pilarcat’s

Practice coloring in Photoshop.

Bad thing about hi-speed internet is that it makes you less patient.

A week ago I had problem with getting connected to the internet. At first I thought that the problem came from my phone line and the technician from my service provider confirmed that. But when I said my doubt about the ADSL router being broken, he confidently dismissed it. So I went through the process of having my phone line reinstalled with better performance supply. It still didn’t work. It took me another two whole days waiting for the technician to come, check and say that the ADSL router was really broken. Yeah, right:-(

Now It should be very easy to fix this. Just buy a new router and I could get connected. I went to service shop and found that the specific router had been  out of stock and it would take a week for the new stock to come!

I know I shouldn’t complain anything as I can still use my computer’s built-in modem to get online and the ordinary speed internet is not that low either. It’s just that I am totally spoiled with the hi-speed internet and a little bit slowness can easily gets on my nerves. I think I have to remind myself of the days I patiently waited for my work file sent via email in low-speed internet more often.

Anyway, above is a doodle which has nothing to do with my babbling. Just feel a need to have image on each post ^-^.

I did this sketch in one fine afternoon. The setting was what my dad already had in his garden. The colorful pumpkins bought for celebrating the past Chinese new year day were carefully laid in a wooden nest. The chair was a simple one, very old and worn out with years of sunlight and wind. While I was drawing, it occurred to me  that this chair had been in our garden for, perhaps, almost twenty years and I had been living in such natural environment for too many years that I took it for granted. It seemed like I suddenly noticed things around me. The different tones of birdsong. The various shapes and shades of tree leaves. The fresh breeze in such ordinary afternoon time.
I wondered why I never see this kind of things before…
I wanted to color this sketch but thought better of it and took this photo instead.

It has been cold for a few  days in Bangkok, which is kind of weird as we always
have two seasons here, summer and rain, now we have to dig up our sweaters  to wear.
I like this kind of weather, especially in the afternoon when it’s not too cold or too hot.
It’s nice and mild with fresh breeze. That’s when I took my book out in the garden and did
some sketches.
The first one, can’t remember the name…
The second is called Bird’s nest fern.
The last one is Queen of Dracaenas.
I’m really happy with these sketches.

Doodling with nothing in my mind. It seems that deep in my unconscious has something to do with flowers growing from a girl’s head. Or is it something I saw before?

Come to think of it. Now I remember why a tree on a head. It came from a Japanese picture book I bought long time ago. The book is in Japanese of course and I bought it despite my limited knowledge of the language. From the pictures in the book, I can just tell you that: once upon a time there’ s a girl who woke up one morning and found a tiny green sprout on her head. At first, she thought it’s kind of weird but somehow she’s pretty proud of it as none of her friends had the cute sprout as she did. Then, she realized that nobody saw it and got annoyed. She tried to pull it off but no matter how many times she tried to get rid of it (she even ate it), the small green leaves just kept pushing up from her head. The girl became very sad. She didn’t know what happened to her and meanwhile the leaves grew and grew as if they were her own long hair.

I don’t quite get the meaning of the end but it goes like this: finally, there caame a boy who could see her leaves. They talked and the girl suddenly saw that he too had leaves on his head. and so did other students in the school.

That is the end. I guess I need to use my Japanese dictionary to know the meaning of the whole story and that would be a time-consuming job. Anyway, it’s a very nice, beautiful illustrated book and I guess that’s why I like to draw a girl with tree on her head…