hiya!

thank you if you are still visiting this site.

i find that there were some problems for my oversea friends and famliy to see this site properly so i have neglected it for a while.

if you are still interesting in seeing some of my doodlings and reading some of my nonsenses, you are welcome to this blog. i have been updating it for a while. unfortunately for english readers, it is mainly writen in my own language, only occasionally in english. although you can try google translate but seriously it doesn't make much sense. if you cannot tolerate it any more, leave me a message and i will do some lovely english talk for ya!

cheers!

 

cold virus

 
©2007 jia ma

painting class #3

This is the most satisfactory i got so far. Although it is not even close to the completion. many areas are not good. luckily we will get another chance to work on this pose. it looks a lot better with a background.

Shenzhen is a city of China

I just finished reading this graphic book called "Shenzhen".

Shenzhen is the name of the city where my parents are working in. To me, it is famous because of being the only "Special economic zone" in my country and just next to Hong Kong. I only stayed in this city for about 3 weeks with my parents last summer. Most of the time, I was sitting in my parents' room, listening to the clamour of cicadas. Outside the window, telewires penetrate through the tropical leaves. Everything melts in the moist and heat. Whenever i go out for meal, i will get on my dad's car driving through similar concret highways, to some crowded streets with similar high rise department stores along the sides. Apart from the food, i didn't enjoyed it very much. The city was developed from a little fishing village to today's capitalized city within 20 years. It is a city without a face of history. Immigrants from all over the country came here for money. They settled and adapted the new life of commericalism and left their culture behind. My parents don't like it either. Their concern is the city makes people radical and crazy, which creates too many crimes. It's a city doesn't make you wonder what are the individual lives and emotions behind those faces. I didn't remember one single day that i saw a blue sky.

This book is from a canadian guy who worked with an animation studio in Shenzhen. This has encouraged my great curiosity. Although i don't like the place, it will always be interesting to find out what a foreigner thought about it. Only have I known already before i read it that this book must be about how he dislike the city.

Once i started it, i realise that it's not really about a city called Shenzhen. It's about a country called China and the conflicts and prejudices between two cultures. Helplessly, i automatically developed a self-defense against his opinion. I agree that many things he hated reflect a part of the reality. But every one of those makes me like my people more and more. Acturally, what had happened to him doesn't matter to him. How different this culture is from his own culture bothers him. He became a defender of his own culture at last, in a situation where no one is actually willing to challenge him. How funny. After all, no one can escape their own stereotype.

Reading his experience, i kept having two sides of feelings. On one side, he is pathetically positioning himself as an outsider. He never tried to learn the language. He took as offense when people express their curiosities towards him. On another side, i understand how hard you need to try in order to be accepted. No matter how, you are still a different species in a foreign circumstance. At one time, i think why he didn't go to visit some other places. Although Shenzhen is a typical snapshot of today's China, the country is far more gorgeous than he can imagine. He likes Hong Kong and Canton, but he didn't give enough justice they deserve in the book. But sometime i'm thinking no matter how much you experienced, people live in their own little world anyway.

Apart from these, i did enjoyed his drawings. His dark pencil marks make you think his mood must have been heavy. I'm about to read his another book "Pyongyang". I am expecting some common prejudice between him and me this time.

By the way, unfortunately the image to the right is in French. It's about the girl who works in his hotel will call up the lift for him everytime he walks off the room. Only she is obsessing with the button, said his self-called colonial reflex.

painting class #2

Here you go another ugly old man, from 2 weeks ago. the poor old man has felt asleep while posing, so it's not completely my fault that the face sags. left side body not completed, also the chair, so it looks physically impossible. when i have a chance to look away from the detailed patches and brushes, i start to see where works and where not. funny man boob on the left side...
a shame that i can't find this one painting commented as interesting and bold by the tutor. i think it's all because the arm was just in an awkward angle. to help you imagine, it's very much like a boomerang with a big knob suggesting the hand. oh well, what a nice teacher she is.

this painting was from last class. subject: back bones. quite amazing how the picture covered up the rubbishness of the originals!

Painting Class #1

here is the first drawing i did in the last 2 months or so. A 30min toning test. I like the slight abstract, and the treatment of the seat was alright. But the whole left leg is quite vague.

Then the first painting. 45 min b&w Acroleic (?). Ahh, really tough! I really hate the anticipating collections of those dots. 
Although i was quite pleased with the relation between the matress and the body.

Actually in my depressing foundation, i did a couple of paintings. Not so much better since then huh? Really conscious, that's my problem, well, apart from that i just don't know how to paint.
(looks better when small)

I am feeling the urge to record today.
Yangtze Freshwater Dolphine has been declared officially extincted. It is linked with the pollution and fishing industry again.
US just launched the space shuttle endeavour, companied with the story of a heroin.
Beijing was celebrating the 1 year countdown of Olympics and tried to shoot rains into the air to wash off the mist.
Well, not too much of the excitement though. Just an ordinary day in the history of human stupidities.  

Images from interval

致吉姆君

Dear Jim San

How is everything at home? I assume that you should have a lovely time.

Since you reminded me, I realise that I haven't updated here for a little while. I believe i could have alot to say. But strangely I feel that many things have passed by their perfect time of being mentioned.

Apparently the side effect of finishing college seems cured well. I am packed with the endless choices from freedom. I find myself on a level of thoughtless happiness.
I went to places and took pictures to try to memorise them. I visited imdb and amazon to be categorised. I met new people and filled the silence with new topics and felt satisfied. I am learning my new crowded life. My only contact with college mates is that i wonder about their lives sometime. I am officially trying to say good bye to the olden days, since it can be very cruel and frastrating. Whereas the new life is fancy and prospective, i have nothing to complain. When i feel it's too much, i start on new books. They share slience and darkness. This fascinates me. So to summarise, I might have less to say but i have more choices. What else i could ask for?

I wish you are feeling happy. I look forward to your pictures from summer home.

Yours

J

lost it
what does it mean?
cant think about it

i am leaving. Can u feel it?

to the sea

if life can have a cut

whenever i am awake, i talk to myself in mute. whatever have passed are strings in the mad hands. up and down, cells dividing inside me. natural ecstasy, endless torture. my present lives in past, and ceases. every inches of times could never possibly be illuded. if live can have a clear cut, i never meet i, i would leave empty handed. things with no need of result, people with no need of answer. so one can free. or past links with the supposed future. where i am less stupid for understanding. either way, present missing, in time of a finger bang, even though blank clean greyness sounds stupid. no way a story has no answer. but for years the last book can be published. or what if the authors die. that could be easier actually, as soon as i know it will terminate. no need to take it to my grave. haha i would laugh.

昨天的流水账

在学校
知道了成绩
吉姆和我一样没拿到first
彼此装着无所谓
大家take a "result" break
朱力安拍照留念
大家情绪复杂
工作
乱七八糟事儿
饿
5点就开始等着保安7点来赶我们
保安来晚了
玩儿棒球到天黑
冷
饿
奥立说不去朱力安家了
大家劝还不去，大家失望
大家去了朱力安家
奥立说是他心情不好的关系
奥立来了
吃pizza
看了朱力安小时候的照片
他哥哥比他帅
妈妈年轻时是funky的日本女生
玩儿游戏机
玩儿纸牌 21点儿
喝了5 shots左右的jin
学卷烟卷
玩儿乒乓球
其他人都只会玩儿和平球
接着玩儿游戏机
4点了都没劲儿了
朱力安安排床
分到舒服的大床
通知小博
4点半睡觉
10点醒了
喝茶喝咖啡
拍照
天真好
朱力安是好host
合影上车
半路没油了
奥立去2 miles以外打油
无聊，拍照，等奥立
奥立把大家送回家