Category: Slice of Life

Studying Japanese Vocabulary Using Anki

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こんばんは。How’s it going?

I mentioned in my last post about my daily habits that I’ve been trying to keep up with as best as I can, and I have to admit that I am surprised that I have been doing pretty good! One of the habits is to study Japanese, and right now that involves digital vocabulary flashcards using Anki.

I got turned onto Anki from the book Fluent Forever, in which the author Gabriel Wyner talks about using timing, or intervals between study, to improve recall of vocabulary. What great about Anki is that it uses those intervals to automatically adjust the frequency of the flashcards. Basically, I look at the word in Japanese (romaji), then flip the card over to reveal the meaning. At the bottom of the screen, I click on one of the four buttons: Again, Hard, Good, or Easy. Sometimes clicking Again means the card will show up again within the next minute or so, Hard means about 10 minutes, Good means 3 days, and Easy could mean the card shows up again a month from now. But those intervals are all varied. I guess it just depends on what I’ve clicked on before.

I have to say, it really works! With each study session (once per day is the maximum allowed) I learn more words than normal and can recall ones that gave me a lot of trouble before. It’s kind of neat!

But, there’s still a bit of reticence on my part some mornings. I guess there’s a part of me that is disappointed when the same words come up and I cannot recall the meaning. However, that is getting better slowly but surely, and the fact that at the end of each session I feel like I’ve made progress leads me to think that eventually, I’ll have no barriers to getting my daily study in.

As you can see from the screenshot, I’ve downloaded a bunch of free flashcard sets, even Spanish vocab! But I mainly do the “ACFL Basic Japanese 1” and “Japanese Hiragana (Basic)”. I feel like that’s plenty for now.

I hope you had a nice Tuesday!

またね～

Timelapse Mirrors My Drawings Through the Years

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こんばんは。How’s it going?

I hope you bear with me while I share lots of sketching posts. I’m keeping up with my daily habits, and sketching is one of them. Tonight while was looking at the timelapse video that Procreate made, I noticed an interesting progression as I refined the drawing.

At the beginning of the video, the sketch looked like the artwork that I used to make in college and right after I graduated. I was really into Japanese ukiyo-e art at the time, so that’s where I got most of my influence. That was around 1990:

"Circa 1990"

Then I noticed the drawing went through a couple other phases, which are reflected in my more recent sketchbook drawings from a couple years ago:

"Circa 2017"

And then it progressed to the style that I have been kind of stuck at since late last year:

"Circa 2018"

Finally, we end up with today’s evolution:

"Circa 2019"

These days I am looking towards my favorite illustrators, so of course, I try to emulate them. I love Eguchi Hisashi‘s work, so I take many cues from his work. Also, Ilya Kuvshinov is awesome, and I recently discovered Aka, whose work blows me away.

As I continue to practice, I’m excited to see at what pace I can continue to improve. It’s a fun hobby, and so satisfying. And it makes me look at other illustrations and art in a different way as I try to decipher how artists draw different facial features, the color palettes they use, and the way they draw lines and blocks of solid color. It’s fascinating.

I hope you had a nice day!

またね～

I Don’t Know When I’m Done with a Sketch

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"iPad Sketch" Cedar Park, 2019
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/125 sec, ISO1250
 “iPad Sketch” Cedar Park, 2019

こんばんは。How’s it going?

I’ve been using the iPad and Procreate for my sketching this past month and I love it. I can make edits easily and can pick up where I left off immediately. And that convenience means that I can make adjustments to a previous sketch at any time in the future. Not only can I do that, but I can create duplicates of the drawing and try different things. Digital drawing is so great!

But that got me wondering about when to call something “finished”. On a few of my sketches, I think I am done, so I share the image on the blog, ArtStation, Flickr, and Instagram, but later I figure out a new way to do something or notice a part of the sketch that I can do better, so I’ll go back and make the changes. I guess it’s like George Lucas going back and re-editing his Star Wars movies many years down the line.

So with the knowledge that I will most likely make changes to existing artwork, I don’t know if I can ever call a drawing “finished”.

I’ve come to the conclusion that my digital art can constantly evolve, and those moments in time when a drawing is shared are just milestones in something’s existence. So, as I improve in my drawing and become more proficient with my tools, I definitely want to re-visit my earlier sketches and make them better, and won’t feel guilty about doing that. I suppose making a snapshot of earlier “versions” is maybe something that should be more intentional. By snapshot, that could simply be exporting a jpg and saving it with a unique name.

Who knows… I may end up with several version of the same drawing, but Monet completed over 250 paintings of water lilies, so I guess it’s okay. 😄

Here’s a sketch that I worked on tonight. I’m happy how it turned out and was ready to share on Instagram, but I can see a few things I want to update or try. For instance, I’d like to see if adding a sleeve instead of her bare arm would look nice, and maybe try adjusting the position of the eyes. If you have good eyes, you might notice that the first photo in this post has some differences in the drawing as well! I took that photo thinking I was done, but then the mouth and nose looked a little too simple and primitive so I had to edit them. But anyway, here’s a snapshot of the progress:

"Sketch 2019-02-24"
“Sketch 2019-02-24”

I hope you had a nice day!

またね～

Third Wedding this Year

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"Ceremony" San Antonio, 2019
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.6, 1/210 sec, ISO200
 “Ceremony” San Antonio, 2019

こんばんは。How’s it going?

Do you know that period of time when you are about 30 and many of your friends around you are getting married? Well, that was 20 years for us, and since then we haven’t gone to many weddings. However, just within the past half year, we’ve gone to three! And the ages of the couples has varied quite a bit. First, my brother (six years my elder) got married, then some friends (10 years younger than me) got married, and lastly, my nephew (23 years younger) got married.

And the types of weddings were also quite different. California beachside with Mexican food, Hill Country with Texas barbecue, and historic San Antonio with chicken, steak, etc. None of these were at a church and thinking about it, I guess church weddings aren’t as popular as the used to be. But one thing is always the same: weddings are perhaps the most emotional occasion for the newlyweds, so it is an honor to be part of them. And they are always fun!

This latest wedding for my nephew was great. The food was excellent, with a nice bar (Suntory Toki whiskey!). There were oysters on the half-shell, shrimp cocktail, smoked salmon, Beef Wellington, and jalapeño poppers. And those were just the appetizers! It was also really nice to see my extended family, some of whom I only see at family reunions. I have to say that family weddings are the best since we get to welcome new members into our crazy Leesang/Fujimoto clans.

"First Dance" San Antonio, 2019
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/90 sec, ISO6400
 “First Dance” San Antonio, 2019

I hope you had a great day!

またね～

My Thoughts on the “New” Flickr

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With SmugMug’s recent purchase of Flickr, there’s been a lot of renewed interest in former users to come back and try it again. Which is funny to me since there are plenty of us who have been actively using it non-stop. This tweet by Om Malik, in particular, got me thinking about it a bit.

I never fully understood why people were so harsh on Flickr. I mean, sure, they never made the jump to mobile like other companies did and innovation has been slow, but their web service has been consistently good. To my knowledge, Flickr has never gone backward or screwed their users… it’s just continued to exist, and those who were happy with it stayed with it.

I’m pleased that more people are coming back, for the sole reason that this surge in popularity will ensure that Flickr exists into the distant future. I don’t really care about returning photographers being excited about a “new” photo community. The photographers who stayed active on Flickr are most likely already satisfied with the groups they’ve been a part of since years of community have been building organically.

Like anyone, I’d welcome some shiny new features or slicker design, but honestly, I’m just happy that Flickr is a simple, straightforward, and hassle-free way to share and discuss photos. As it always has been.