Sunday Sketch and day 119 : The Mad Hatter Party!

Sunday Sketch and Day 119 of my 365 Days I Draw project. The topic is HAT. Thought of simple various shapes of hat first but then the mad hatter from Alice in Wonderland just popped in my head. So, how about a mad tea party! :D

This Sunday is a bit tiring and sleepy for me. Hope I could start next week with more energy!

Hello Saturday and some strawberries drawing :)

Hello Saturday. Nothing much to say here except I'm working hard on my new drawing project :D The theme is 'secret garden'. I'm beginning to wonder myself how deep the meaning of the 'secret' I could present in the drawings. I have a general idea for the concept but it's really in a working process and you never know how it will be finalized at the end. I think that's what I love about ideas-developing stage. If you focus on it enough, good ideas will keep popping up. The challenge is how you capture those ideas then apply to your main concept beautifully and practically. Sometimes it's stressful but most of the time it's exciting :)

I think this strawberry drawing will look different in final artwork. It will be produced as birthday card, notecards along with some other drawings in the theme and will be added on my shop hopefully by the end of this month.  I can't wait to see the whole collection myself :)

Below is Days 118 of my 365 Days I Draw project. The topic is TREE. This project is going quite slowly but it's part of my life now. I need to complete it no matter how long it will take :)

Thanks for stopping by. I hope I can have a sketch for Sunday Sketches tomorrow!

Today I feel grateful for...

Today I feel grateful for :
• A healthy-glowing look on my father's face. I have moved out to live with my husband and try to go back home to visit my parents every week. Still, I always feel a bit guilty not to be around. My father is already 80 years old. It's good to see him always in good health :)
• Deciding to stop by my favorite bookshop and found a cute children's picture book that helped generate ideas for my work later :D
• A beautiful flower book in the library where I worked all day today. The book was beautiful and a good reference for drawing poppy in the image above.
• 2 issues of Uppercase magazine I ordered from a Thai local bookshop arrived today. Beautiful! Can't wait to read them all :D
• A phone call to my mother whose voice was happy and healthy as always :)
Tell me, today what are you grateful for? :)

Sunday Sketch and Day 117 of my 365 days I draw :)

My Sunday Sketch :) This is also Day 117 of my 365 Days I Draw project (the whole album is on my flickr and facebook but I plan to build a proper place for this project in the future :)The topic is SMILE.

What would come to your mind when you think of the word 'smile'? I generally think of happiness (of course) but it seems too abstract and it's very difficult to draw a feeling. You can draw something and make people smile but you cannot draw 'happiness' itself. I think it's not that important though. People seem to struggle to find happiness but I have realized that it's always around. It's just that we have to let ourselves 'feel' it. That's all.

We can feel happy that we have a place called home, a family to share love, friends to share inspirations, body and mind that don't get sick--all the little things in life. Sometimes we can get heart-broken or have a hard time struggling to reach our goals. But it's just part of the life. As long as we have previous 'little things', we can just still be happy :)

That's the idea behind this drawing. Not sure if I explain it clearly enough. Just smile to yourself, feel it and maybe your gloomy day will look a bit brighter :)

Thanks for coming. Hope you have a merry day!

Behind the Lines and Colors : The warmest place is you.

My bear hug card. This card is one of my Love is... collection and one of my favorite :) The drawing is actually what I doodled during work. I love when I want to draw something without thinking much  then suddenly some image flashes in my head and I have a lovely drawing! What do you call it? Intuition? instinct? I don't know but I really love that flash :)

This bear drawing is one of those flashes (which unfortunately don't happen that often :P) I don't just imagine the look of this Mr. Bear though. He is actually here :



I bought this little bear in one of those blue days. I hadn't bought any dolls for a long time and I felt so silly walking around this cute little thing wondering if I should buy it. When I finally took it to the cashier I was afraid people might think I was too old for doll play. I actually prepared an imaginary answer in case someone asked me that this doll would be for my niece! How crazy I was!

But it's a good purchase. The bear is so cute and I feel happy every time I hold him. I wish I could draw him as adorable as he actually looks!

The card is available on my shop and I have this design as limited edition notebook too :)

Sketching at library and Strawberry drawing on kraft

Yesterday I went to sketch ideas in the neighborhood library. It was such a beautiful day. We have had bright blue sky with cute fluffy white clouds floating for a couple of days already and people seems to talk all about it. Nice weather always brings people some happiness :)

Back to the library, this library is located on the 8th floor of a big shopping complex building. I used to live in a small town where its local library was a small one-floored house in a quiet neighborhood. Having a library in such a busy shopping place seemed a bit weird at first but I found in no time that it's very convenient and not too busy at all.This library on the 8th floor is a little small and has a few windows to look out. It would be very nice if they could put on more windows considering its location of such a high place. Imagine reading and working while looking at bright blue sky (or maybe cloudy) or look down at busy streets below.

Anyway, This sketch is what I have from yesterday. I found that going out and away from the internet is actually helpful. I could keep my focus on my sketchbook and searching for ideas without interruptions (me browsing all the beautiful things on the web) for a few hours makes me feel very productive.

These strawberry sketches will be one of my next drawing collection. I should have some little cute gimmicks in this collection too. It's a fun idea and I hope I can pull it off :)

Book Beauty Monday : Water Paper Paint

I took watercolor class once in high school and once in college. I tried other kinds of paints like acrylic and gouache too and I think watercolor painting is the most difficult for me. The paint seems too hard to control and fix when I ruin something. Still, I love looking at watercolor paintings. They usually give out the feeling of sweet, lively happiness.

I found this book accidentally and was immediately drawn to beautiful cover and inside layout. There are so many watercolor painting books in the market but most of them look like textbooks with busy layout design and I feel heavy looking at them. 

This Water Paper Paint looks different. The book has such light and airy layout design with beautiful colored photos laid out carefully and cleverly throughout the book. The content is readable and practical too. The writer gradually walks you through each step from basic knowledge of the paint, its equipment, how to take care of them and all the different techniques. The main fun is all the projects the writer explains in step-by-step which seem so easy to follow along.

Although I'm more a digital painter, the book is so beautiful and inviting that I want to try some lessons in the book :) This will be a valuable reference and good for inspiration for years to come too!

I have taken some shots of the lovely pages here. Enjoy!