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Blog #1
Forms of drawing had been around for almost over 6,400 decades. Not only is it drawing, but this technique was used for human expression and communication itself; way before any language was possibly invented. It has evolved from carving on stone, to graphite scribbled in shadowy inner walls of caverns, to chalk on chalkboards, to stylus pen on digital computers, and even to just laying your finger on touchscreen! Who knows how further we can advance in the future with drawing. There are people who assume drawing has no benefits. To fluctuate those people’s misunderstanding, expert scientists and artists will prove them mistaken.
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Drawing, indeed, has a variety of benefits. Most drawings can range from dots, to squiggly lines, shapes, styled fonts, cartoons, pictures of landscapes, and essentially anything from your own imagination. And all you must do is spit your imagination out, not literally though. Happiness is an essential mood of state that each of us desires. Professor Semir Zeki, a neurobiologist from University College of London, claims drawing can lead to happiness. Zeki says “Drawing or viewing an artwork can trigger a psychological effect.” That trigger causes the release of dopamine, leading to the feeling of euphoria, an extreme bliss of happiness. As a result, the feeling acts as one of the motivators for the artist. Which explains that many artists are addicted to drawing, they never stop. This will lead into an improved self-esteem, relieved stress, and relaxation, which is what many of us need.
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A gateway is used via drawing, a way to release emotions. Whenever you feel like you want to get something off your chest, just draw. Once you put your mind into your drawing, you will feel like you spun yourself into some bizarre dimension. A young adult, Lilian Sami Ibrahim al-Kaff, explains why she began drawing during her situation. “Drawing is my attempt to escape the bitter reality that we live in because I consider it another world far from everything,” said Kaff. She was born in Aden of Yemen, during her teenage years, political chaos came upon leaders craving for power, leading to a war.
Analytic skills, eye-coordination, memory, visual learning, patience, and creativity are some of the benefits that will enhance the more you draw. It can be a nice topic to discuss about with your social groups. The best of all, drawing does not require a language. A drawing of a picture contains more words than millions of dictionaries jumbled together. So that this way, any individual from any country, who speaks any language, will have the ability to understand and evaluate any drawings of pictures. Plus, you do not need to be a natural born artist and there is no age restriction to have the ability to draw. So just draw!
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Blog #2
Anime is Japanese-style drawn and animated cartoon, used in film and entertainment. Anyone from any age can watch anime as there are hundreds to thousands of unique genres and storylines. There is anime made for international fans, which means that they sometimes provide us subtitles or dubbed languages like English. The main objective as to why I drew Scar from a movie “The Lion King”, on my first post was to display how much I adore drawing. The evil villain, Scar, was also one of my favorite characters. His long hair with the sharp ends with nice flowing hair reminds me of the hair drawn in most anime. It looks half realistic and half fiction. The more I observe in the illustrations and animations that people put their hard work and effort into, the more I appreciate it.
The animations and illustrations in anime are awe-inspiring. Not just the characters, but some anime have incredible breathtaking sceneries of beautiful landscapes. One of my main inspirations that causes me to draw is anime. There is just a strong feeling of positive vibes that I get in return from anime, which gives me an instinct wanting to draw. Anime can sometimes get a bit addictive, but it is only if you know how to control yourself. Watching meaningful anime can help us enhance our sympathy for people and living things. They teach us a lot and really make you evaluate everything in life. Anime can also positively change our old perspectives about certain topics.
For the non-anime fans, I would like to encourage you all to take some of your time to watch anime. Just experience what anime is like, what your favorite genres are, and take a temporary break from the reality. Possibly, you could get inspired to start drawing often. I think some of the anime are worth watching. One of a very top-rated and popular anime is called “Naruto”. Naruto is the kind of anime that I would recommend to all the beginners to start watching immediately! One of the things I cherish about Naruto is how each character has its own purpose. Throughout each episode, there are always meaningful quotes. One quote from a character in Naruto, Gaara, says, “We have walked through the darkness of this world, that’s why we are able to see even a silver of light.”
Basically, I just want to applaud for all the illustrators and animators across the globe. Not just anime artists. But to everyone who dedicates their blood, sweat, and tears into working. Each job or career has their own stressful part played into it. Sometimes, there is not enough earnings made for them to live with. And I wish those stressed out people could put in a little more time into their own entertainment and hobbies. Like watching anime occasionally, or drawing anime for fun, it is like another alternative to meditation. Anime on!
Here are some inspiring and deep anime quotes that will hit your soul! Scroll down as you wish.
More quotes!
:D
Blog #3
On my recent posts in Instagram, I created a tutorial on how to draw an evil bunny, frog-ish, pikachu-ish, wearing a paper origami hat, sitting on a spaceship. One of the main hints that I drew, was the paper origami hat. Origami is “the form of art which involves paper folding”. Some people may immediately think of boring paper airplanes in the first place, but it is more than just that. There are plentiful of ways along with millions of paper-folding techniques. This would result in millions of different and unique origamis like cranes, swans, and ninja stars. There are more difficult levels like dragons and phoenix origamis. Origami does not involve cutting paper unless it is kirigami, a type of origami folding which allows endless cutting. And glue could be necessary with origami folding.
Origami folding is an enjoyable hobby in which anyone can master with the help of YouTube or by other origami masters. Folding paper itself, is like drawing with many benefits. Folding origami helps to increase your hand-eye coordination, increased mental focus capabilities, and plays a great delivery to reduce stress. The more you can master at folding origami, the more you feel unstoppable, and you can teach your skills to your fellow peers. Artists like Robert Lang, a professional origami folder, uses the art of origami to design technologies for outer space. Lang is also a physicist and engineer. You must know that folding origami requires intensive focus and extremely precise measures. The precise measures create a more symmetrical appearance to it, it should not look messy.
Some scientists are intrigued with the art of paper folding. They challenge themselves to make more advanced and tricky origamis, which might end up in their research. Creativity is generally used along with some mathematics, to make aesthetic and successful origamis. The trickier the origami gets; the more geometry is used. A few people who are inspired by origami, they set themselves off with polymer to make 3D shapes and objects. When you sit back, origami requires hard work and great focus to complete. Once you are done with an origami that you made, you may put it anywhere on your shelves. Origami is always pleasant to look at, which is made from a paper. And that paper got folded into something phenomenal. It is like art but living.
Blog #4
My father, Tong Truong, was the first person to introduce me into the origami world. I explained in my first podcast of how he introduced me to the making of origami. He did not inspire me, but he gave me the opening knowledge of origami. And from that point on, I discovered origami myself by doing more research as I got older. When I was younger, I would dash around the library to find any origami-related books and tutorials. I wanted to create more and more origami. I figure that when I ask him questions on my second podcast, I am excited to see if he knows other kinds of origami creations. He is from South Vietnam, and according to online research, Vietnam has a few excellent origami artists.
I wonder if my father learned the original boat origami from one of those skilled origami artists. From what I see, a 28-year-old man, Nguyen Hung Cuong, had practiced skillful origami folding for six years. His origami works are incredible, it ranges from bunnies, gorillas, samurais, elephants, scorpions, and a heck lot more. I feel like my father has a great expanded number of capabilities to become an origami master just like Cuong. Some of my skills and abilities are probably passed down from him. He is a great encourager to cheer my me and my brother up whenever we engaged in any arts-and-crafts related activities.
If it were the past again, I could envision my father folding a bunch of more newspaper-paper boat origami in the kitchen. It still does not make sense to me that my father slowly drifted away from origami. Since he is getting older, I always thought that making origami is a nice hobby for the elderly to enjoy. I hope that after I interview him on my second podcast, he will again, join the origami world. I hope he gets inspired again. He spent his time telling me his past stories when he was still in school. People would come up to him, and request a drawing, or any works of crafts from him. I assume he was a popular student back then too. Tong seems like the kind of person who would love to make arts and crafts for anyone who had requested.
Knowing that my father is friends with a few people who are known to have origami tricks up their sleeves. I learned a different version of a paper origami from one of them, a flat-board boat type. Questions that could possibly appear in my second podcast for my father could be; Where did he learn his first paper origami? Does his family know about his secret artistic talents along with other crafts of art? Does he know anyone that is an expert with origami folding? Does he think he can pursue a career with just origami folding? Why did he stop origami folding? There are so many other great questions that I would ask him. So please stay tuned for the upcoming podcast two.
Blog #5
I remember from the beginning where our Journalism teacher, Nicole Gordienko, had introduced us to the final tremendous project. Instantly, that announcement was the most intimidating for me to read. It is mainly creating a website, researching, writing blogs, using social media and posting, doing podcasts about any beat or topic that we choose. Luckily, Gordienko split the project up into smaller slices for our class. Never in my life have I made a good or real-looking website. Honestly, I was dreading myself when this project began, and I was unclear of whether I could survive or not. The first two beats that I picked was drawing and anime. Again, having no idea of where this was heading to. I thought the two beats were a bit too stodgy. Researching was one of the best ways to dig into the real juice of the two beats. It was incredibly fascinating to learn about the two beats. As I was diving deeper into the information in which I read, the more the fuel recharged my motivation to start blogging.
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Before all this blogging, I had to construct a website. I used “Wix”, and it looked complicated for me. But I stayed determined and gave it a go. Messing around with the buttons and tabs, hoping that I know how to use it. Approximately, around 30 minutes later, I finally learned how to take control of my website. Everything seems complex unless you go in and try it, you will eventually learn that it is a breeze. Along with this, one of the requirements for this beat project is to obtain at least two social media accounts, Instagram and Snapchat. Personally, I enjoyed using Instagram more. From there, I followed many artists from across the world. I am still so amazed that there are so many individuals with extraordinary talents. If I followed them all, my Instagram would probably glitch out due to their talent levels over 9,000!
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The origin of my first blog rooted from drawing, anime, it slowly then branched out to origami, interviewing my father, and unfortunately, including this last blog for reflection. My fourth blog was an introduction to my father in origami for the following first podcast. This time again, I was dreading to do the podcast. Writing a five-page essay is an easier choice than doing a podcast, at least for me! I think I am crazy. Anyways, I gave it a go again. I probably spent over two hours writing the outline and script, but it was worth it. I was worrying about how my first podcast grade would turn out. I thought I failed. Then, I remember flicking out my laptop to check my grade and rubric. My heart felt like it stopped thumping for a few seconds. “Not bad”, I thought.
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Forwarding to almost the end of the beat project, I have gained my knowledge of so many new things. Not just the information of the beats, but the entirety of the project and its purpose. I was constantly dreading to do most of the basic parts. This project kept screaming at me to “Just do it!” You know, like that Nike slogan. Now that everything is coming to an end, I am quite disheartened. I was dreading myself from the beginning. But at the finish line, I am filled with motivation to start blogging for myself. So that I can come back to re-read my masterpiece whenever I am bored. In the future, I am going to try new things for the better. I will try to not live in a fear because life is too short and fragile.
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Ultimately, everything comes down to one piece. Sometimes in life, we must force ourselves to do things whether we highly dislike it or not. We must do it to possibly gain more knowledge, experience, or even wisdom, maybe a better grade perhaps. Whatever it is though, as individuals, we all are learning from it. We might find a different and unique side to us, perhaps some kind of new talent, skill, or ability. Everyone has their unique power and talent attached to them. You may think that you do not have a talent. That is called underestimating yourself. This comes to show that it is so widely important to try new things each day. We should remember that each of us obtains the capabilities to do vast, good things. Fear is basically our enemy preventing us to get out there and try new things, we must defeat it. Remember to always believe in yourselves, and from there, you are set off to accomplish many great goals presently and in the future. Believe it!