ending 4:alright

It's perfectly alright to be alone, just don't lose yourself.

就算只剩自己，也不可失去自我。

ending3:draw

And thus I draw, to complete what's missing, for I know...

于是拿出画笔，填补该有的构图，只因……

ending2: missing

As I turn around, I notice something's missing...

回身，才发觉少了什么……

ending 1

PS: I've wanted to draw this for quite some times, a sequence of action that represents how the "shades of loneliness" series should end. But yet this does not necessary indicate the ending of the story. You see, loneliness is a feeling so universal and so omnipresent; its depiction through drawing can be never-ending. However, I still prefer to confirm how the story should close so I would at least know exactly where I'm heading. The drawings posted today and to be posted in the days to come will summarise my thoughts on the issue.

return

There's no one, afterall...

毕竟还是，自己一人……

这组图之前就画好了，但一直想不到该配上什么文字。那天忽而想着，我们年纪愈来愈大，却可能离自己愈来愈远。忘了当初自己的想法，忘了当初自己的喜乐，忘了当初自己的最爱，望了当初自己是谁。难道不是？当我们一心只想活得像众人时，我们获得了安全感，也得到了认同感，却不幸地失去了自我。Are you brave enough to return to yourself?

song

Even the loudest

Drumbeats

When silence becomes too

Dense

Got drowned

And muted the cry

The cry for a

Song

在彻底的寂静里

呐喊无声

用力敲打着鼓

也难以击碎

窒息的壁垒

成了失去旋律的歌

流荡

warmth

The only warmth you feel

Comes from the

Handshake

With yourself

留一点温度

给自己

在极端的静寂中

你与身影

不离不弃

I think I'm suffering from Demophobia, or to use an even more bombastic term if that's not scary enough-- Enochiophobia. Well, it definitely means I'm having a certain type of phobia, but what could that be exactly? To put it more simply, I'm having a fear of crowd. I'll feel uneasy and insecure and even suffocating whenever I need to squeeze my way through a huge crowd and a place flooded with strangers just give me terrible headache. I hate crowded place, the ear-piercing noise, the mind-numbing shadows, the unbearable heat of human bodies shuffling and rubbing against one another, I would definitely blank out if don’t find my way out in time. That’s why I dislike new school term, when the whole campus is over-run by energetic students, and the quiet air-con foodcourt which used to be my favourite hangout is brutally turned into a wet market, flooded with saliva and sweat. But what can I do? This is only the very first day of the semester, there’re still 4 more months to go before the next long break.

But it’s not surprising that I’m having crowd phobia. Come to think of it, it’s no wonder that most of my illustrations seldom feature more than a lonesome soul. I think that’s the real me, I’ve subconsciously expressed my yielding in my drawings, or even my words. Seriously, I would rather embrace my own shadow than to be drowned in a sea of strangers.

endless

Like withered leaves

Losing your grip

And dropping into an endless

F

A

L

L

To where shadow resides

感觉不着重量

听任引力的牵引

至少那是个方向

往

下

贴

近

逐渐清晰的

影

empty

On a wooden bench

Under those empty branches

You sat on one side

Leaving the other

For yourself

长长的木凳

两端的距离

你在一隅独坐

留个位置

给空虚

Drift

Lift a petal

from the book of

Poetry

and drift along

the sliver-lining of

impossible dream

撷一片花的翅膀

在纯净的诗里翱翔

沿不可思议的轨迹

找回梦的曙光

wilderness

The full moon

pressing down onto

a wilderness of

entangled thoughts

一轮明月

载不动万缕思绪

倾泻而成

剪不断遍野凄清

freezes

As the ancient moon shines

My only shadow

Freezes

By my side 

白色的月光，白如霜；凝成幽暗的影，在身旁。

only

It is when 

the only companion you could find

is just

yourself

blooms

Loneliness…

What could that be?

I'm now into creating digital collage mixing old photos and hand-rendered illustrations. It's a rather tedious and at times confusing process as compared to solely hand-drawing, involving digitally cutting out the required forms and shapes and creating layers upon layers meticulously till one loses track almost completely. It involves quite a bit of precision and lots of patience. But the exploration is definitely fun and worthwhile; one can start off with just a sketchy idea and end up with a final composition totally different. In other words, I'll never get to know exactly how my picture would look like, I'm in control and yet not so. Luck plays a crucial role in a way, depending largely on the raw materials (photos or other printed stuffs) you can find, and how these can mix-and -match together .To put it in a very Chinese way of saying: leave the decision to fate.

I just play along, making adjustment here and there, and let the picture blooms on its own. And that’s the most intriguing part of digital collage illustration.