The interviewer is so awkward and half the time Horowitz is not really answering the question, but listening to Horowitz talk (and play but that’s obvious) makes me so content. He is one of those people who I’d like to call the epitome of a true artist. Most of the questions he was asked aren’t really things I think he would consider on a regular basis, at least around that age. Practice, preparation, correctness, a final and divine external standard one must adhere to, these are all really methods we’ve devised from analyzing what a true artist does naturally that allows him to express his artistry without inhibition, so that we, too, can have a chance at being able to express ourselves as freely as they can. For each of us who did not come across and develop these abilities naturally, we can only practice, consciously think and grind these knowledge into our minds in hopes that one day they would become part of us, where we would finally be able to let go, forget all the colour theory limitations, perspectives, anatomy, note length, voice leading, structure, dance step, and trust that our mind will know what it wants and knows what to do.

My favourite part of this video is the fact that you do not forfeit your own visions in order to conform to the composer’s will. Identifying what is “wrong” should not be the focus of one’s appreciation of a piece; listening to music is not a game of finding infidel interpretation. Most of the time, especially at the beginning of learning the arts, it’s easy to naturally try to identify the opposite of a certain standard to be wrong as a guideline on staying right. Most frequently nowadays the standard reaction to a technically skilled player, especially of Asian descent, is to say their playing have no spirit, no soul, as if flawless technique is wrong. While it is true of a lot of these players, it is not their flawless technique that bring them to their downfall; just as many players with inferior skills play equally soullessly. This is one of the things I dislike the most about common not so well trained western music teachers: technique is largely neglected in favour of musicality and–almost terrifyingly–out of fear that having good technique means the automatic lack of musicality.

Technique is a vessel; a vessel that is much easier to master at a young age. Without this vessel, your masterful tastes in music will forever be trapped and can never really fully reach your music. It’s true that a lot of people, once focused on technique, measure their success with it and neglect musicality easily, but musicality is a door opening experience that occurs after you’ve accumulated enough experience about life, the world, and about music; there is never a too late for this to happen, unlike the training of technique.

The final ability to execute meaningful art lies in a balance of both one’s taste and their ability to conceive these tastes and feelings without hindrance. Each side would cripple a performer without the other. Similarly, a balance of yourself and the composer’s will is what produces a performance. If someone wishes to hear a perfectly loyal interpretation to the creator, he would better retreat to listening to an edited recording, now that we have the technology to do so. But if music were played without regard to the time and history of when the piece was written, the piece would become meaningless and irrelevant within the span of years. Each side would cripple a performer without the other. It’s really this precise point that makes me love Horowitz so much. Like most credible performers, he knows and understand the rules he is expected to play by, you get to know somebody by how they treat the rules they’re limited by; Horowitz has a personality that I love so much, he has the skill and will to put it through his music even if it defies those rules. Listening to him play is like listening to him talk, getting to know him. Even though he’s not alive anymore, through his music he feels so close.

I’ll be posting a bigger version of this on my sites on new year’s (: but you guys can see it first as a reward for looking at my blog! I am very bad at drawing stuff for special occasions, and since I missed christmas I forced myself to at least draw something for new year’s. I wish all of you a safe and peaceful 2012! (or I guess a dangerous and exciting 2012 if you’re an adrenaline junkie)

Writing about this year feel kinda like counting down my life, scratching another year off til the deadline and I’ve got all these things that I am now bent on accomplishing. I kinda like this because unlike having nothing to do, I feel motivated and unlike having a boss, if I miss a deadline I won’t dread to be scolded and wait for my sentencing. I’m so cut off from society but at this very moment it feels like it’s not worth it to fit myself into social norms just because it will make me miserable and slow down my work greatly.

I looked back at last year’s resolution list to see what I did and didn’t do LOL. I never got around to the studies like anatomy and colour and just plunged headfirst into practical work. I think that’s pretty terrible for my growth but yeah, I never really find myself to be the scholastic type. I feel more like the apocalypse-is-tomorrow-so-I-better-finish-this-book-so-it-can-be-incinerated-by-the-sun-along-with-myself type. I also just outright threw any semblance of a balanced lifestyle out the window in exchange for productivity, and it showed I think… I remember thinking that all I churned out this year was manga pages with relatively few drawings, but while upgrading my gallery script, I noticed I painted more than last year, and most of the pictures had taken much much longer to complete than drawings from last year. I played piano more than last year… though considering I played in like almost half year gaps last year, that’s not saying much LOL… but I can feel my fingers numbing because there are some pieces that even after familiarizing myself with them, I can’t play them as well anymore simply because my hands are more clumsy now from lack of practice. It’s depressing but I can’t ask for reward without putting work in LOL.

2011 summary of stuff I remember:

• Published CP finally! and suddenly the subsequent volumes are following like the wind (in my mind ok)
• Got out an artbook too? although that’s more like putting art together into a book because I didn’t draw too many new pieces for it
• I did better at conventions than previous years because I have books to sell now
• what I’m doing is much more solid and does not involve describing abstract career concepts to parents
• I am not sure about this but I think I treated people better? I tried to go the extra mile (at least for me it is considered such) to correspond with (or just respond to) my friends and loved ones. It’s really tiring still but it’s coming to me more naturally
• I somehow suddenly found a style I am completely comfortable with painting omg?? before no matter what I did I would always struggle greatly with the face, but somehow I can finally bid this decade of struggle good bye

I’m actually not going to do a resolution list for next year because there is nothing I am particularly keen on overcoming above all else, and I would probably mostly just aim for a continuation and improvement from this year. Also I just have no idea what would happen to my work style and habits after my aunt’s family moves in ): but here’s to a safe and peaceful world. I hope that while the young and fed-up stand up for their own causes, they actually have an idea of how to deal with the onslaught of chaos should they actually succeed in overthrowing the “system”, whatever they consider it to be. I’m not the most responsible or considerate person out there and I’m not too filled in on a lot of the current worldly issues, but while I believe some of these world powers are fucked up in the way they operate their countries, I feel like the masses trying to spread justice are just as dangerous and insane.

Ending with my playing! My mom went out today so this would probably be the last chance I have to putting together a recording without anyone else in the house for a long, long time. I did this to record flandre’s theme for my waifu sepia but also decided to record something else too because I get asked about my education once in a while. Time really hurts my skill but I’m not out here to impress any experts haha, if I need to do that in the future I can always actually practice for it. and tune my piano…. it hasn’t been tuned for like 3 + years now LOL;;; anyway this is lezghinka by liapunov; I decided to learn this after hearing a classmate play it and it has been my favourite song to play for fun. Everyone living around me is probably so fucking sick of this song lmfao

I realized a while ago when chatting with a friend that I am all business when it comes to reaching milestones (AS I AM WITH EVERYTHING ELSE ACTUALLY…) so I decided to celebrate my art book a little and go out for some ice cream on preorder night HAHA… I can’t believe I wanted to go for like the past 1-2 years and I NEVER WENT, even though it’s like 10 minutes from my place what is wrong with me ): but fear not ice cream crepes, I will come claim you this weekend.

I’m pretty much done with my late romantic period so I’ve been looking for different music to listen to, and looking through billions of songs you’ve heard billions of times is HARD HAHA. But I’m back to baroque stuff now–or in this case late romantic renditions of baroque stuff LOL. I fucking love the fact that they’re so focused on forms (not sure if this one applies tho I don’t deserve to pass music history lmao) I don’t know why this always gets me off so much more than emotional downpours of romantic stuff and totally makes me wanna cry. same for art, too! I just may have some serious obsessions over control and constrain

Anyway have some busoni! This is only the second half but this is what I’ve been listening to haha

Ending with a wall of self reflection which might inflict brain damage so I’ll put that behind the cut (:

when I was in new york I stayed with a friend of my family who is a psychiatrist. She is really busy/stressed out most of the time, and she has been living alone because of her work location, all this along with her profession made her really enjoy talking to people, and we chatted it up the few nights that I stayed at her place, about my career and my opinions on what I’m doing. It was kind of like what happened at Otakuthon with my parents’ other friends, but she was much nicer and less imposing because she saw me as more of a subject than a family friend’s kid who didnt know what she is doing and needs to be saved. She regularly brought up sharing, collaboration, and responsibilities to those around me during the discussion and in the end she was like… you are so weird, you ENJOY solitariness when others find comfort in caring for each other.

It’s a really obvious statement about me but she describes it in a much less stereotyping way than me trying to be a loner. In the end from that and what my mom says about me, I realize I just trained myself to be incredibly selfish and a control freak. My interest is solely between the subject and myself, no one else is involved in anyway more than spectating because I don’t want them to hinder me. no one can really be as into carciphona as I am for obvious reasons, and as for music… I focused on my instrument which is a solo one in contrast to an orchestral instrument, or even an instrument requiring accompaniment (eg voice), and what’s more I’m a solo pianist and not a collaborative one, so my entire learning experience was really between the music and solely myself. It’s almost like I build better relationships with inanimate objects and concepts better than with people. I always liked not having to cooperate with the need of others and much rather do everything by myself. Sometimes, I look at groups experiencing the inevitable fall out and feel secretly glad for myself.

A company can’t get big without sharing and collaboration, I understand that, but I really don’t believe in following principles for the sake of showing people I understand it, especially if it doesn’t benefit my situation. I’m not going to hire an orchestra for a concert for the off chance that I might want to perform a concerto, but because I’ve learned to think like this in order to be efficient, I ended up being aloof even during the times when I don’t want to be. I ended up being able to justify it as a reasonable price to pay to avoid trouble and grief in the future. I can’t always control others, but I can always control myself, so I’d much rather deal with putting away my spurs of social needs than resolving quarrels with others. I’ve almost lost sight of myself this way, all I can see is my goal for a little while.

Strangely this year I’ve met a lot of people who have amazing experience and insight into things I was doing, and it was a little puzzling how it all managed to happen because what are the chances? Just as I do something new and unfamiliar, it’s like these people are god sent. It occurred to me that maybe it was just because I wasn’t looking before, but whatever it is I hope I will be able to constantly remind myself to not let such a good opportunity go, and start extending my connections because I finally need it now. It’s so tiring and draining on me because even though I’m trying my best to be sincere about it, all I am doing is being dishonest since I just don’t feel this kind of external connection with people. But hopefully each time I try to do this I will get a step or two little farther than the time before.

A sketch I forgot about that I did during fanexpo haha; I did some sketches that I was going to post after i fixed them up/coloured them but I didn’t find any time this week lol ;; I’ll try to remember that next week. This is a redesign of an old chara that I posted about ages and ages ago and never did anything for. He’s the archbishop named Syro but I’m probably changing his name later cus it’s lame LMAO. He was older but since there is obviously a lack of young characters in Carciphona that look alike I am making him younger. He’s amazingly traditional and conservative but only because he believes he has no choice except to be as responsible as possible, and that if he cares about his own concerns he’d be putting countless other people’s concerns in jeopardy. Guilt tripping works wonders on him.

I’m pretty sure no one can figure out wtf is going on in this sketch but this is a great example of what my design doodles look like; I kind of go out of control when I’m making designs for the first time because I’m too lazy to draw new figures for designs so I just draw lines on the same figure over and over again until it becomes uselessly incomprehensible LOL. I’ll totally go insane and frustrated about having waste time on neatness if I were a concept artist lol ]: Archbishop is just his title; he is a summoner and he uses his holy shit ceremonial staff for that. It’s supposed to be turn upside down and played like a doublebass (I just wanted an excuse to make more impractical musical weapons) He has a huge crush on veloce that will never play out because romance is not allowed in Carciphona LOLGOD

IN OTHER UNRELATED NEWS, Islamey gets mentioned a lot when I was in college because it was supposed to be the most difficult piece to play up to that era or something; a lot of people talk about it when I played Scarbo since they get compared a lot for virtuosity, but I never really liked Islamey as a song because it sounds really over the top and generic to me lmao ): But I was looking for good recordings of it and came across Berezovsky’s and holy crap does he make it sound good. I love how he plays Liszt and… I guess this is perfect for him LOL. The only thing I don’t like about it is he plays a lot of passages dry without pedaling just because he can. It’s pretty fucking amazing but in the end I always prefer the noisier performances XD

a princess of northern descent! I believe I was really just trying to make a chinese princess crown with baroque ornaments but I decided to draw her some fancy clothes too. I think this is weirin but I’m not sure…..

yesterday night’s attempt to convince myself I didn’t waste the night away LOL. I painted half of it and got a little bored because I really just wanted work on illustration ideas some more. It was nice to colour hair brainlessly for 2 hours and occasionally chat on livestream!

And lastly, tonight’s attempt to be productive was to .:*~research drinks~*:. because, you know, I decided to make poor veloce an alcoholic but I don’t drink at all nor know how they’re served :D The best way to avoid making her look like a poser is of course to do it myself, but I hate the taste of alcohol lol SO youtube will have to do! I ended up looking at bartenders and this guy is pretty funny and the best I could find tonight. Everyone else looked like juggling clowns because they just toss their bottles around for a while with a long or nervous face, then pour the drinks like nothing happened which is pretty lame ):

And how is it July? I will have cons every other week starting less than 2 weeks from now (leaving next thursday for Ai-kon) and every con is gonna take me at least 4 days… My force-myself-to-go-to-cons ambition has died down HAHA all I want to do now is sit at home and get shit done ): I think I am aiming to finish Blackbird’s character profile this week (not doing Iriel anymore LOLOL FORGET THAT), do this week and next week’s updates, and then do… something… with my remaining time LOL maybe start on another CG :D and rebuild my AA display stand. I’m pretty nervous for ai-kon because It’s a small con, I’m going alone and I dont think I’m meeting up anyone I already know there. It was kind of a SHILIN MAKE YOURSELF DO SOMETHING THIS SUMMER thing when I applied for artist alley. I’ll be staying at Rensing‘s place for the duration of the con (thank you sooooo much ;;;;;) I hope I won’t be a boring annoying guest HAHAHA /socially inept

OTHERWISE, HAVE SOME MORE DRAFTS!!!!

I believe they’re more fun to look at before you see final pages, and I can’t do this with CP for obvious reasons so I thought I’d do this for the AU storyline instead! I was going to use these as test pages for complete digital creation, but I don’t know if I’ll have time anytime soon to do them ): So in the mean time please have some ridiculous thumbnails. As I said before I only go as far as making it comprehensible to me because, well, no one else really need to see my thumbnails. So I won’t be surprised if no one can figure it out LOLOLOL

And more drawing videos! this picture is really simple, and I made it a little slower than the rest so it’s possible to see my blending process if you’re interested. Click through to youtube for a bigger and maybe clearer version (:

FFF just 3 more boxes of packages to mail and I’m done. I’m so frustrated by the inconsistency between post offices because each clerk ACCEPTS SOMETHING DIFFERENT. I just wasted an hour talking to the clerk that was in today about how I was allowed to use the old green canada post customs sticker for the other post office, but this guy refused to accept it and insisted that I had to fill out the new one (the one that requires me to rewrite my 5-line address AND the recipient’s address) and I’m like I can’t do this 100 times… so I carried two boxes of mailers around for NOTHING and I have to go back tomorrow when the guy that accepts these slips is in. Also now I’m worried because he says if they’re not accepted, they will be returned to me and there would not be a refund. This is very scary because that’s potentially a thousand dollar loss there because the postage is as expensive as the book. But at the same time the guy who accepts the green slips has a friend who basically sells tons of contact lenses daily on ebay or something, and if his friend doesn’t get in trouble with his standards, I shouldn’t have to worry right???

I wish I was successful enough that I can contract a proper shipping company to manage all this for me… I have no problem doing the manual labour on my own but getting past FLEXIBLE RULES (???????) is way beyond me. I’m so not suitable to be a businessman LOL I consider every worst case scenario and take it as my responsibility to prevent it from happening. My dad tells me I’m horrible at this because I try too hard on service… he insisted the clear plastic bag wasn’t even necessary, and that I shouldn’t worry about the book getting damaged over WEEKS of INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING because it’s something way beyond my control (ie if a postman is bent on snapping my book in half or tossing it in water, he can do it and no amount of cardboard backing will save it). Also he told me to just ship the books regardless of a strike because that is also not my problem, and that I’m going too far in making sure the orders ship in a timely manner because I’m not the one transporting them and should not be the one to blame. It sounds like I’m boasting about how well I treat my customers but I really just find it interesting that he says that when a service is too good in a business, there is a problem with the business. I guess I can understand to a degree, but saying “no, that’s none of my responsibility I’m sorry I can’t reimburse what you paid for” is so hard ):

On the plus side, if I do this very often, my lifestyle will become healthy as I get my daily dose of exercise doing physical labour LOLOL. I consider book weight very carefully next time… This book is giving me troubles because it’s only 1 or 2 grams underweight, and the ones with custom sketches/charms in it are overweight and I had to pay extra. I really love the paper quality of this book but it’s so dense and thick, that it becomes a big problem when it comes to shipping. Lastly, I’m not doing double book shipping next time LOL and I will probably have to up international shipping rate depending on how this old customs form is accepted. Right now I send international orders as small packages rather than letter mail to save about $5 in shipping cost to arrive at the already expensive $10 shipping, but in return every single one of them has to include customs clearance. If they don’t accept this green slip I’m using, I will have to write down the addresses twice per package and I really can’t afford doing that to ~200 mailers. It’s sad because I have almost as much int’l orders as USA ones and the shipping will probably discourage many, many people from buying my future books.

And here are some randomly sexy men

But in the end I couldn’t draw a fight scene without compromising the feel of might ): she just looked like an ordinary or extraordinary fighter in those pictures, not someone unfazed by overwhelming forces. So I ended up drawing something like that arrogance sketch I did for my high priest. I don’t know if you can actually tell what’s going on here… I would work more on it but it’s time I put it away and use it as the drive to get my commissions/gift/sketches done LOL. I look forward to working on / finishing this picture though, because I already know what I want it to look like. Usually the sketches that I have a clear image for look like shit because I don’t want to spend time jotting down what I already know HAHA

And I’m not very creative when it comes to shit like this lol ): but I usually don’t try very hard with poses for repeats of past sketches that didn’t pass the CG test. My friend was like bb is doomed to be a man so I made it look more like she is the lady seducing a man(with boobs and wearing a tank?)? I might cg this one too because it looks nice and easy!

And I’m listening to the art of piano documentary again so here’s some cziffra! I don’t know why aside from the really corny stuff they say in the documentary, I really really like the performances they had in the documentary even though they’re mostly mono, low quality, has lots of mistakes and don’t really conform to the standard expectations of how each of the pieces should be performed. I guess it just feels… alive? Like I can feel the insane over the top happiness of the artist in this recording like he’s lost his mind LOL… God I just want to go nuts at the piano right now I AM EXPLODING WITH ENERGY

Also it sounds like liszt was trolling someone into thinking that it’s a grande waltz brilliante ripoff HAHAH

My rest week turned into a do everything else week as expected. I felt a lot better on wednesday so I started working on those 100 free sketches. I’ve also decided to draw them on separate pieces of paper. At least this way they look a lot better than if I were to scribble with a pen onto the books LOL. I try to keep them fast but I can’t draw them any faster than like 15-20 minutes each so after 2 days of (half distracted) work, I’m only at 40 ): 60 more to go! and counting on people who don’t pay because I’m not drawing their sketches until they pay HAHA. I had wanted to finish all of them by today but I was short yesterday’s quota by like 50% so I think the work will have to go into next week ): I intend to send off my art to make prints next week as well, so although I wanted to draw a gothic/punk pic as the last new print of the year I don’t think I’ll have time ): NEXT YEAR IT IS.

I want to post some of the sketches because I kinda like them, but that wouldn’t be nice to the people getting them haha. After 40 sketches it’s still pretty fun although even though I’ve drawn like 35 veloce/blackbirds and 2 weirin/keris so far LUL I think I just have ocd issues

SPESHIAL HALF-HOUR SKETCH FOR SUMBADY

For some reason the charas in my traditional sketches look so young I don’t know why hahaha :D they start to look old when I paint them but I think it’s because I draw such big heads and cute short little arms and hands, and I fix those with freetransform on photoshop when I paint them. This is what you should NOT do guys, practice a bad habit so hard that you naturally do it and can’t tell what’s wrong with it.

ok time to do 60 more sketches! I’m so amazingly motivated recently it’s surreal

And I also took the livestream of the boots ornament on wednesday and edited it into video walk through :D livestreams are good for seeing individual brush strokes (and how slow I draw) but speed up videos are great for showing the overall process. I’ll probably avoid using livestream videos in the future though because I usually draw petty badly in streams, because I feel pressured to not pause and think too much, which is actually an integral part of my drawing process

I think this is as close as I can get to my pretty picture goal… I stopped before I start adding massive amount of details and depressing themes LOL. I started with Weirin but when I considered a sky texture for background, I thought the colours work with Veloce better. With interest to variety I’m pretty sure I should go with weirin but man, the pinks and lavenders LOL… Another problem is cyan doesn’t print, and I don’t know how to deal with that colour in terms of printing so I’ll most likely go with weirin. Which of the three do you prefer?

I mentioned this a few times to some friends but I don’t think I ever talked about it in public, even though it’s been a pretty big thing for me in the past few years–especially after I started going to conventions–but it’s been my goal to beat my old popular works for a while. I decided to write it here because I think it’s pretty absurd of me to do that and might be interesting to know. An artist improves and improvement sometimes means change, and and during change some old charm might be lost. Now that I’ve gone through 4 years of staggered experimenting with various styles/processes/procedures, I’m taking what I’ve learned and applying it to what people once liked best about my art. I didn’t expect this part to be this hard because I didn’t realize that some of the old charms of my art were thanks to my mistakes and lack of knowledge, and once you learn you can’t unlearn!

I really appreciate people enjoying my “basilica”, “too late” and “roxanne” pictures, both online and as a print in real life, but I don’t like the fact that they can be (incorrectly) seen as the apex of my career or the best I can do, because I can’t produce something with my improved skill that can defeat their popularity. It may be obvious that I’ve deliberately drawn things with this motive in mind and if not, this pretty picture thing I’ve been trying to do is an attempt to defeat myself at my roxanne picture. I understand that timing played a big role because those three pieces were all done during a time when I still actively posted, and deviantart didn’t destroy their fave system yet (I think), and now that they’ve got such surreal fame it’s even easier for people to spread it around. But even when I sold prints at conventions those three were the top three year after year. I’m so surprised that even after I finally did figure out why they were so popular, I could not come up with new pieces that work on the same concepts without them looking like a replica of those pieces. I’ll see at this year’s conventions to see if I finally succeeded!

And speaking of conventions, if by chance I win the AN contest and win a table, I don’t think my books will be here in time for the con ): is a little sad