Paint with me: Night Starry Sky

Hey guys,

So after a very long time, I got the confidence to do something out of my comfort zone: painting. I'm very used to shading with pencils. Pencils are my bae hahaha. But painting has always been a challenge for me. I never learnt to paint properly because I left art classes before I could start with painting (Thanks O levels) But now that As have ended, I have decided to try and teach myself how to paint. 

So for today, I decided to paint this really pretty picture that I came across on my tumblr dashboard.

I thought this would be a fairly simple picture to try my hands on painting for the first time. But...it turned out to be a little challenging for me. Mostly because this picture required really good blending and shading of all the colours. And the colours ranged from really light like white and yellow to really dark colours like blue and BLACK. But well...I tried. And I think it came out not so bad for someone who tried painting for the first time? Hahaha well that's for you to judge anyway but I'm quite satisfied with it. 

Anyway, so here's mine

If you are curious to know how I did it or you'd like to paint this as well then you can keep reading :)

You would need

- black cardstock

- Acrylic paints (Mine are by Omni 12 shades. Got them in popular for around $10)

- A palette

- a soft sponge (I used a makeup sponge)

- a brush

One thing I always do when drawing anything that is complicated or has a lot of details, is to mentally isolate certain parts. It becomes easier when you work in parts rather than attempt to see and draw the whole thing at once because that can get very overwhelming. So as you go through my pictures, you will realize that I work in parts and I'll mention which part I'm working at for that picture and you'll realize that it's actually not that complicated after all.

I'm gonna start with the bottom lighter part of the painting first and they mainly required 3 main colours: Yellow, red and orange

Use a brush to spread the yellow paint on the sponge 

Start dabbing it on the page. If you look at the original picture, you'll see that the bottom part of the sky is shaped in this certain triangular way. So just dab it in a similar shape

Dab orange on the darker areas

Dab red on the darkest areas, which are mostly the sides

For the next step, make a pale yellow colour by mixing white with the shade "lemon yellow"

Dab that colour to the lightest areas

Use orange and yellow simultaneously until they blend well. When you use the orange, make sure you dab off the excess paint first on a rough paper or else the orange will overpower the yellow and that will make it very hard to blend.

Next, dab white to the brightest areas and blend well. I preferred using my ring finger for this part rather than the sponge. 

Next, use a purple paint. I had to mix mine

And dab it in areas where you notice purplish tones. I saw the purple mostly in the left side of the picture

Then take the darkest blue paint you have and dab it in all the areas where you notice blue shades.

Then take black and dab it in all the areas which you're sure are black. The areas that I haven't dabbed with black are where the lighter shades will be.

Excuse my foot hahaha. But yeah, mix white with ultramarine blue and dab it in all the lighter areas

Then take the darkest blue you used before to blend it with the light blue. To make the light blue not seem so strong, go over it gently with the dark blue shade and then blend it outwards.

After that, use your ring finger again to apply white paint over the really bright areas

Next, make a shade of pink by mixing white with scarlet red

Then use your ring finger again to dab it in the areas where there are pinky tones.

On the other side, I realized theres a darker shade of yellow. So I took the shade yellow ochre and applied it to the darker yellow areas. All these areas are painted using my ring finger

Then I went over some areas with orange to blend it with the yellow

Then I added some white to the other pink side as well and blended the lighter and darker part of the skies again by constantly switching from orange to red to blue to black until I was satisfied with the blending

Then I made pink again and used an old baby toothbrush to dab some on it

And I sprayed it on the left side because I realized that the pink stars are mostly concentrated this side

Here's the best part, spraying white paint for the white stars because this is what gives the sky its life. The white stars were mostly concentrated on the darker part of the sky but I sprayed some on the orange part as well.

After I was satisfied with the stars, I went ahead with the final and easiest part which is painting the mountains.

Then you just fill it in and add in the nitty gritty details if you're particular about the tiniest details like me.

And then...you're finally done!

This was quite a fun painting to do actually because really all you have to do is blend, blend and blend and anybody can do that hahaha. And it hardly required the use of paintbrush. 

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this post :) I certainly had a lot of fun painting. I'll share again if I make more interesting stuff. 

Have a good day!

See you soon

Byeeeeeee

My real life nightmare: A levels

Hi guys,

Guess who is back after almost 3 and a half months. I almost forgot I even had a blog. I actually had doubts on whether I should continue with blogging or delete it. But then I thought, I'll just continue with it. I'm not sure how many of you actually read my blog (if you do, then thanks :) ) but blogging was more like an outlet for me. I did it for myself. It helped me to express my ideas and thoughts and creativity and if anyone of you enjoyed reading them, then I was only more than glad I could be of some use or entertainment to you :)

Well I'm back from my hiatus. I stopped blogging because of A levels. I literally had nothing to blog back then. Everything was so monotonous and dull and really, REALLY hard. It was only just a few months back and I already can't remember how I went through it all. I just remember lots of struggles and laziness and disappointments from prelim results. Everyday was just...

waking up early->going to school->panicking over undone homework->struggling to finish essays->consultations->staying back in school till 8pm->going home->dying on my bed

And the cycle would repeat.

Don't let me fool you though. I sound like I worked oh so hard for my A levels but to be dead honest...I really could have done a lot more than I did. Most of the times, I would be really tired. I would be struggling to stay awake in almost every lesson. Any little break and I would be fast asleep on the table. Yeah by the last lap, I somehow got my wake up call and tried to finish at least some of my homework and essays but my efforts were nothing compared to my classmates and schoolmates. They were like essay machines. They were prepared with every outlines and essays during tutorials. I really don't know how they did it. But I always wished I could be as motivated as them. But I wasn't. Some days, I just gave up. I didn't do anything. Yeah I consulted my teachers, but I don't know how much that helped me. I hated writing essays. A LOT. So I mostly relied on reading notes and model essays and making my own notes to learn rather than practice by writing essays, which I'm sure has cost me a lot for A levels because my time management was absolute shit.

Well...then A levels started. God, was every paper torturous to go through. 3 hours. All of them. Hundreds of hands racing against time to produce the best answers possible. My hand being one of them, shaking in fear... and because of the cold in the hall. The paper would end, everyone would stand up with this ambiguous smile on their face dying to discuss the answers. And I would just rush out of the hall, take my bag, run out of the school, catch the first 168 bus I see and come back home. Music blasting in my ears to maximum volume so I wouldn't have to listen to anyone. For 3 weeks, it went on like this. How did I do overall? I would say ok. I did screw up some papers like Lit and econs and it was expected. I hated both of those subjects and I couldn't make myself work hard for them. History paper 1 was tragic because I didn't study the topics that came out very well but History paper 2 was pretty ok. But on a bullshitting scale from 1 to 10, I'd say my bullshitting level was about a 10 for almost all my H2 papers. Lol fuck?

I honestly don't know how my results are going to be. I'm hoping to get a C at least for everything but nothing is certain. Yeah I know, you must be thinking at this point "Is this girl for real? She probably won't even make it to uni" Yeah maybe there's a chance, I won't make it to uni. But I realized, life doesn't end there. There's a lot of other options available. Well, to begin with, I can always retake my As. Hopefully I don't have to because it would SUCK to go through that torture all over again for another year but it still is one of my options I guess. Another would be to choose alternative paths that does not require academic rigour. This one is my 1st option. You maybe wondering why? Well, I realized in JC itself that I do not want to go to the usual NUS or NTU and do some boring ass degree that I have no interest in just because it sounds cool or makes me sound smart. I made up my mind that I cannot have a JC part 2 in my life again. I already regretted choosing JC because I was too much of a coward to choose something different. I went to JC, took the subjects that I absolutely hated ( I swear I did not even like ONE subject in that place) and look what that gave me eventually -> anxiety, sadness and it made me feel like I'm the stupidest person alive. Why? Just because I couldn't write as good essays as other kids could? Because I couldn't understand how the economy works, what the poems and dramas meant? Because I could not memorise the hundreds and hundreds pages worth of historical events that happened because people in the past fucked up? 
I told myself that even if (by some stroke of luck) I managed to get good enough grades to get into a uni, I wouldn't go there. Because none of the courses there appealed to me. So what alternative paths did I have in mind? I had always loved art. I remember in sec 2, I didn't take Art as my O level subject because I chose to take Pure Sciences and Additional Maths instead (Mistake number 1). After O levels, I decided to go to JC and do Humanities instead of choosing to go to poly or an Art School for diploma (Mistake number 2) and now to prevent mistake number 3, I have decided that I wanna apply to design schools now that my A levels are over. Don't get me wrong, I'm not choosing designing because I think it's the easy way out. Mind you, designing careers are one of the most competitive streams. You will come across the most talented and critical people there. And there's a lot of work involved. A lot of knowledge to be gained and applied. Yeah maybe to get in to a designing course, your academic requirement is very low but that is because you are largely judged on the portfolio you prepare. It's all based on your talent. You can't memorise your way out in this path.
But I realized this is what I'm meant to do. You know, like how some people just know they're meant to do sports, or be an engineer or be a historian? I just know I'm meant to do something where my creativity can be expressed. Paper and color pencils is my therapy. I want to see my creations come to life. I know there's no escaping from hardwork so if I have to work hard, I'd rather work hard in something I have a passion for. So I hope this answers your question as to why my aim for A levels is so low. 
I have thought of other things as well in case I don't make it for designing courses. And worst case scenario, I don't get accepted anywhere, I will retake my As and make sure I nail my exams the second time round coz I ain't gonna let that second time go to waste.

Anyway, as much as this post served as a reflection for me, if you have just ended A levels too and are worried sick for your results then first, let me wish you all the best for your results, your hardwork will not go to waste. And if you think it didn't go so well, then there are a lot of other paths you can choose. Think about what you're good at, what gives you comfort, if money was not the issue what would you choose to do, what can you do at uni that will allow you to fulfill that dream? Find ways to reach that path, start applying now, a lot of university courses consider a lot of other things other than just your A level grades. And if you wanna get into a course that requires really good grades and you didn't make it, then don't be afraid to retake your As. Would you rather 1 year go to waste or your whole life go to waste doing something you don't like. My dad always told me failures are very normal and we shouldn't be afraid of them or look down upon ourselves because of them. And after facing a failure, you'll always come back stronger.

Basically, my point is, don't think your life will end just because As went badly. It's never the end of the world. There is always a way out. Always.

If you're a junior and your A levels is next year, All the very best to you too. It is definitely not going to be easy. It will be very hard and you will definitely go through a roller coaster of emotions, but hey, we all come out alive at the end and before you know it, trust me, you'll be done with As. Just like that. I won't give you any study tips or exam tips because I am NOT the right person for that hahaha. But umm, I will say that the earlier you start the better. Sounds like an obvious thing but believe me, procrastination level will be too high next year :p So try not to give in to temptations. 

Well anyway, pretty long post here. Feels good to have gotten everything off my chest. Reminded me of why I started blogging in the first place. I'll be back with another post soon. As for now, I'm gonna go try to sleep again.

See ya
Goodnight :)