ストレス/Stress

ごめんなさい。今はこの小さい文章を書いてあげられる。
卒業まで一ヶ月ぐらいが残る。
ああ、大変になちゃった。
僕の日本語はまだ良くないと思って特に今はいい練習できない。
でもその困難の期間を乗り越えったら僕の能力は必ず上達する。

学校の終わりを楽しみに待ってるよ

I'm sorry. Right now I can only give you the short blurb.
I have around a month left until I graduate...
Things are a bit hectic now.
My Japanese still isn't good、especially now, it's hard get any good practice done.
But when I get over this time of hardship I will definitely improve.

I can't wait for school to end.

色の問題

数日後、ホワイトデーのプレゼントで僕の顔を描いたけど実は描くの結果はあまり好きじゃない。
なぜだろうか？顔の割合がちょっと変だと思ったけど他の部分がおかしいかも。
なんだろうか？

その考えが今日までこころの奥底に置いた。

今日バイトでなにもしなかった。天気が悪かって誰もがいなかった。退屈を倒すためにネットの力を使っていろいろのイラスト向けサイトを探検して見た。見てながらいつの間にか頭に閃いた。

「ああ、そこだ。」

っていうか、前に考えた絵の問題をやっと分かった。僕の絵は複雑すぎる。詳しく言って色が複雑でメチャクチャだ。
僕のテクニックは絵描きのとおりで「暗いから明るい」という方法を使ってさらに色の順番を使った。
例えば、色を見たら青は一番遠く見える色で一方で黄色は一番近いの。そうして影は普通に黒か青の色に近づいて一番近いのところは黄色か白いが混ぜった色が描かれた。

それはいいけど僕の絵には色が多いどころがその描いた色が混ぜりすぎて汚くなってきた。
だからその問題の答えもっとシンプルにならないといけない。

その上に書いたことよりシンプルになったら僕の絵は僕のスケッチに会える。みんなが言った、「スケッチはすばらしい」とか新鮮か自然的が言われた。僕でもスケッチは絵よりすごいと思う。もし僕の絵はもっとスケッチの法見たいなら大丈夫だと思う。

ジャ、シンプルって言うのは赤顔を描いたら影は赤ムラサキに近い色だ。ちょっと説明にくい。。。な。

ま、とにかく、上に置いた絵はバイトで会と練習だ。マウスしか使わなかったけど練習だけならいいよ。
だから、今からもっと練習しなきゃ。
すぐに卒業することになるけどイラストレータとして僕の教育は学校の限界を超える。

はあ、その小さいの文章でもすごい時間かかった。。。

ま、いっか、もっと書かないといけない。。。もっと上手になりたい。

So, a few days ago I did a self portrait as a white day present for my girlfriend. It came out ok, but in all honesty I didn't really like it. Something about it was off, but I couldn't exactly put my finger on it.
There were some obvious things, like the proportions of some the facial features were off, but that's wasn't what was bothering me.

Anyway, this has been in the back of my mind until today. But today I finally figured it out while at work.

Today I did almost nothing at work. The weather was terrible today and no one was in the building today because of that. To defeat my boredom I used the awesome power of the internet and searched through a multitude of illustration sites.

Then it hit me.

"That's it!"

It turns out that my painting are overly complicated. Specifically, the colors are too complicated and bordering on muddy.

My technique usually follows the basic methods of painting. Dark to light, shadows to highlights and in that line of thought, using colors to set the space of things. Blue appears the furtherst to eye and yellow appears the closest. So as an example, a shadow with a dark blue (blue and black) tint sits back more, and a highlight with light yellow (yellow and white)well appear closest, and it makes things "pop" as my former teacher and acclaimed Illustrator Jim Burke would often say.
I'm doing all this, but in my paintings I seem to be overdoing it...

So, the answer to all this is to just make things more simple. A lot of the illustrations I looked at seemed to have this to them and mine was missing that.
It could be said that this is the way that I work, but I don't think it is. By going simple I not only improve but I would create unity between my paintings and sketches.

Many people have been impressed by my sketches and often using words such as "fresh" and "natural." ...well, I agree with them and I even think that my sketches are in some ways better looking than my paintings. Actually, not even that, my sketches are more stylistic and represent me to a better degree than my paintings I feel.
With that said, I believe core property of my sketches are that they are simple. They more than often have to be that way since most of them are subway sketches. I have only a few moments at times to capture a likeness. Somehow this seems to create something beautiful to me.

So, I have to somehow make my paintings closer to this. I have to evoke that simplicity.

Anyway, during work I tried to do a little color practice to kinda of try someting closer to what I was talking about. It's going to take a while, but I have to improve my paintings.

...not to say that I don't think my portfolio is good, but it could be better, I'm here to be a professional.
I'll be graduating soon, but my education isn't limited to the confines of school itself.

Ah...well, other than that, I'm still continuing with the Japanese writing. I'm surprised that such a small passage took so much time to do. But if I keep it up, hopefully the process will continue to get more streamlined.

久しぶりの日本語/僕の新しいウェブサイト

まあ．．．またタイトルが「久しぶり」何だ．．．
さいきんいろんなことがおこったけど長い間に書かなかったからただ重大で最近のことについて書いてる。
まずは僕の日本語．．．

さあ、日本語はね．実は六年間以上日本語が勉強したりいろんな日本に関してことを興味になったけどまだ日本語が上手じゃない。
言わずに僕は恥ずかしくてがっかりしてる。高校一年生から今まで日本語の勉強したら今の日本語能力はぺらぺらのはずだろう？でもそうじゃなくてがっかりしてる。

サカールみたい、この状況は。最初は日本語が下手で全然覚えないししゃべられない。それから、その下手な状況を見たらがんばれのモードにしていっぱい勉強する。でも、結局、なんとなく全部忘れてまたがっかりする。
あ、じゃちょっと大げさに言った。まだ。。。僕の能力は不安定と言える。その理由は多いかもしれないけど一番のは確かに日本の長い間に言ったことがない。

ま、そういってももっと上達したいと思う。六年間の勉強はそれまでじゃない．
じゃ、そういって、悪いことに十二月二受けた日本語能力試験が失敗した。二級だった。最大の理由は聴解の部分で最後の答えを書き込んだら質問が飛んだと気付いた。。。「Crap!」と自分に言った。さらに消しゴムが悪いから答えを書き直したけどテストがグラファイトでこすってまっくろになった。

それは困った。
でもほかの部分は合格って言う訳じゃないからどう見ても失敗だった。

状態を見てもっと頑張らなきゃ。はじめの一歩はブログでできるだけ日本語で書かないといけない。
じゃ、ここでがんばるしかない。本当に日本語上達したい。

つぎは最近やっとにウェブサイトを作って載せる。わくわくしてる、僕は．僕のイラスト／就職活動が今から始まる。
サイトを見たら自慢が高めてイラストレータとして今自信がある。前はいろんな心配があって失敗かどうかわからないけど今は大丈夫だと思う。

http://www.ajanioloye.com

じゃ、今日の書くもの終了。またな。

Now for the english.

I realize that my english is going to be lot more in depth than Japanese above, so bear with me. Also, I've now decided to write in Japanese first. The reason for this is because I'm trying to improve my Japanese, and I think that it doesn't help me to write in english first and then to essentially translate my english to Japanese. A key to learning a language is to think naturally in that language. So if I can form my writing in Japanese first then write as I please in english after I think I my Japanese comprehension and ability will be more...fluid.


Anyway, it's been a long time. I haven't written in quite a while, so again my title features that sentiment. But I'm really going to try and update more often for myself and just for anybody that may actually read this.
Between the last time I wrote and now, a lot has happened. I guess that's a natural thing since I've come to New York.
Anyway, I won't bore you with the everything. I'm just going to talk about the bigger things that have happened.

The first thing concerns my Japanese. Ah, Japanese... I have studied you for more than six years and I am nowhere near mastering you. You would think after all this time I would be a little better at it. Yes, I can understand it fairly well. I can watch Japanese TV and movies and understand enough to figure out what's going on, I play Japanese text based games and quiz games on my DS, and I'm a veritable wealth of useless Japanese knowledge.

But somehow my Japanese abilities are lacking. Writing the above was a chore, and I tried to communicate my feelings as I would like to, but even I can see that it's somewhat of a clunky mess. It even took me a while to write, mostly trying to remember how to say this and that. Speaking is the worst. Though lately I've been making more of an effort with this and I would like to thank my language partner Shiori and my girlfriend Junko for this...it still kind of sucks. When confronted with a Japanese speaker I usually shy away from using any Japanese. Partly because I'm a perfectionist in a way and if I say one thing in Japanese from that point on I want everything to be perfect. When I do try my Japanese is broken and stilted, and I feel kind of stupid.

I don't think most people really care, but I don't want to　be on the same level as any regular guy or american otaku who took japanese for a year.

アメリカ人ヲタク：オハヨウゴザイマス！ワタシノ名前ハハリーデス。
一般の日本人：ええ！？日本語は上手ですね。

I do not want to be that guy.

Anyway, it's left me a bit embarrassed and disappointed. The thing is that it seems to work in a circular fashion.
My japanese starts of terrible, and noticing it I try to improve by furiously studying. After becoming decent I tend to forget a lot of stuff and study less because I get busy or because of a multitude of reasons. Thus the cycle begins again.
I've probably exaggerated, but the point is that I don't have a stable of level of Japanese facility. Most likely this can be attributed to the fact that I've never spent a long period of time in Japan, but I digress...

I brought this up because last year I took the Japanese Proficiency Exam (2nd level) and I got the results a few weeks ago. I failed. The main reason being that on the listening comprehension part I realized on the last question that I had skipped one answer bubble. To further things, I had a bad eraser. The end result was an answer sheet that was a cloudy black mess.
But honestly, the scores for the other parts weren't exactly perfect either. So no matter what, it seems like I failed.

Looking at the condition of things, I just have to try harder it seems and I think the first step to this is to write in Japanese as much as possible using this blog.

Well, I guess at this point there's nothing I really can do except try my best...I really do want to improve my Japanese.

Next, I would like to say that I have finally created and posted my website. I'm pretty excited to have it up. I've been saying I was going to do it forever and now that it's up it's a relief. It's my first step into the world of Illustration/employment.
I also feel relieved that it came out nicely in my opinion. Looking at it my pride has risen and I have a bit of confidence that I can at least get a job or two in Illustration. Before I was really worried about whether or not I would fail and have to end up in a really bad job.

But now everything is ok.

Well that's all for now. Until next time.

http://www.ajanioloye.com