My family's new pet...tree

When my dad was in Boy Scouts, he planted a Sequoia Gigantia tree in his parents' backyard. Now, over 40 years later, it's a gigantic tree that towers over the backyard, lending lots of shade. Now, he wants to plant another one in our backyard. So over Spring break while we were California, we bought a Sequoia sapling at a gift shop (what? I know...) and brought it back. It currently resides in its own pot on our back porch.

I keep joking that this is our family's new beloved tree because they said a dog was too difficult to take care of. ;) So far, Sequoia hasn't wilted yet, and has had lots of new growth. Her new tips emerge as a lighter green and then later obtain their rich dark green we're used to.

I decided to whip out my watercolors and paint her portrait to remember her baby-years.

I painted straight into my sketchbook, and was surprised the paper held up so well. I have been trying to hold back on the water to avoid the paper-curling phenomenon I've been battling.

And here's the scanned in version:

July 2015

Love on a Rooftop

Have you heard about the guy who live-tweeted his neighbor's breakup? I'm stuck between feeling that he crossed the boundary of tact (a bit inappropriate to share it all online--between friends, sure, I gossip with my friends. But on Twitter? I think that's a bit far.) and a bit amused that they almost caught him but didn't (now I'll always be suspicious of people on roofs next to me....).

But a gem of a quote came out of the whole ordeal: "I'm not talking about love on a rooftop in Brooklyn" is the perfect meta, and a line that sounds like it was straight from a romantic movie. *Swoon*, that's the romantic in me. Of course for my life, "I'm not talking about love over the phone from my bedroom floor" just doesn't have the same ring to it, eh?

Anyways, I've had this quote pinned to my Quotes board on Pinterest for awhile, and was inspired after watching a few Typography how-to and my process videos on YouTube. I am so thankful for all the artists out there who make time-lapse videos, tutorials, hints, etc. for beginners and other noobs like me. If you're interested in looking at some amazing typography videos, you should check out madebymarzipan. Her videos are concise and incredibly helpful. I especially used her tips from her accents video about adding arrows, banners, lines, and other illustrations to help the words come alive. As far as the lettering itself, I'm still having a little difficulty trying to deviate from my normal handwriting and reaching out into different type-fonts. It's much harder than I was anticipating! 

July 2015

Horse in the style of Traditional brush painting

I'm experimenting with new art styles and subjects this summer. I was recently looking up pictures of the Chinese character for horse, ma, and stumbled across some beautifully done paintings of horses in the traditional Chinese brush style. Brush paintings are supposed to capitalize on the negative space, showing just enough lines to recognize the subject. I like the lightness this style lends--the feeling of movement like you can't quite capture the subject because it's too busy being full of life.

I didn't have my watercolors with me so I tried to duplicate the style with pen instead. I I found it interesting, experimenting with the thickness and lightness of the lines. You can tell where I started, fully filling in the black, and then when I learned to ease up and open the coloring to allow the paper to show through.

July 2015

Inspired by this

Darth Vader and the Death Star

My friend (the same one who recently adopted the a new dog, Dash) just turned 30! We keep teasing him that he's finally an adult now, haha. But it's really kind of true. Your twenties are spent making mistakes and learning to live on your own. You're trying to find out who you are and who you want to be. And sure, we spend the rest of our lives doing all of those over again. But hopefully we're slowly learning how to become better, more successful people.

I absolutely adore this guy, and I know he loves Star Wars (he and his girlfriend have a room dedicated to Star Wars. It--and they--are adorable). So for his birthday card, I made this super cute kid-Darth Vader holding a Death Star balloon. It was inspired by an illustration I found on Pinterest and a few cartoon sketches of kids.

I really like how it turned out, and I think this is one of the first times I've used different textures and media in the same drawing. (And I can't get enough of my new pen, haha).

July 2015

Adventure is Waiting

During all four years of high school, I was part of my school's Rocket Club. We were fortunate enough that half of our club was girls! In the rocketry and STEM world, this is crazy-talk. In a world where NASA wondered if 100 tampons would be enough for Sally Ride's week-long voyage in space, and 18-20% of engineering students in the US are female, having 50% of our club (which grew to 50 members) was huge.

But I didn't fully appreciate this equilibrium of genders until we went to competitions and events where other high school and college rocket teams met us. They were ecstatic to meet our team members and talk with us. We were less thrilled about being hit on or thought inferior. But it all comes with the territory and we learned to stand up for ourselves and prove what we knew. It also bonded the team together: the girls would rescue each other from guys who couldn't take a hint, and the guys would tell the other boys to back off or respect us.

This one time at an outreach event, two guys came sniggering up to me and asked me if I could tell them "everything you know" about this "big guy", referring to the 6-foot-tall rocket propped up next to me. "Don't worry, take your time and consult your notes if you have to." Snigger. Well, it turns out I was the Project Manager of the team that built this rocket, and they did say "everything". As soon as I straightened up, looked them in the eye, and started rattling off the structure, stats, and science of the rocket, they looked at each other wide-eyed, and realized their mistake. Ha.

But that aside, I love science, and I love the wonder and romance of space. It is symbolic of what we as humans can reach beyond, find, and accomplish. And it reminds me of the childhood innocence from October Sky and Up (side note: those first 10 minutes of Up are my relationship goals. But then again, whose aren't?).

So when I ran across this quote on Pinterest or Instagram (too many inspirational platforms to keep track of!), I knew I had to do something with it.

June 2015

(the signature, like all my others, are added to prevent art theft. I'm working on making it prettier. Eventually.)

Also as a sidenote, if you find yourself in the Seattle area with someone who likes airplanes or rockets, or flight of any kind like that (yourself, possibly? Obviously.), you should check out the Museum of Flight. I have been volunteering with them since 2011, and it is a fantastic place to explore.

Take 2 on my Pug Watercolor

Recently, one of my best friends from the Salle I fence at adopted a puppy with his girlfriend. He's a golden retriever named Dash and he's the cutest puppy ever (and becoming quite well-trained!). Dash has the energy of a three-year-old, and the plush fur of my childhood stuffed bear.

Inspired by Dash and all the cute pictures of my friends' kids showing up on my Instagram (They're much older than me; I'm much too young to support kids in my life now!), I redid the "Pugs before drugs" image with a different phrase. I love the take on "Cute as a bug" and have seriously started adoring this little dog.

Also, I got to use my new pen I gushed about here!

July 2015

Portrait: Fawzie

Fawzie is a velociraptor. I feel like this is the beginning of a book, haha.

Fawzie is my friend's child. Like, actually. She and her boyfriend have a photo album devoted to him and his friends, and her mother calls Fawzie her grandchild. He's just under a foot tall, has soft brown fur with tufts of yellow hair, and most importantly, the eye furrowed in disdain. And he is well loved. 

Recently, amidst the difficulties I've been having in my personal life, Fawzie was there for me to hold and pet and cuddle. And I am greatly appreciative of him. (Aren't soft, cuddly items so incredibly comforting when you're feeling like everything is falling apart??)

I think this is the very first full watercolor painting I've ever done before. I've been watching YouTube videos on watercolor techniques and how to prevent the paper from curling, and was very excited to try to put all this new information to good use. I've still got a long way to go, but the process was very cathartic and I loved how I could manipulate the colors and textures.

July 2015

New pen, new quote, and a curve in my life

This is a long post, but please bear with me.

This past week has been a real curveball for me. In possibly one of the worst ways possible. But my friends have rallied around me, and believe me, they are Life. I love them each to death, and every little thing they do (even something as simple as "How are you doing today?") means the world to me.

I have two things I want to talk about in today's post. The first is about my new pen. My usual go-to pen for drawing is this one. I buy packs of 12 at my office supply store, and while a bit pricey (and occasionally smear-able if I'm not careful with my erasing), they make a nice clean line. But I finally decided to branch out and find a thicker pen with a felt-like tip. I used to do a bit of calligraphy when I was younger, and I hoped a broader-tipped pen would help me revisit that phase of my life. So far, I love it. It's so nice to have a thick line I can use to practice and improve my typography. The tip is thick and pretty even, and the ink is a very nice black. So I'm quite ecstatic about the new opportunities from this.

The other thing I wanted to talk about is a bit heavier. I want to talk about how to help a friend who is going through a difficult time with a relationship. This is something I myself was bad at until I had a relationship end (four years after my Bestie's first relationship ended--I'm so sorry I didn't know how to comfort you, Sweetie!), and I want to give a tip to the people out there who are confronted with a friend going through a difficult situation but don't have the experience to know what to do to help them. In the wake of my situation (I call it The PS right now), my friends fell into two groups: those who had had at least one relationship, and those who had never had a relationship. I don't want to sound like I'm ungrateful or unappreciative of my friends who didn't know what to do with me, because I'm not. It means the world that they tried when they were out of their depth and comfort zone. I love them for that. But there's one question I wish they had asked me: "Do you want to talk about it?" It opens the door for me to make my choice if I want to cry over it or change the subject and distract myself. And this makes a difference. It doesn't mean I want advice they may not know how to give, or pressure to make me feel better. It just leaves the door open for me to talk. I think it's the best thing a friend can ask me.

So I think I got a little bit off-topic, but my latest art comes from the hailstorm of a week I've had. It's a quote from Christopher Robin, and I think it embodies the feelings I have right now or hope to believe in the future.

If you made it through these blocks of words, thanks for reading about the update in my life. I hope you are having a better week than me.

July 2015

Pugs Not Drugs (finally finished!)

Here's the final end result of the Pugs Not Drugs WIP! It's a mixture of graphite, ink, and watercolors. The watermark (on the lower left) was added on the computer just for blogging purposes.

I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

Here are parts One and Two of the WIP before this stage.

June 2015

Prettiest Princess Tiara

Remember that crown I drew earlier? And how I said there was a story behind it? Well, I ended up using a different drawing but kept the idea:

You may think this is for a small child who loves princesses and tiaras, but you'd be wrong. I made this for one of my best friends. He's turning 21.

I met him through the uni's Fencing Club at the very beginning of Freshman year of Uni. For the entire first quarter plus break (this is somewhere around 13 weeks), I'm embarrassed to admit that all I knew about him (keeping in mind we have a small club and he was one of the only two people in my year) was his name. It wasn't until the first day back for Winter quarter that I realized a) we had a class together b) he lived near me c) he um, existed. As a person, and all. Ahem. But then I made up for that by asking him to join my brother and me for dinner. That makes up for it, right?

A birthday tradition we have at the fencing Salle is that the birthday person gets to wear the pretty tiara and has to fence everybody. From experience, this is both fun and terrifying at the same time when you're the youngest and just beginning, haha. But this year, my friend is currently in California this summer during his birthday, so he doesn't get to wear the pretty tiara and be a pretty princess for his birthday. So to make up for this atrocity, I made this for his birthday card. I hope it gives him a laugh.

July 2015