The Cheltenham Illustration Awards

Are you into graphic design? Have you been looking into some outlet to show your amazing but hidden graphic design skills? Do you want to rock that photoshop and illustrator like no other? Well there is a chance for you.



Held by the University of Gloucestershire in United Kingdom, the Cheltenham Illustration Awards is opening to submissions from everyone who are interested in graphic design. This competition is open once annually. There is always a theme associated with it. The theme for year 2014 is "Being Human". To help you figure out literally, the official website provides a narrative line: "Humanity is self-evidently all around us: although all of us are unique and different, we all are born, live, love, feel, eat, sleep and move – and ultimately we all die. Your brief can explore the shared universal principles of being human, or celebrate the diversity and cultural mix that forms today’s society." Different people's interpretation of begin human can be different depending on their life experiences, environments, and education. Works will not only reflect the theme, but also each and every designers personal experiences and personality. It will be interesting to see the works submitted for this year.

This submission for this competition is FREE, and the with your own work of art at size 50x40cm and resolution 300dpi. They expect the work to be 7-9 quality JPEG, which is not bad since the choosen works will be printed out on actual media. You will get nothing for winning, except have your work exhibited at Illustrator's symposium and printed in the Annual.

I wonder if graphic designers will choose vector based or pixel based softwares for editing their works. The deadline for submission is June 1st, 2014. I am going to see what I get by June 1st.

Minimalism

Althrough it is a bit late to advertise for this event, but this weekend at Bethesda is the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival! This event last through the weekend: Saturday May 19th 10am to 6pm, and Sunday May 20th 10am to 5pm.

The media provided for those fine arts varies from Jewelry, sculpture, to paint or clothing and fiber. As a beginner in acrylic painting, I am more interested in the painting booth that will be available. There are some impressionist, still-lifes, landscapes, but no minimalists. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed.  Minimalistic paintings can be very easy home accessories, and are good products for home owners to decorate the walls of their homes.

Minimalism is a movement in post-modern art that people either love or hate. The emphasis on minimalistic paintings can be described by Ad Reinhardt's "more is less, less is more". Minimalism raised to react against abstract expressionism, against the flattening images of the 3-dimensional world on a 2-dimensional world. The simplicity of plain paint, perhaps in combination with  another shades of color make make a beautiful work of art yet convey meaning. For people who do not understand art as much, minimalistic paintings serve as easy home decor that cannot go wrong. In the 21st century, minimalism has already silently occupied the leading artistic trends. Kate Spade, famous fashion designer, uses geometric shapes in simple and contrasting colors to create a modern New-York feel for her products. Minimalistic architecture, more specifically interior design, now go for minimal embellishments and usage of dual-functional furnitures for space. In digital design, editors tend to go for a less busy appearance, usually with a single button on a blank screen as the start of their projects. Advertisements now go for symbols and at most a two-lined messages in the middle of the poster for the visual appearance.

Perhaps the current trend of favoring minimalism is in correlation to the raising demand for space and efficiency. However, the idea of minimalism in itself is being adopted in the minds of designers as trendy styles.

The Devil Wears Scrubs

One of the blogs that I have been following since last year is by Dr.Fizzy McFizz: A Cartoon Guide to Becoming a Doctor. She complains a lot, which sometimes gives me a mis-sense that she, too, is one of those doctors who regret going to medicine. McFizz always give the right amount of medical information that satisfies the eager doctor-wanna-be pre-medical students/post-bacs, which is what I love the most about her blogs. I also love her blogs with cartoons that often seen a bit sarcastic; but nowadays, everyone seems to appreciate satire rather than just plain funny. It seems like McFizz is often on the defensive side about her blogs, against the comments, in her biography, etc. It certainly seems so in her Q&A section, which gives a very detailed description about herself.

Recently I have been hunting down a book to read. And it just so happens that Dr. Fizzy wrote a book! And it is about (surprise surprise) medicine. I admit that I have not been reading her blog recently, because otherwise I would have known about this book which was published last year. The writing style of the book is how she writes all her blog posts, and the stories seems very similar to real life experiences. This is an excellent read for students who are thinking about the field of medicine. It gives pre-medical students a realistic view of the turmoil a doctor will go through.

Yesterday I went to visit one of my all-time favorite role model: my family doctor. After telling her about my upcoming MCAT exam, she was extremely encouraging. She told me the serious of hoops she had to jump through: taking the MCAT, followed by the 3 steps of USMLE, then residency, finally the Boards. Yet despite all of those challenges one had to go through to become a qualified doctor, she still would not regret her profession. She told me, that no matter how bad the patients she encounter, and how ridiculous the paperwork gets, she still enjoys every single day of her profession. Not only my family doctor, my all time favorite mentor (whom also happens to have a blog: Rainbows Ahead) was also very encouraging about my dream of becoming a doctor. It is true that pre-medical students have doubts about the problems they face, such as having the highest suicide rates, guilt going through after misdiagnosis, and not able to show any weakness, etc. Medical schools have classes that center around morality, empathy, altruism, etc, that will train you to face those tough situations. So if you are a pre-medical student having doubts about whether you can be a good doctor, I say if you are really enthusiastic in doctoring, fear not.

Juices and Sauces

Work was nice and quiet today, like the quietness before a big rainstorm depicted in beethoven's 9th symphony 1st movement.

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to use my roommate's ultra "Vita-mix", a high performance blender that was said to create very fine juice. Without the patience to consult their nice recipe book, I jumped in without prior planning.

Cucumber and Apple Juice

First I peeled the cucumber, and got some gala apples. Those apples have been left in the fridge for one or two weeks, so I thought might as well put it to decent use.

Then, throw them into the blender with some water. Coconut water, if you can your hands on it, is a good choice. It will make the juice tastes fresher and crisper. Let the blender go on for about 2 minutes under high power, then you are done!
 
The most annoying process is the separation process. If you want a good smoothie, then do the above with the addition of honey. You can also separate out the juice from sauce by filtration through cheesecloth.

Even now and then transfer the leftover "sauce" on top of cheesecloth onto a separate container, that would be your sauce! If you are wondering why would you ever need the sauce, I found fruit sauce is actually really good ingredient for a nice mushy popsicle. Perfect for the soon-to-come summer.
 
Here are some good combinations to try if you feel adventurous:
- watermelon and cucumber and/or mint
- spinach, kale, and cucumber
- lemon and mint
- orange, pinapple, and papaya

When There Was a Clue

In the one-two-three year transition between undergraduate to grad school, often times I think about whether the way I am going is really right for me. Eventually I reach a question of whether my goal of medical school is due to my infatuation of the medical field, my belief of an omni-giving life, or just  my stubbornness.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking about this puzzling topic with my 60-year-old roommate. It took place in a car after we spent two happy hours shopping for groceries. She is a type I diabetic, with chronic back pain, constant acid reflux, and depression. She also went through a cardiac bypass surgery due to her genetically related Wolff-Parkinson syndrome (that's an irregular electrical pulses leading to irregular rhythm in pumping of heart). When she first told me about her medical symptoms, I felt sorry for her. I thought god was so unfair with some people while so lenient with others. It was unfair that she had to experience through so much while I had lived twenty-something years of my life being extremely healthy. Will I only understand the pain and the emotional struggle of likes of her if I was an actual patient? I tried thinking in her shoe, and tried applying those horrible un-curable diseases onto me. I then realized the intensity of hopelessness one could become, followed by the amount of positive thinking one should require to keep on battling those diseases.

My roommate asked me why I was so puzzled about my future. My uncertainty evolved from lack of confidence in academic performance, forming ideal relationships with others, and patience. I asked her that if I were her internist, would she trust me as her doctor. She said yes, perhaps due to her lack of trust in her current internist, perhaps due to our fragile relationships as roommates, or perhaps she really trust me.

As we discuss about these things, it suddenly started to rain. With the presence of sunlight from the other side, it formed a rainbow due to the refraction of light in water droplets. My roommates said to me, maybe god is trying to tell you that everything is going to be okay. Surprisingly, I was more assured than ever.

I also found another rainbow in very faint intensity running in parallel. I have never seen two rainbows in parallel to each other, so I snapped another picture.

Can you tell an acrylic painting from an oil painting?

After some research on starting out oil painting, I have came upon the opinion of acrylic painting. They are pretty similar to beginners. They both require brushes and pastels, both can paint the same kind of landscape that I am interested in. Except, some major difference once you get into the actual painting process.

Oil paints takes a long time to dry. By "a long time", I mean a day or two. And it makes sense. If you poor a drop of oil and a drop of water on a counter top, which one would dry faster? Of course the water drop. And because of the slow evaporation rate, it is much easier to mix colors with oil. You can attend the oil painting after an hour or two to change some clouds, mount ranges, etc. and make it appear as if there were the original artist's intention. As a result, oil paints are much more blended. If you see an oil painting with no sharp edges throughout, chances are the painting is oil. Acrylic, on the other hand, dries very fast (one or two hours). Acrylics are water based. From a typical acrylic painting of landscape, you can see very distinctive lights and shadows, with minimal blend between different shads of colors.

The picture above is by one of my favorite artist Leonid Afremov, called two couples. This is a typical palette knife acrylic painting, as a good example of the sharp edges of knife strokes of acrylic paintings.

As a chance to advertise a good Smithsonian program: The smithsonian associates. They are starting a 6-session evening introduction class on oil painting starting July 10th, 2014 at 6:30pm. Concurrently, a 6-session evening introduction class on acrylic painting starting July 11th, 2014 at 6:00pm.

See you there.

Watching the Withering Tree

It was a sunny sunday morning. Jamey got up early to complete her laundry before running out of cloth for the next work week. She looked at her phone, unable to see any good morning text messages from her long distance boyfriend.
"Oh well, he is probably sleeping still." She thought. Turning to her multiple loads of laundry nicely positioned in the middle of her bedroom, she picked up a bag, gruesomely moved towards the washer.
Sunday use to be a fun day for her. Sunday meant hanging out with family, lunch at a familiar restaurant, hanging out with friends, and hanging out with boyfriend. Until she moved for her new work position, sunday now meant chores, packing lunches for work, and emptiness.
She folded her dried cloth slowly and neatly, moving her robotic arms controlled by perfectionism. To prevent boredom, she turned to a random TV show to yield some stimulation on her minds. Among the ambient laughter and background music, rings her phone.
"Jay must be up." She slowly moves her body over to peek at the screen placed away from her. 'Good Morning' said iMessage, 'time to wake up'. "But I am already awake." she thought, turning back to her automatic routine. She placed her cloth away, and dialed Jay's number. It ringed twice, and:
"Hello?"
"Hey."
A familiar silence. She moved to her desk. He remained seated on his couch. She turned on her computer. He grabbed a blanket. She continued her TV show. He was watching a game.
"So what are you gonna do today?"
"Um...I don't know. Maybe I will hang out with my friends later."
"Oh."
Ambient music playing. Jamey stares at two women in the TV talking about things she will only worry about ten years later.
"They said they want to hang out and maybe watch the game later."
"Oh."
Another touch down! But not his winning team. The Bandettes are doing so bad this year.
"The game this afternoon is going to be big. It's their championship game."
"Oh."
"All the best teams are playing."
"Oh."
"Yeah, so I'm gonna go watch the game with them."
"Oh."
Jamey looked outside. A quiet residential area, occasionally locals walk their dogs to the nearby trail. Nothing was going on. She did not see any dog walkers today. Not yet.
"What are you going to do?"
"Oh, I haven't decided yet."Jamey looked down, thinking.
"Okay. Well let me know if you decide."
"Maybe cooking something so I can pack lunch."
"Cool."
"Yeah."
The ambient music turned more serious as the TV show changes its course. Will the protagonist be tricked by the shooter? Screen on Jamey's computer suddenly changed. Progressive, GoDaddy.com, StateFarm, are all companies she came to familiarity thanks to the amount of TV shows she watched. The sharp sunlight radiated in through the windows. Sharp increase in light intensity gained her notice. She looked outside. "It's afternoon already," she thought. Listening to the background noise transmitted sporadically through the other line. A few more commercials to tolerate: catfood, eHarmony.com, allegry pills. Next screen shows the shooter talking into a room never scene before. He knocked on the heavy wooden door, and another individual looking exactly like him opened it.
"What? who is this guy?" Jamey thought to herself, then said to the other side of her phone: "Okay, I am going to hang up."
"What? Why?" Jay slightly startled by the sudden rejection.
"I---have things to do."
"Okay. Call me later, okay?"
"Okay"
"I love you."
"I love you, too."