Wenlin's Blog

I met up with my crafty friends at a community art making event – “Crafty Crafty”. It’s on every 2nd Monday of the month@ Counter Pulse in SOMA. We watched youtube videos someone put together while chatting, making art. It was a great way to beat the Monday blues, esp. after a chilly rainy day and suffering 4 hours at an Endo emergency treatment in the morning. Anna was asked to make the next month’s youtube list. Come join us again on June 7th!

After two hours, I made two hair bands with recycled ties.

Scott happily modeled for me in an Urban Outfitter fashion.

I feel taken care of, thankful and peaceful

I drew this illustration, responding to a prop “What Have I Gained” at the open workshop that I go to at UCSF on Weds. Art making on Wednesdays has been a very meditative and spiritually uplifting experience for me. I feel safe and comfortable among a creative community, sharing ourselves with one another.

As I closed my eyes, a sense of being grounded, and warm feeling rose in my chest.
I felt at peace, quietly happy, and connected.
And this image was what I saw with my mind’s eyes.

I appreciate you being in my life!

I opened up an old sketchbook and found some figure drawings I did back in 2004 with the Charlottesville art community. We had weekly drawing sessions with interesting models and other artists working with various medium. I always learned so much from observing different approaches to the same model. My favorite models are dancers and theater actors, because I like their exaggerated expressions and gestures. Their bodies are unique and very elegant. I’d like to capture figure in motion in my future drawings.

I have a rare opportunity to be working with a theater group as an understudy for a minor role in the past few weeks. I get to observe closely how a theater performance come into being. In the director’s words, “the birth process to a performance”. After knowing that I am an architectural designer, the director asked me to bring my sketchbook and drawing tools to respond to whatever resonates with me in the rehearsal process, choreography, dance, characters,etc. The main dancer Tom is also a sculptor and writer. During the scenes that he’s not acting, he sits down as an audience and makes clay models of the characters in the play, while carefully observing the rehearsal. I feel very inspired by the free flowing and open process of performing, and reflecting, people feeding creative energy off each other…There are many great dancers in the crew. I’m mesmerized by the spontaneity and the elegance of the main dancer who plays a spirit. His dance feels light as feature, yet filled with energy and tension. It’s definitely a great place for me to explore my ability to draw figures in motion. It’ll be a great opportunity to exercise how I see things, too.

Drawing for me worth one thousand words. I try to embed emotion, symbolism and life situation to my drawings, which results in a still, often times bizarre and painfully simple imagery. If you wonder how I hop one character to another from being a clown facing an open field, to a spacewoman in a hospital gown, I can have a long conversation to fill you in the gap…For now, let me just show some snapshots of my reflections. I have a lot more to finish in the next few days, since many have stuck in my head for a long time!

The Anytime Anywhere Clown

The Kite

Out of Space

I miss the days I was with the Chens when we spent most of the day drawing our own characters and made up stories along the way.  Time flies really fast. Two months passed in the blink of an eye. Christmas is next week.  I really feel the urgency to devote more time on my drawings and stories. How come there are only 24 hours during the day!

The following is a character I made up when I was with the Chens. Her name is Alice.