing by ear. It’s not a bad thing, but after a while there’s not much variations, and your own set of skills and piano techniques get old.

Oh, I’ve digressed haven’t I. Having watched twice within a span of three days, Shutter Island is a film that I consider a little less mainstream; apart from disturbing concepts that haunt you mentally, you won’t find more true horror and action than you would find sanity on the entire island. Set where normal is defined as erratic, the story seeks to screw with your head like how the protagonist is challenged with a cloud of reality and delusions woven together seamlessly as he comes to terms with himself, sending you on a roundabout until the pieces fall back together and looms at you in a more than subtle way. But then you realise they’ve been dropping clues since the opening scene.

Post WWII, a handful of scenes let us relive fragments of the war, very distant and cold, through the protagonist’s eyes. If you are not up for some mind boggling mess at an isolated island holding three psychiatric wards, at the very least I believe you would applaud the efforts put into the amazing cinematography. The Civil War room scenes, damn. Scenes of the protagonist’s illusions, sometimes vivid memories, are morbidly saturated like the 1950s, yet in contrast with reality – largely with regards to the truth – these appear more as monochromatic. And just when you thought the story can’t get any more perplexing, the tiny filming incongruities which were most probably meant for bugs you; that you simply have to do a double take and that leaves you wondering. I miss watching fine movies like this..

The use of classical music is extremely befitting – can’t you see how I’m already addicted to Mahler’s piece? I think I’m gonna try out the score again tomorrow.

Movie aside, I don’t know why this is so coincidental; the melodramatic and gloomy vibes from the quartet complements what we are going through in this period of time. Timings can’t be any worse it seems, and there’s no purpose in spelling out anything. This.. spate of events revolving around us, however, as I see, has spawned the blitz of much needed change, though not exactly wanted. I’ve been learning new things but not in that hard a way like some others. Yes, I think its high time.

Are we nearly at the end of April already?

//

Check out the Shutter Island wiki
If you’ve watched Shutter Island, what did you think of it?
Did the ending throw you off?