Steppa's Delight

Alternative content @ Tumblr:

chenyingfang.tumblr

Serving as a sandbox to explore creative content in many areas, particularly random design and sketching experiments, as well as the inspiring things I come across. Stay tuned.

I've suckered convinced my roommie to make me Okinawan taco rice if I win a bet.

What she doesn't know is that I've already won. HA.

It’s rare that I draw at all these days, but lately I’ve sort of started again. Mind you, it’s nothing spectacular at all. I’m not out there prototyping character designs, doing anatomical studies of the nude figure, or parking myself on benches drafting landscapes and architecture, and whatever else most trained fine artists and illustrators do. I still don’t even carry a sketchbook with me because I have sketchbook ADD. But the point is, I’ve started forcing those ideas itching inside my head out to scrap paper and napkins; in Photoshop or Illustrator — whatever medium that’s convenient to me at the time that light bulb flickers. They might look as sloppy as a mountain of entrails at a crab shack, but at the very least I’ve got something documented.

What this all means is I’ve been doing a lot of doodling. And doodling, compared to the more disciplined practice of “sketching,” has been liberating because I get to ditch everything I’ve been told in drawing classes to pump out these nonsensical, spur-of-the-moment products of my imagination. The real benefit is, I don’t think about my actions three-quarters of the time because I’ll have something out on paper or screen long before annoying habits like perfectionism and over analyzing kick in.

And more often than not these doodling endeavors have pleasantly surprised me. I find that I doodle more quality content when I’m distracting myself from crap like boring corporate meetings, since they are best for shutting off that logical side of the human mind.

So, hopefully these activities continue to be a developing trend for me. I’m gonna try to get more into the habit of posting the significant pieces here as they’re produced.

The one I did today was originally drawn on the task list printout I took with me to my work department’s weekly meeting. What started out as an exploration with lines, line thickness and circular forms became this ( Murakami-esque chipmunk/hybrid/thing. ) I liked it enough to bother tracing it in Illustrator to clean up the line work. Maybe I’ll color it in later on, too, who knows.

"We gonna put Count Basie in a b-boy stance."

More amazing photos from work here.

“There are different species of laziness: Eastern and Western. The Eastern style is like the one practised in India. It consists of hanging out all day in the sun, doing nothing, avoiding any kind of work or useful activity, drinking cups of tea, listening to Hindi film music blaring on the radio, and gossiping with friends. Western laziness is quite different. It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so there is no time at all to confront the real issues. This form of laziness lies in our failure to choose worthwhile applications for our energy.”   — Sogyal Rinpiche (via Swiss Miss)

How many of us can say we're not guilty of the above? I think we're all victims of the "Western" classification. In a nutshell it's a description of procrastination; but more specifically, a productive procrastination. Out of habit, when we have a goal in mind we take the easy, shorter way to accomplishing it, instead of putting in an investment of time and effort where results are not always immediate. Or, we get distracted by being productive with other things when we really should be keeping our eye on the prize. It's not easy to stay focused because we're impatient. When we want things, we want them now. But there's a reason why concise sayings such as "less is more," or "quality over quantity" can take you a step further in your endeavors, ultimately giving you a better product in the end. I pull the following from a comment that was left on the Swiss Miss post:

"The "lazy by doing too much" is in essence what the quote is – not taking the time to think through what should be done the most and the best, as opposed to doing what is easy but maybe really doesn’t need to be done.

For me, it’s easy to get distracted by interesting non-essentials because the more mundane essentials are harder work. But alas, we cannot escape the value of real work and the asking of hard questions. And I wonder if it’s better to sit in the sun with tea, than to be engaged in meaningless non-essential work..."

My car got broken into this morning. I'd literally just moved into my new neighborhood as of yesterday, spent my first night at my new place, and woke up to the sound of chatter outside my building about a MINI Cooper in the driveway and something happening to it.

I ran outside and discovered that some fucker completely shattered my passenger window and ran off with my CD binder of 40-something CDs. My car was parked on premises on the driveway, next to another car. It's partially my fault though for leaving that binder sitting in plain view on the seat itself.

But this just goes to show that no neighborhood is safe from anything. For any of you reading this, just remember to ALWAYS exercise caution wherever you go.

This has got to be one of more frightening things I've seen recently. It's like a rewind in time to Rosa Parks, except the victim here is the Cantonese lady. From the YouTube comment translations, the black woman was hogging two seats with her stuff or whatever, and wouldn't let the Cantonese woman sit down. Thus, verbal abuse ensued... which then escalated to a full-blown fight. In that situation, you DO NOT want to be fucking around with an angry Chinese, because when a Chinese person is as angry as that woman, she will seriously rip shit apart in that I'm-going-to-bite-your-head-off-and-eat-your-babies kind of way. She had every right to kick the other woman's ass if oppression really was the case in this scenario.

From AIDS Walk Los Angeles, 2008

Howdy folks! Some of you might remember that I participated in the LA AIDS Walk last year. It was actually my first time as a walker, but turned out to be such an incredible experience that I decided I was going to opt in every year from there on out.

Well, that time has come once again, and I'm going to need YOUR help! Being a walker doesn't just mean partaking in the event itself on the day-of; but walkers are also responsible for raising AIDS awareness through research funding. Every year, the funds gathered from generous donations brings us one step closer to winning the race for the cure. Whatever the amount, every little bit counts.

And this is where YOU come in. Can you help? I am not asking for much from anybody: whatever you can give would mean the world to me. I have a walker's page located here for which you can leave a donation / sponsor me in these endeavors. My personal fundraising goal is $500 -- which is short notice, I know, given that the event is two weeks away; but I want to try, regardless. You can help me even further by spreading the word around to your friends, your families, your co-workers, etc.

If you've made it this far in reading, seriously, THANK YOU SO, SO MUCH for your time, and for even considering! And if you left a donation, THANK YOU x100000000000+!!!!!!!!! <3<3<3 All my love, MUAH!!! Fight the good fight: help make AIDS history!!! Thanks again!

*EDIT* It's come to my attention that the site won't let you enter an amount less than $25. I had no idea there was a minimum?! OK, so change in plans: if you are *willing* to donate $25 to the cause, you are freaking awesome; and if you cannot, that's fine too, just lend me your moral support! You're still awesome regardless. ;)

If you're in the mood for toe-tapping, head-bobbing, finger-snapping, choppy-beat jams right about now to close out the hazy summer daze, I've got your remedies right here:

Kotchy - One For the Money




Debruit - Soles Sweat (Reso remix)



BIG UUUUUUUP!!!!!

Yo yo yo, check out my homegirl Yuki's new site!



Designed by yours truly, after a night's worth of Photoshoppin' and good ol' fashioned coding. ;)

TOO FUNNY, TOO CUTE:

We did a routine to Missy Elliot's "Joy" again, but to a different part of the song this time, and with some more ghetto-fab thrown in. Pretty badass choreo, hopefully our man Ryan will add more to it this week.

The handle off my beloved REI travel mug/coffee press sazabe got me for X-mas back in '07 snapped off this morning. :(

I forgot the name of this song, but the routine was hot stuff (will edit song info once I figure it out)



Whoops... I am off on one of the moves towards the end!

*edit* Fuck yes, it worked!