nathaniamanda

teenage love affair

2011-12-12T19:02:00.002+07:00

hari ini majalah travel online the-travelist.com edisi 3 terbit. tulisan saya dimuat di rubrik laporan utama (laput), isinya membahas beberapa tempat ngopi di kota bandung. semoga saja cukup informatif dan juga menghibur buat yang baca.

sekitar pertengahan oktober saya dihubungi oleh Zy (Ferzya Farhan, editor the-travelist), adik angkatan di unit selam UGM, menawari saya untuk menulis. sempet ragu, karena saya jarang menulis, dan gampang grogi kalo ketemu orang baru. tapi dipikir-pikir ini kesempatan yang bagus juga. akhirnya saya iyakan tawaran Zy. dan saya sama sekali tidak menyesal, "tugas" liputan ini membuat saya bertemu orang-orang yang menarik dengan obrolan-obrolan menyenangkan yang sudah jarang saya dapatkan sekarang ini.

soal kopi sendiri… saya sebenarnya tidak tahu banyak. tapi doyan, dan sering minum. lidah dan hidung saya juga kurang sensitif, uneducated, untuk mengapresiasi kopi. paling sesekali sebel sama kopi yang terlalu encer dan manis, atau kopi yang dengan semena-mena diseduh dalam gelas plastik kemasan air mineral. ingin juga suatu saat belajar kopi dengan lebih "serius", biar bisa lebih pol mengapresiasi minuman asik ini.

affair saya dengan kopi dimulai sekitar usia smp. versi yang pertama saya kenal adalah kopi yang diminum ibu: kopi instan merk nescafe, ditambah krimer dan sedikit gula. jaman itu di tempat saya sepertinya masih jarang kopi sachet racikan pabrik, jadi komposisinya bebas kita atur sendiri. aromanya! aroma kopi adalah faktor "love at the first sniff" yang membuat saya sangat penasaran, tapi sama ibu tidak dibolehkan minum, cuma skali-skali icip satu dua sendok kecil dari cangkirnya.

rasa penasaran yang memuncak mendorong saya untuk mengendap-endap ke ruang makan di tengah malam, ketika semua orang rumah sudah tidur, untuk membuat secangkir kopi untuk saya sendiri. kopi, krimer, dan gula disimpan di sebuah lemari gantung diatas meja makan, dengan hati-hati saya memanjat kursi dan mengambilnya. berdebar-debar, saya meracik kopi pertama saya. mungkin karena gugup, saya tidak pikir panjang ketika menegakkan badan untuk mengembalikan toples kopi. kepala saya sukses menghajar pintu lemari yang setengah terbuka dengan kecepatan penuh. seketika rasanya seluruh darah di tubuh saya membeku. untung tangan saya masih menggenggam si toples dan mulut saya cukup tabah untuk tidak mengaduh atau menyumpah serapah. semenit saya diam, menahan sakit yang berdenyut-denyut sambil sepenuh hati berdoa agar tidak ada yang bangun. untungnya tidak ada, dan saya bisa melanjutkan menyeduh kopi dengan air panas dari termos.

malam itu saya menikmati secangkir kopi hasil perbuatan kriminal dengan kepala benjol. rasanya nikmat luar biasa. dan affair itu tetap berlanjut sampai sekarang.

10 malam

2011-07-16T19:27:00.002+07:00

hari ini, sepuluh hari lagi, adalah tepat setahun terakhir kali saya posting sesuatu di blog ini. blog yang diabaikan saat masih sangat muda dan rapuh. yah... i am good at starting something, not so much at following up and finishing :)

tapi saya ingin ngeblog lagi, mungkin dengan posting yang lebih variatif. tapi agar agak puitis, saya ngeblog laginya sepuluh hari lagi saja *puitis apanyeee

untuk sementara to warm up some writing and posting muscles, i'll post a little something every night, inspired by twit-twitnya pidibaiq tentang malam yang terbuat dari apa. i'll just update this post so i won't look like twitting on my blogspot, haha...

this is, some sort of... count down

saturday, july 16th 2011
malam ini terbuat dari lembaran-lembaran kertas 50x75cm, rapido-rapido dan penggaris, dan cemas semua tak akan terselesaikan. malam ini terbuat dari secangkir teh tarik, lagu-lagu country, dan semacam janji atau mungkin harapan akan berkarya.

sunday, july 17th 2011
malam ini terbuat dari teh jahe, pondasi beton dan masih rasa cemas yang sama bahwa semua tak akan selesai. malam ini terbuat dari hasrat berkelana yang tiba-tiba datang tanpa diundang, serta sepotong percakapan yang menggantung dikhianati sinyal atau entah apa.

travel partners

2010-07-26T13:39:00.000+07:00

another random doodle, this one was inspired by a story written by a friend of mine.

red lipstick

2010-07-26T02:07:00.001+07:00

funny clothes, ridiculous pose, dont we all just love it?

(red lipstick, watercolour pencils on paper, A5)

some old doodles

2010-07-25T19:31:00.002+07:00

as an epilogue of today's posting, i've dug out some random old doodles, enjoy!

doodle of myself being an idiot

red umbrella girl, planned to draw these on my canvas shoes

lavenders in a glass jar

2010-07-25T19:22:00.001+07:00

i always love watercolour paintings, so i've decided to try it. much more unpredictable with its liquid character, need to practice a lot.

(lavenders in a glass jar, watercolour on paper, A6)

ivy on graduation

2010-07-25T19:12:00.001+07:00

another face drawing, of my sister Ivy, on her graduation day. She's a bachelor of medicine and now in her residency to be a doctor, very proud of her. the photograph i used as reference picture of this drawing was actually a candid, which turned out really good .

(ivy on graduation, pencil on paper, A5)

wink

2010-07-25T19:03:00.001+07:00

still on the same project of face drawing i've made another sketch. the object is my friend Mala, and i made this drawing from one of my favorite photograph of her.

(*wink*, pencil on paper, A5)

a few kilometers later..

2010-07-25T18:57:00.001+07:00

yes, it's been a few kilometers...

actually i've been driving quite a lot, across two islands, just trying to figure out life, relationships with people in my life, future, myself...

and yes, when it comes to "life", you can always resume it in three words:

it goes on.

for all the beauty and the pain of those three words, the best i can do is just put a smile on my face and look forward.

looking up to the light

2010-03-26T20:33:00.001+07:00

i've been meaning to learn about face drawing/sketching and i found a very usefull tutorial here. the artist himself has done absolutely amazing works on this subject.

so this is my first sketch on realistic face drawing. the subject is my cousin Diana, i saw a picture in her facebook profile and i think it's going to be great reference photo, especially to learn about the lights and shadows. the result is not really 'reallistic' compare to the reference photo, the hatching are too rough, and the eyes are too big. maybe i wasn't patient enough when doing it. but i like it. the drawing took me about three and a half hours to finished *while watching an odd serial Pushing Daisies on tv, doing some laundry and dishes :P*

[looking up to the light, pencil on paper, A5]

batik

2009-11-22T01:42:00.002+07:00

so i was cleaning up my old magazines when i found this pattern on a cover of an inflight magazine. it's called 'batik', a traditional cloth painting/dyeing technique of javanesse culture, indonesia. (there's a lot of reference you can found about indonesian batik, this one's pretty good http://www.expat.or.id/info/batik.html).

anyway, so i tried to imitate the pattern, i drew the pattern with pencil first, then filled it with the poster paint and china ink. the shapes were simple, but the real challenge for me was to resist the urge of using ruler to make guidance lines, to make the pattern's shape more uniformed. another challenge was to keep my self doing it, since it's on A3 sized paper, took a lot of time to draw the pattern then brush in the paint and ink. a boring work, but i like the result ^^

(blue batik, poster paint and china ink on paper, A3)

EDM challenge #1 draw a shoe

2009-11-07T22:03:00.002+07:00

i draw a pair instead. haha

so this is my first sketch in this EDM challenge. i started with challenge #1 and i choose that pair of crocs malindi mainly because of its simple shape (turn out not that easy to draw), and because it's the pair i wear everyday.

i just started to learn to draw, so i choose the simplest medium, 2B pencil on paper. drawing this pair of shoes have been an interesting experience for me, how i observed the shape, line and curve, then tried to draw what i see. it was nice though, somehow makes me happy when i did it.

[my favorite pair, pencil on paper]

i'm starting with the woman in the miror

2009-11-07T21:31:00.001+07:00

" i'm gonna make a change
  for once in my life
  it's gonna make a difference
  gonna make a change
  gonna make it right " (man in the mirror-michael jackson)

when i take a look at my life the past 6 years...i kinda feel like i've stucked somewhere i don't wanna be. everything just looks and feels so wrong. i take that as a sign...that i have to do something, a change.

so, god world universe...help me be a better person.

amen.