This is an evaluation of my own work and what I’ve done for the past six weeks since being here at CSVPA. The theme for this project is CONTRASTS. I feel I have come a long way since the first week I’ve been here.

I have developed a lot of ideas in my mind and I applied some of them to my work but I feel I’ve applied them poorly. I didn’t expect them to be good at the start as I haven’t been doing art for very long. I came from a very academic school which barely focused on the arts so I was always good with words. Throughout the project, it has changed in terms of being more in touch with my feminine side. I’ve always made my artworks back then to be slightly masculine. So, I’ve ventured to different parts of myself to dig up something new. Something different. Other that that, I don’t feel like my style of art has changed much as I’m learning about more materials to work on rather than think creatively. I’ve been trying to do both but it’s hard to do both at once. Gathering up the knowledge I have these past few weeks, I feel like I’ll be able to produce more creative and better artworks.

I think I had quite a few but I never really used them as they were poorly done. I wish I could have done more as I’m in the learning process. Mose isn’t necessarily better in my case. I went to the FitzWilliam museum, gathering lots of materials to work on but I couldn’t bring myself to use them as they were too hastily done. I wish I could have taken a bit of my time to draw them out properly, going the extra mile by going to the museum again and properly utilise my time drawing. I should have done lesser and taken my time to draw rather than use the same reference material over and over again.

Out of all the art periods, I feel like Renaissance period is what my personality is. I always aim for perfection, striving to be the best, going the extra mile by adding detail into my work. Leonardo daVinci was one of my inspirations growing up as he went the extra mile, thinking of future possibilities when people just called him insane. He was good at everything; painting, inventing and anatomy are what he was best known for. I aspired to be like him. I measure my work thoroughly using rulers to help me confirm the actual measurement but, that was the past. Time did not allow me the luxury to do so this time so, during this time period that I’ve been into this school, I related more to abstract art. I felt it was what I was good at, it expressed my feelings and quite well as I resonated with my work. I could understand and explain it in my work. Although I didn’t really like my artwork, I did like that I could understand and interpret what it was trying to tell me. For this, I have thrown away the concepts of being perfect and embraced geometrical shapes like how Piet Mondrian who ditched Cubism and started doing abstract art. He has become a huge influence on me for my work. For example, in my latest work, I referenced Piet Mondrian’s composition with red, yellow and blue using tertiary and primary colours. I based my abstract painting on a ballerina who danced on stage. It was interesting how I thought of it. It felt more like me than Renaissance but I feel like Renaissance will always be apart of me to keep me going, pushing me to strive for perfection in other artworks that does not require abstract artworks.

Most artists doing Abstraction mainly uses paint and paper in their work but it could be anything really. With Abstraction, there is no limit of using media. Alexander Calder used wires in his work. Kandinsky used paints. With wires, he used tweezers to help him twist the wires to his desired shape. For painting, artists used all types of paints and used masking tape, rulers and stencils to help them work and prevent mistakes. With paper, some artists cut out paper with their scissors like what Henri Matisse did in his old age.

I have certainly learned lots of things through this project. I even did artworks that I’ve done before which helped strengthen my works. However, I did not feel my skills developed other than my drawing and painting skills. I was an average painter and average at drawing but through the tips of my tutors, I listened to them and gained a better insight to my work which really helped me out. The first time I felt this was during Contextual Studies when I had to draw a portrait of William. It looked exactly like him in my opinion and in the opinion of other people.

Tiring as it was for me, I felt like I still did not do enough. Yes, I have learnt many things but I did not venture deep enough into the subject. I wish I had used more materials for this. In clay, I had only used less than 3 tools to make my marks. There were so many other tools I could have used and experiment on. There were painting techniques that I’ve learnt in Graphics and Illustration where I had hoped to use in my collage but I didn’t do them which was a bit of a shame. Time was also another thing that restricted me to delve deep into my work. With a bit more time, I would gladly put in effort and focus on the tasks at hand.

Overall, I am only content with my work as I have finished all my work. I had to rush a few artworks which did not help but, it gave me a chance to learn about new techniques which is what I consider to be a half success.

6th February: We learnt how to make cardboard nets. I’ve done this when I was younger but it was never always good. It was during math class as it involved folding flat 2D cardboards with nets on them to make a 3D geometrical shape.

This was my first attempt without any supervision. It was clumsy, sloppy and overall, a complete failure as it had no nets. But failure is good as I can learn from this.

This was my first real attempt at making a GOOD Octahedron. I made this from the handouts we were given. I was really proud of this because the edges were hard and weren’t flimsy at all. It has been through a lot being in my bag full of things and yet it stayed strong. It might be because of the UHU glue but it worked out really well. I even coloured it to make it stand out from the rest of my peers.

With what I’ve learnt, I made my net from a primary research. I took this picture when I was 15 and in London. I didn’t know that keeping this picture today would be so handy. I did a good job with the lower half but I wish the tip would have closed. I made wrong measurements for this which I was super bummed about. I also did not add in any details to it which did not cross my mind at the time.

Overall, I thought it was a good effort. I don’t like looking at it because I think it looks horrible. I will make way for more time to complete my work next time. I’ll improve by studying it and trying it out by trial and error.

5&12 February: Print Making was not a new experiment for it terms of printing but creating it was a whole different story.

This was my first print. Before I got to printing, I first had to create stencils using a clear plastic. With this, I traced with lots of detail but it was later on I realised that we did not need the details when tracing so I just outlined it and then cut out the stencil using a knife. This was difficult to do as the plastic was pretty thick. I even snapped a blade in half with the amount of pressure I put in. I even gave up at one point and started using my scissors which was so much better. When I finished my stencils, I moved on to pick out my branches and leaves. I had a good find as I was the first to pick out what I wanted. With everything ready, I started to paint.

A roller was used to evenly smoothen the paints. I used green and blue to portray the forest and its body of water. When I started the painting process, it was good however, as I went back to the areas which did not have much colour on them, my paper slightly tore. I found this odd but nonetheless I continued and covered up my mistake using more paint. I then laid out some branches, my stencils, leaves and some twine to create some lovely textures and designs. With that, I went to print on the press machine.

My prints were heavy. The colour almost like the painting I did. I realised that I shouldn’t have gone in to paint layers of paint and should have just let it be. A mistake I’ll learn. Feeling unsatisfied, I took out the branches as they were too thick and continued to print again. This time, my prints got lighter which was a relief but it still wasn’t light enough. So, I took out more of my stencils, branches and leaves and printed again. I found this to be the ugliest one as I realised I laid down too many things onto my work. I almost threw my work again as I saw its hideousness but realised it was a learning process and decided to keep it. I began to prepare for the next print, putting back some of my stencils that contained paint in them. I put it in the press machine and I sighed with relief. It was finally a ghost print with some really interesting marks on them. It had contrast which was my main goal here.

Once this was done, I waited for it to dry and printed it in A3 so that I could add in some detail using pen techniques I have learnt in the past few weeks on being in this school.

The next week…

We learnt how to use Photoshop. I have already learnt photoshop in Graphics and Illustration and I know how to use it now. Nonetheless, it was like a memory refresher for me so it was good relearning that today.

The first thing we did in the lesson was to create our own jungle themed cover with pictures that were given to us. A jungle theme but with texture on it.

I came up with this. I wanted something with colour on it other than green and blue and I thought red matched well with green as they are complimentary colours. The background was leaves and the texture was dry painting.

Next we learnt how to create a collage using Photoshop from our sketchbook.

I picked my collage from Workshop 3 and my ugliest print from the previous lesson. I thought I should combat heavy with some lightness to it. I used a lasso tool to help me select the shape I wanted out of the collage and pasted them on what I thought to be the ugliest print at that time. I selected Baloo, Mowgli, some leaves that had texture, the vines and even a part of the tree that I used for ground this time. I could expand the size of the leaf if I wished which was great as I reckon the whole thing would look pretty empty if I didn’t. I learnt a great deal of techniques and I have documented them in my sketchbook.

I can’t wait to learn more and improve on my work as I progress further into the year. There has been barely any complications for me except with selecting the image I wanted. My lasso tool selected almost everything that I had to spend most of my time, cutting out the shape I wanted. This happened because my colours were too similar to each other. I want to see how my work progresses further every time I use Photoshop so I will work harder, smarter and think faster.

11th February: I thought we were going to learn new camera features like the previous weeks but instead of doing that, we did some artist research and learnt how to take portraits of people in the studio which was really exciting.

I based my artist research on Pieter Hugo as I thought he was the most inspiring one out of all the choices. Although born white, he is a true South African. He is self taught and he photographs the African communities which is what I really admire about him. He doesn’t act self-righteous and photographs what most people don’t see. Pieter Hugo doesn’t try to glamour his photographs and makes them as real as he possibly can. He is seen photographing people neglected in society like, the blind, albinos, the disable and others. Writing about him and learning about all the extraordinary things he did through his work makes me awestruck. I want to be able to take pictures of those people, exposing the part of the world that people neglect. Through this, I have gained a new role model and respect for the guy as he had the guts to actually initiate the photographs. Assessing the pictures he took was a great opportunity to learn from him as he captures you in to his photos, almost as if I was in a trance as I looked at them. He found a way to keep it fascinating yet educational.

After researching about what he did and what kind of photos it took, it was my turn to take some pictures. I honestly did not know what to expect as I entered the studio. Lights were set up and people were posing with great style. I looked down and realised I wore sweatpants and a hoodie. I thought to myself, just my luck but I didn’t care as I was eager to take some photos. We were given a guide to make sure we had all 7 shots. We were taught how to use the lights professionally. We could adjust them from the camera if we wished but it would have been too much of a hassle so we were told to directly adjust the brightness from the lights itself. We could also more the lights further or nearer to the person to get that desired picture. I was told that we could play music and I WAS SO EXCITED, I quickly whipped up my phone from my pocket and played some songs from my phone. The mood of the studio was immediately lifted as Ariana Grande’s new album wafted the air. Her songs gave my peers some confidence to pose for the camera. I took some really great pictures I feel. I also played with the the translucent coloured plastic that gave a new colour to my portraits. I did however had a problem when I took photos. After assessing them, I found that the backdrop was too small as I could see something else other than the backdrop like the metal pipes. I found a solution through this as I moved myself closer to the backdrop. I also asked my fellow models to move slightly further back which fixed my problems.

Out of the many pictures I took, I chose these 7 to represent all the different shots we were supposed to take. overall, it was a good learning experience and I would love to do this again. Even letting my friends take pictures of me in what I would sleep in. I will improve myself to be a better photographer by learning my mistakes.

13th February: I had worked with clay before today’s lesson but I wasn’t very experienced with it back then. In those days, it was just for fun. Now, it was for fun too but just more important.

I started off making slabs of our primary research from my sketchbook. A cheese wire was used to cut the clay. It was then handed out to us. I used a rolling pin to flatten the clay evenly. Using a knife, I cut out 4 slabs of clay to make marks on. The first had been a wavy piece, looking almost like a flower. I used my knife to make the marks. On the second clay, I again used a knife to make marks on it to symbolise hair. I made deeper parks to separate each section of the hair and light cuts to symbolise each strand of coloured hair. The third piece is very simple. I used my clay knife to slash a many lines on it. The final one, I used many tools. I first drew the branch and the leaves using my knife. I then used the tip of my knife to make marks at the top to symbolise the tree. For the bottom part, I used my knife and slashed it to symbolise a plant. I also used a wooden cylindrical stick to make marks. It symbolised the blurriness of the surrounding. Looking back, I felt like I should have used more tools to create my work although they looked pretty good. It is a shame. There was no issue creating this except for the slab of clay that kept sticking onto my wooden board. It was hard to peel off it but I managed to do it carefully without ruining my work. This was only the beginning though. It was only practice.

After the break, we had to create an clay piece using what we have learnt. I picked a temple which lots of texture to it. I knew it was going to be hard and would have required too much time so I thought of making only a section of it. That would be the top of the temple. I started with rolling a slab of clay. I used two rectangular wooden stick to help me keep the clay levelled. After that, I used a compass to help me create a perfect circle. I then used my knife to cut out the circle and lifted it up. With that, I flipped the clay in order for it not to stick on my wooden board as the moisture from the clay would cling onto the wooden board. Time was running too fast. I quickened my pace and moved onto making the pillars. This was hard to do as my clay kept getting dry as I increased the surface area, allowing moisture to escape to the air. I worked quickly and made marks on top and on the bottom of the pillars and applied water to them to make them stick. I then cut out another circle to put it at the top but the wooden board had too much moisture on it that my clay stuck to it. Eventually, my clay broke when I tried to lift it. So I made another one and used my brush to create a wavy look on the second circle. I added the rectangles between the pillar and used my knife to make marks on the top. For an extra piece, I cut out a long thin mince of clay and stuck it to the top.

Overall, I think I did pretty well but some improvements could be made if I just had a little bit more time. I wish I could manage my time properly, dividing sections of my time to actually complete and improve my work. This is not the best work I’ve done but it certainly isn’t my last as I will try to keep on improving. There are things that I still want to add on it, like a cone dome donning above the wavy circle. This was a pretty good first step to creating something better.

14th February 2019: Today, we did colour mixing. I’ve always liked colour mixing and found it very intriguing. I was very good at mixing colours, making colours that I liked however, today’s lesson made me rethink how good I thought I was.

I started off with mixing 2 primary colours together starting with yellow and red. I think I did a pretty good job with the red going to orange as the colours looked different. The problem was the yellow. I think I added too much red in the second square that it immediately turned into a secondary orange rather than a tertiary orange. I should have put lesser red there. For the primary red, I think I should have added a bigger dollop of yellow as the colours looked pretty simple. I wouldn’t make the same mistake for the rest as I continued with the other colour mixing.

The next colours I mixed together were primary blue and yellow. I started with the blue and kept on adding yellow after each box to make it lighter, greener. I got better after learning from my mistake in the first colour mixing. Each colour was very different. After 3 squares, I moved on with a different brush and kept adding blue to the yellow. This was better than the first one I did but I wish the yellowish green in the second last box was mixed properly. I can still see a bit of yellow undertone in it.

I mixed red and blue for the third one. This one I felt was the best as my secondary colour was smack in the middle which was good. I think there is nothing to improve on this other than how I painted it. I can still see the white paper which means I used too much water to the point of it almost being sheer.

For the tint, I wish I could have done a cool toned one but I didn’t’ think have time due to my boxes being too big which meant I had to paint more. I think I didn’t add much white in the beginning starting with the red as there is not really much of a colour change in the first 3 boxes. I also made one more extra box as I kept on painting from one side and not from both sides. I momentarily forgot that I had to paint from 2 sides. It turned out quite alright but I wished I could have added more whites in it.

I moved onto mixing secondary colours together, mixing tertiary yellow with tertiary purple. I think this was pretty successful as the colours were all different. At first I didn’t know what to paint as I was rushing to complete my work but after an explanation, I cleared my head and painted. It turned out alright in the end. I would have painted it properly if I had time. Next, I painted the complimentary colours which were smaller compared to the rest of the colour mixing I did to save time. I didn’t really need to mix any colours as I had previously mixed the colours so I just used them again.

The first picture is a painting done Mark Rothko called No.61 (Rust and Blue) in the year 1953. He used rectangles with rough brush strokes. He first laid down primary blue as his base. After that Mark Rothko used blue and mixed it with a red to make a purplish, reddish colour. He then took the paint and painted his first rectangle. The second rectangle, he did some tinting. He added a bit of white to the second rectangle. This can differentiated as the primary blue he laid down as the background was darker than the second rectangle. On the last rectangle, he used a bit of red (lesser than the first rectangle) to darken the blue. He balanced it so that the main focus would be in the middle, where the colour was lightest. I feel a deep sadness looking at No.61 (Rust and Blue). However, I believe that it will gradually get better as there is a light blue in the middle. The darkness surrounds it (light blue) but everything in the middle always wins, like a runner who got placed first on the track in the stadium.

Mark Rothko and I have some similarities. For example, I made 2 layers of tinting while he did one. Not only that, I applied some colour mixing. I added a bit of blue to the red, darkening the red. I also used blue in my painting. However, it is only to this extent I feel that we are similar.

Our differences is that he encouraged rough brush strokes, appearing rusted and worn but I have clear straight lines that do not experience any harshness to it. I very thing is clean in my work. He focused more on emotion and I focused more on composition.

7th February 2019: I made 5 colour etchings, each with a different feel to it.

On the first colour etching that I did, I used a dirty red colour for the background and used a resign orange colour for the helmet with a hint of blue. I added the blue to where the darkest tone would be and orange to where the mid tones would be. Considering this was the first print, it wasn’t bad at all as the contrasts shone through. I cleaned the plate thoroughly too which was good. The only thing I wish I could have done better on this was the paint job. The background looked splotchy and the helmet was not painted properly. I added too much water into the acrylic paint. As a result, my paint travelled to regions where I did not want it. I should paint properly next time, avoiding adding too much water into my paints.

The second colour etching had been the same with the first etching I did but only with different colours. I really liked it. But it was too simple and too plain. There were light and dark contrasts which was really good. The painting was also better here than the first one. The one thing bothered me was that my etching did not match the dark blue section I painted in the middle. With this, I’ll be more careful when tracing my armour under the light.

Red ink was used instead of blank ink to print this time. I was pretty excited to do this as the ink was a different colour than black. I painted a blue background and a pink helmet. This was done on purpose as I wanted the red inks to act as shadows. The pink being the natural colour. I think I did quite a good job with the printing however, I did not like how the dark tones turned out. It cannot really be distinguished between mid tones and dark tones but it still somehow worked. I must have wiped out too much of the excess inks that I wiped away the inks on the etching. I’ll be more thorough with the inks next time.

The fourth one is my favourite. I didn’t have to trace the outline of the helmet which was nice. I painted an abstract background, using vertical lines and various colours: yellow, purple, blue and pink. I used blue inks on my etching plate. The blue ink just seemed alright. It wasn’t dark enough. Perhaps it was because I used a dark background that I felt it wasn’t dark enough for the darker tones. It was an interesting process. At least the helmet could still be seen without differentiating background and helmet with different paint colours. I’ll use a darker ink next time so that it could be seen properly.

My fifth and final piece was a piece full of mistakes. I guess I just got tired and a bit lazy doing it but it was a creative experiment except for the background. The background was dull and unoriginal as I used the colour green for the background and yellow for the helmet with red accents to portray the deeper tones. I used many different colours of inks on this. I used white, blue and purple and mixed them altogether. It was slightly tiring trying to mix the inks and cleaning it. I think that was why my plate wasn’t clean; I was already tired. But tired isn’t an excuse for poor work so I will try harder next time. There are various contrasts on this. I would say far more than the third and fourth print. You can see light, dark and mid tones altogether which are easily distinguishable. I was a bit mad with the outcome as it did not trace the helmet. It went way out of place. I blame this on the person who pushed me and myself for not checking another time as I flipped the etching plate along with my paper on the printing press machine and printed. I should have checked another time just for safety’s measure.

Overall, I’ve learnt a lot from etching. I feel like I have learnt from my mistakes in the previous etching lesson with cleaning the edges, making them seem cleaner. I would obviously have to work on more tones on my work as I felt they were pretty lacking compared to the rest of my peers. I will take all this into account and keep trying and making mistakes and learning from them to produce better work in the future.

11th February: Before we used the green screen, we first learnt how AfterEffects worked. To do that, I was asked (forced) to stand in front so we had something to film and work on. I stood on 3 different positions and moved. The first was on the left. Then the right. And then I stood behind the camera and we filmed nothing.

After that, we saved the videos into the computer and dragged them to after effects. I dragged the videos one more time into the bottom. Then, I clicked on the layer with me in it, used the rectangles tool to make a border around me. When I went to composition and clicked the play button, I saw two of me dancing. I was honestly surprised I could do this because I got everything right in one go. I did not ask anyone for help but I just listened to the instructions.

Moving on, we finally used the green screen. We filmed CC moving about when there was a green screen in the back. We then did the same thing as what we learnt before but now, we could put in any background we liked by clicking on Effects, Keying and then Keylight. I then sharpened the edges around her body so that the green screen is removed and a clear outline of her body could be seen. After adjusting her in composition mode, I added in a background with Ariel looking up at her. CC was swimming but she did a terrible job so I thought it would be funny if Ariel stared right at her.

After that, we went in groups to create our own 3 second video. I paired up with CC and Earn. We got along pretty well and finished the task at hand in only a matter of minutes without any serious complications lest for the not knowing how to do somethings but we never learnt this before until today. It was a pretty good start. We used all we had learnt from the lesson. It was pretty fun actually. We came up with an idea about a leopard eating us since CC was wearing a leopard printed shirt and Earn and I are so short, we could pass off as children. (who are being eaten)

Overall, it was a good lesson which I have learnt so much from. The only thing that I think is a shame is that the functions I have learnt today won’t be stuck in my head. However, it is a good thing I took notes so that I can refer to them from time to time.

8th February: We tried Animating in Photoshop and Animate. Honestly it was pretty hard navigating my way around everything. But I tried it with a light heart and an eagerness to learn as I like animation.

We first learnt how to animate through Photoshop. What I’ve learnt from animating in photoshop is patience. One cannot rush it. I started by creating a new document. The recommended size is 2000 for beginners. As I am one, I clicked it without hesitation. Then we had to load the Timeline. Next, we had to create a Blank Video Layer and select the Onion skin settings and Timeline Frame Set and set it to 3 Frames before and 12 frames per second. With the settings all set, I then started drawing.

I drew a rocket in space about to crash into a planet. And with that, there was an explosion and in that explosion, an astronaut escaped free. I thought I did this slowly but when I played it, it seemed too fast to see anything and understand it clearly. With the mistake I made, I will take it, evaluate myself and make sure I don’t make that mistake again to improve myself.

I used a pen and a pad to draw on the computer and it was honestly much harder to draw than with the mouse itself as the cursor kept moving in all sorts of direction. But I grew accustomed to it

Next we learnt how to animate in Animate. Animate is more fast paced. First, I order to animate, I first created a new html document.. After that, I selected a brush in the tool kit with my drawing pen and pad. I then drew the first frame of animation with the correct frame selected. Then, I selected the next frame to animate after drawing using my mouse to right click and inserted a keyframe. To change the new frame, I used an onion skin to help me. Onion skin is my lifesaver. Without it I wouldn’t be able to see what I drew before. With this, I kept making new frames and animating the changes. When I wanted to draw a new image, I insert a blank frame.

Learning all this in one lesson in 3 hours, I felt like I absorbed a lot. My animation is about a chicken who expresses anger at first but then it wasn’t anger. She was just trying to push some eggs out and it required lots of hard work. Eventually she got emotional seeing her eggs all laid out of her. Then the farmer came and stole her eggs and cooked them. I think I did a better job here than in Photoshop as everything was at a normal pace and the situation could be read easier. The story was also more interesting than the one in Photoshop. I do not like the way I drew the farmer. This is because I needed to rush to complete the work. I am too slow with drawing.

Overall, I preferred animating in Animate as it was set at a faster pace than Photoshop.There was also lesser to draw in there. However, I have to commend Photoshop too as it is a very universal way of editing. Someone could edit their pictures, print out contact sheets and even edit on it. I will better myself through downloading photoshop and animate in my laptop and try animating again with what I have learnt from the lessons. Given this was my fist time animating, I think I did a decent job.

1st February: We learnt how to create a character out of pictures we took ourselves. I went out with my classmates to take pictures for inspiration. We were told that should take about 10 pictures. I took 50.

Out of all the pictures I took outside, I took pictures of strangers, some land and objects. I even included some pictures I took back at home. Even after selecting the pictures, I still did not know what to draw. So, I took them piece by piece and drew them out slowly starting with the face. I figured I wanted the hat from the man in the first picture (I took that picture through learning photography. The man was cycling and I did a panning shot with my phone and got him clearly.) The inspiration for the face is actually a drawing of my face that my friend did. I took a picture of it. I never knew it would come in handy until today. I then finally finished the face. For the body and clothes, I used the clothes from picture number 4. For the hands, I gave my character a bottle of wine to hold and a finger pointing out from picture 3 and 5. Finally, I gave him wings from the dragonfly in picture 6.

With my character built, I drew him sideways and proceeded with making my story. I was also inspired by Chinese New Year as it was the first day of Chinese New Year. I wrote about a boy who was ugly all his life and was always criticised by his family. Every Chinese New Year, the criticism would amplify tenfolds with family around. One day, he had enough of their mean comments and stormed off. Outside, he saw a bottle of wine and drank it. In an instant, he grew wings and became beautiful despite his face. In a way I think this story reflects how I felt when I was younger when my family called me fat.

After creating the synopsis, I did a Location Concept. This is basically an idea of where the story will take place in that setting.

Overall, it was a pretty fun class that allowed my creative juices to flow and put them on paper. It was also nice to put it on paper without being criticised about how weird it is. There is however one thing I do not like about this and that is how I drew my character. I dislike the way I drew it as my drawing skills are pretty bad. I will improve this by drawing more.