It's My Birthday Today!

And someone wrote me a poem. I just had to post it here for posterity~
Be it a writer or an artist,
There's so much depth in you,
When you post a story or a painting,
I learn something special and new.
Your art is simple yet unique,
You might call it being lazy,
But in truth, you're an efficient artist,
You make the hard look easy.
Your stories always inspire me
With the morals behind them,
You show us the truth but also give us hope
That there could be a solution to every problem.
Leaving the artist and the writer aside,
You're an interesting communicator,
Through the detailed account of your experiences,
You make a good educator.
You have a dark sense of humour,
Which I highly appreciate,
It teaches me to be more cautious,
To not be someone's bait.
I really love our conversations,
I feel like I can learn a lot,
Our discussions, short and long
Give me much food for thought.
Thank you for being my friend,
You're one among the few,
Who are always remarkable,
No matter what they do.
Happy Birthday to you,
You gained another year,
Enjoy it to the fullest

And shed many a happy tear.

Thank you very much to the person who wrote this! I'll treasure it, always.

Finished this piece just today. I call it "The Cute Girl of The Mountain" :D

The Value of Art

Greetings, it’s lordcloudx once again. This week, I’d like to talk about art and perceptions of art – or rather, I’d like to hear/read your opinions on art and perceptions of art.

Now personally, I’ve already talked about my Philosophy of art in a previous video and I’ve written about how I think people perceive art and artists in general in an essay on my blog – which I really should turn into a video sometime soon.

So anyway, I’d like to share a pleasant experience that I had over dinner tonight. My mother and I were eating out at a Kenny Rogers and I was working on this particular watercolor piece with Nagi wearing a yukata while waiting for our food.

My mother pointed out that there was a little girl right on the table next to us who was trying to get a glimpse of what I was doing. Therefore, my mother took my watercolour pad and showed it to her and the little girl spontaneously said that “It’s nice, I like it.” My mother then proceeded to show her all the other pieces I had inside that watercolour pad and was genuinely happy to see my paintings.

Needless to say that it gave me a nice feeling to know that someone appreciated my art. I am not a commission artist and I’ve only ever done a single commission for a friend, so I definitely do not make any money off of my art. Furthermore, I’ve never had my works exhibited in a collection before and I’m antisocial, so I don’t really get much exposure as an artist.

However, these genuine reactions from strangers really make my day and they are the best types of reward for me – to know that someone appreciates my works with all sincerity – especially when it comes from a child who could not possibly have any ulterior motives to give me false praise.

So to the point of this video: I’d like to ask you, the viewer a two-fold question. First of all, how do you think the value of art is determined in objective reality and secondly, how do you believe the value of art should be determined ideally? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

This is lordcloudx out.

Hayate Reflections: Happy Valentine's Day 2019! Digital Fanart

Hey, nobody ever said that I had to do Hayate Reflections on a weekly basis, right? Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day to everyone who loves someone out there -- whether it's your significant other, your waifu, your pet -- or yourself.

Here's the digital version of my Valentine's Day fanart which I did a watercolor version of earlier this week.

The choice of colors is actually pretty amusing. First of all, I went with the same colors as the original for their shirts like this.

Then I decided to change Hayate's shirt color and showed it to my friend, Roop -- who said that Hayate takes too much attention if he's wearing black... which was a pretty good point.

Therefore, I went with these colors for the final version. Yeah, that's right. If anyone is going to be taking up the viewer's attention, it sure shouldn't be mr. ex-debt-ridden butler boy. 

Anyway, that's it for now. This has been Hayate Reflections and this is lordcloudx out.

Hayate Reflections: Valentine's Day Hayanagi Fanart

Trying to get back into the groove...

Maybe I need a better camera to capture my artworks? Not interested investing in a DSLR though.

New Nagi Illustration by Hata and reason for my absence

So first of all, the reason for my absence: Well, there's been a lot of things going on with me IRL recently so yeah, you know how it goes. Other than that, the storm is now over, but I've also had this persistent cold for the last two weeks so it's been really draining my energy to do anything. Anyway, I might get back to the normal groove pretty soon and start blogging and Hayate Reflections again.

For now though, Hata drew a belated picture of Nagi for Twin Tails day in Japan and it's really beautiful. Have a look. Original post on twitter: https://twitter.com/hatakenjiro/status/1091979406883475456

Anyway, hope to see you soon. This is lordcloudx out.