Physical painting is a rewarding experience (especially under a sunny Sunday afternoon), and exploring only digital painting is too limited for both artistic practice and scientific research.
October 30, 2022
October 27, 2022
Quick sketch of a Japanese Buddhist monk sculpture
After placing the takeout order in the restaurant the staff told me it would take about 20 minutes, so I walked to a nearby Japanese Buddhist temple for a quick sketch.
October 23, 2022
The 20th national congress of the CCP closing
Inspired by some recent news, I drew a quick motion graphics and shared it when the events are still fresh.
October 21, 2022
Portrait of a man whose head looks like a shumai
The Chinese prompt worked much less well likely due to the lack of training data.
October 17, 2022
Floor-sweeping old lady
Quick gesture sketch from visual memory of a person I saw during a late afternoon walk.
October 15, 2022
Forgotten Z-transform
A cousin asked me a question regarding Z-transform which I already forgot about.
October 12, 2022
I saw the moon but almost missed the cat
The round bright moon was hard to miss during my evening walk, in sharp contrast to Melon the black neighborhood cat.
October 10, 2022
Custom bone ash urn design
Inspired by life vessels that mixed clay with human bone ashes, I envisioned a custom-designed urn decorated with drawings made by a different composition of bone ashes and clay over the base material.
For best results, forget the bonus
Bumped into this 1993 NYT article via hacker news yesterday about the pitfalls of incentives not aligned with the tasks, which prompted the question: what should the employees do under the current incentive system (which lets assume can only be changed by the management)?
One strategy that seems to work for me (which I have been executing at a subconscious level) is to focus on “doing this” without thinking too much (if at all) about “getting that”. Specifically, do we want to do this even without that?
For example, I worked on SIGGRAPH papers because it was a fun and exciting experience, not because I needed them to get tenure or promotion. (I used to tell people that I have the best job in the world because I get paid to do what I like.)