4.29.2013

Book Beauty Monday : Water Paper Paint

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!

Water Paper Paint
Water Paper Paint
Water Paper Paint
Water Paper Paint
Water Paper Paint
Water Paper Paint
Water Paper Paint
Water Paper Paint
Water Paper Paint
Water Paper Paint
Water Paper Paint
Water Paper Paint
Water Paper Paint
Water Paper Paint


4.26.2013

Me myself and an obsession

MerryDay-packaging

How is your day today? I have so many ideas in my head that I want to complete. But as much as I try, it seems that Time always flies ahead of me.

At least, I'm becoming more productive these days, I think. You could say I'm obsessed with my shop. I love waking up in the morning, making to do list and working on each one by one with so much energy and enthusiasm. All are related to my shop. I guess I could say that opening etsy shop again really changes my life. It hasn't brought me enough to earn a living yet but it has already fulfilled my spirit.

I really love me myself right now :)


4.25.2013

Busy week, the first sale and my flower design cards

Merry Floral mini flat notescards by MerryDay

It's a busy week going outside my studio. When you work at home, it's nice to go out from time to time. However, this week I really-really want to stay home with my art :) I felt a bit frustrated that when I wanted to draw, I was stuck in a traffic jam and when I was beginning to get some good ideas and ready to plunge into it, the phone rang. But that is the way of the world. You cannot control everything, it's just a matter of juggling things wisely and try to enjoy it :)

I'm glad that last week I already completed some works and be able to list them on my shop this week. Going to make some more floral design and maybe next drawing will be on kraft, my favorite paper :)

By the way, I have just had the first sale of my just-reopened etsy shop last week. Very excited :D The shop got more views and I hope I can make more works that people love. It seems like a challenge to me now :)

FC-orangegreen03

NB-mypeace02

4.20.2013

Procrastination, Panic and Self-doubt, a Wasted Time?

cupsketch-pavinee

I'm a lazy girl today. I have done almost nothing unless you count browsing lovely blogs as a job of collecting inspirations and knowledge. I actually think I do :) This reminds me of a book I'm reading, Craft Inc. It says :
You have to respect that the process isn't always necessarily "productive" or tidy in the usual sense. I've learned to accept that what sometimes feels or looks like wasted time--procrastination, panic or self-doubt--is really an integral and important phase of the design process for me. It helps to accept it and know it's coming, or even build time for it into the schedule. ---Denyse Schmidt / Quilts
I was so happy when I first read this part. It's like an excuse but it's so true. I don't think there's any artists in this world who don't procrastinate, panic or stuck in their own self-doubt. I always feel guilty if I don't have some tangible things to prove that I'm working. So, the idea of accepting and integrating procrastination, panic and self-doubt into our schedule is very interesting to me. We all have to go through this kind of feelings every now and then anyway, how about living with it (for a while), don't put too much pressure on ourselves and move on?

Now I think I'm procrastinating but I also know that in a few minutes I will sit down and do some works for today. That sounds reassuring somehow :)


4.19.2013

My new greeting card : When Spring comes.

Colorful Flower Garden Blank Card

I have just added this colorful flower garden blank card design to my shop :) This drawing is developed from my original sketch from my 365 days I draw project. The topic is garden.  I did the original with colored markers on kraft paper.

96-garden-pavinee

I really had fun drawing this page. I love how I put color shapes on the paper first then gradually added black lines and all the details until it's completed. I immediately saw it as a greeting card and a beautiful wall art.  Maybe I will try printing it out in jumbo size, frame and put it up on my wall. This should brighten my home :D

You can take a look at my shop and card details here :

Colorful Flower Garden Blank Card - When Spring Comes


Colorful Flower Garden Blank Card

4.18.2013

Etsy Treasury : Smile, Live a Cozy and Happy Life !

Etsy Treasury : Smile, live cozy and happy life


I have not made Etsy Treasury list for months. It's really a great way to help promote sellers with beautiful products and pictures. For me, I find that while browsing all those beautiful items, my eyes are trained to look and learn how this or that image attracts me, how teal can look so great on brown wooden background or how putting an item in surprising context will make it more charming. It's just a matter of observation, which I have just learned.

I always love the combination of bright orange and peaceful blue. You can take a look of this Treasury here. If you like what you see, please share and support these hard workers :)

Have a bright orange and beautiful blue day, will you?


4.17.2013

It's a photo shooting day :)

studiotime-merryday

This is what I did all day today, photo shooting day :) I have spent my long holiday reading and making some new paper goods to add to my shop.  I thought I would finish 4 design but I had so much fun that I kept making more :)

So, I ended up with 7 new pieces altogether! These include one cute recipe card, two mini notecards (one with cute baking girl and the other with refreshing flower design), a greeting card of flower garden, a set of cheerful flat notecards, a mini greeting card of baby bath illustration and a set of personalized notecards.

That's a lot! Now, the hardest part is taking photos. I'm not really good at photography but I try to learn and notice what works and what not. The drawing you see here is almost like my actual studio except that I don't have any cat :) 

It took me all day to take all the photos. I felt completely exhausted and a bit dizzy after the long day. Next step will be adjusting all images in Photoshop and writing all the detailed descriptions and promoting them. It's a lot of work and sometimes I feel I need to take a break and go see some other things outside my studio. But the fun of creating and seeing ideas in my head come to life really pulls me. 

I used to find some excuses to go to bookshop every week but I hardly think about it lately. It's kind of nice, both to my shop and my wallet :)

Thanks for coming and happy creating! :D

4.15.2013

The book of Complete Guide to Greeting Card Design & Illustration and my merry sketches

Complete Guide to Greeting Card Design & Illustration and my merry sketch

I have been spending long holiday reading this book. The Complete Guide to Greeting Card Design and Illustration. It's a pretty old book, printed in 1994. I bought it when I was beginning to think about studying graphic design. After browsing some pages without reading details, I left it sitting on the shelf and almost forgot about it until I thought of working on greeting cards again.

The book is very readable, clear and precise, full of sample works with insightful explanations. it also has perspectives from successful greeting card designers who openly talk about their paths to success. I had thought the content might be outdated already due to its age but delightfully found that it was still helpful in the present time context. The book focuses mainly on greeting card design marketing but I think it can be adapted in other art-related business in general too.

There's so many valuable info in this book that I actually take notes while reading it. Feeling like going back to school :)  I like that while jotting downs some words that struck me then some related ideas just popped up and I had to sketch them down. And now I have more rough ideas for my art. I feel productive even though I'm not in front of the computer :)

The very important keyword I derive from what I have read so far is "emotional appeal". Greeting cards need to communicate successfully to both senders and receivers of the cards. Emotion plays the most significant role in this. And so does other kinds of art. I think about my stationery design and how I can incorporate this very keyword into my work becomes a challenge to me now :)

I'm working on another flower design. I will keep this in mind and see how I can apply what I have learned from this book to my work :)


4.14.2013

Big holiday, mother bird and a peaceful day

Lines, colors, shapes in nature

It's a big holiday this weekend in Thailand. People go out and celebrate their favorite holiday in various places, leaving the city of Bangkok quiet and peaceful. There's no traffic jam at all and I could drive to my parents' home in only 15 minutes (it usually takes about 40-50 minutes to get there!)

The holiday includes the day of Family too. We don't do anything much though, just stay home and enjoy peaceful day together. Then, I took my mom for a shopping while my dad and my sister prefered to stay home as usual :)

Dad loves staying home, in the garden, to be precise. He wakes up early every morning, walks around tending trees and plants in the garden. Then he goes to work and comes back home to walk around the garden again until dusk :) I always feel that the garden, his garden, is the safest, most secure place in the world with him wearing his usual white t-shirt moving around among different shades of green. The weather seems to be always fine when he is there.

Today is just like everyday. Dad sat in the porch and told me to look at a bird's nest in a bush nearby. The mother bird was elsewhere, dad shook a branch and the little bird woke up open his beak waiting for a meal.

little bird asking for meal

He's not getting it though :P I walked around taking photos and enjoying beautiful day. When I came back, the mother bird was already home.

Bird in a bush

She looked so calm and elegant sitting in the nest. I think she knew I was taking pictures of her but she seemed to ignore me completely.

Bird in a bush

How large and beautiful eyes she has! I never got a chance to look at a bird so closely. They always fly away before I press shutter. This one just posted naturally for me and I felt a bit excited :)

The holiday will end in two days. It's not really a holiday to me though. As a freelancer, everyday could be a holiday if you choose to. But we tend to work all through the year and not really in a festive mood as much as others would do.

It's nice to spend time quietly and beautifully with those you love though :)

red flowers and the tree trunk

4.12.2013

Work in progress and my new personalized bookplates

Work in Progress : green orange happy girl

After talking about my style in previous post and got some feedback via this blog, facebook and twitter. I realized that I completely thought too much :) The reason that I was nervous because I was afraid that if I had various styles, it would hurt my shop's overall look. Then all the feedbacks just pulled me back to the fact that I didn't open the shop for money only. My main goal is to develop my drawing skill as well as business senses. What I need to do right now is to create my art as much as possible. With love and fun. As long as I'm having fun with whatever I'm drawing, that should be enough. Style is actually changing as we keep practicing. It's kind of exciting too to see how my art will look like next year, or years to come :)

The image above is what I'm working on right now. A happy design for notecard set. I have already printed out and almost put it for sale, but then I thought maybe the black ribbon on the top looked too heavy? I need to think of lighter and cheerful colors for that part before finalize it and add to the shop :).

Meanwhile, I have just added some cute personalized bookplates on the shop. It's nice to have my name on the bookplate I myself designed. Sounds silly, doesn't it? :)

Thanks for coming. I hope you have a merry day. :D

Personalized bookplate : Merry Girl Admiring Nature

Personalized Bookplate : Smiley Dolphin dancing with Little Mermaid


4.10.2013

Different styles? Or do I think too much?

MerryDay gift card set

The final artwork of flowers design I did the other day. These are not new though. I drew these flowers years ago when I just started my first attempt on etsy. The flowers were developed from one of my doodles. I always liked (and still do) drawing swirly, dreamy and a bit whimsical flowers like these. I made them into greeting cards, put them on the shop and got the most viewed, I think. This flower design set also got featured in I ♥ Stationery book by Charlotte Rivers. It's my first time to be in international publication, very excited! :D

Ilovestationery-merryday

However, this flower design curiously brought me to a question : do they look completely different from my current drawing style? If you take a look at my shop, you will see that I have a lot of items featuring my smiley, merry girl, such as this :

NB-dolphin02

The merry girl illustration might be categorized as kids art while the flowers look is for grown-ups? One of my friends told me that they both still gave out happy and merry feeling which is what I have in all of my drawings and is what I intend to present in my work.

I think I agree with her. I had fun drawing these two pieces and I think they really came from my inner self. You can feel if an art piece is not you, you feel uncomfortable with it and I'm not feeling that way with these two :D

My solution right now is to find a way to blend these two looks and make even more unique drawing pieces. This becomes a challenge for me. I have a feeling that if I can do it, it will be my great improvement :)

Still, people have different points of views. I'm curious what do you think of these two drawings, do they look totally in different style? What categories would you put each of these drawings in? What is your opinion in general about my drawings?

Thanks for stopping by. I would be very grateful if you could leave your opinions about this in the comment :)

PS. If you are interested in my flowers design and the cute dolphin dancing, you can look at them in my shop here :)

MerryDay flower design gift card set of 4

Art print of MerryDay smiley dolphin dancing with little mermaid


4.08.2013

Book Beauty Monday : Painted Pages

Book Beauty Monday : Painted Pages

I found this book while I was browsing some other books on art shelf in my local bookstore. I'm not really a mixed-media person. I just hate cleaning up art equipments after painting or drawing, to be honest. But I do love watching other artists working in this art field. Their patience in doing layers step by step always amazes me.

This book grabbed me instantly with the first spread layouts. My job mostly focuses on book design so it's kind of my habit to look at cover and text layout of each book first. Sometimes if I open a book and find something in design terms that I don't like (lousy use of fonts, bad layout design etc.) I generally put it down. This book has it all that I love, airy layout, easy to read text, gorgeous colorful photos, I especially love its chapter pages with full spreads of closed-up photos. The overall color palette just grabbed me too. The art director of this book really did a good job to present Sarah's unique character. If you go look at her website and blog, you will see how this book is really a connection.

I hadn't heard of Sarah Ahearn Bellemare before but after looking through this book, I fell in love with her work. I have seen several of mixed-media art pieces but I think I love her work best. Her paintings give out the feeling of happiness and remind me of childhood with sweet, bright and colorful world.

The book has a lot of interesting sections: Sarah's own art experiences, her creative journey, step by step working process, some mixed-media techniques (which although I don't do this art, I enjoy reading it anyway) inserted with inspiring short notes and I love the guest artists interviews!

I think you can tell how much I love this book, find it if you haven't had a copy yet :)

Book Beauty Monday : Painted Pages
Book Beauty Monday : Painted Pages
Book Beauty Monday : Painted Pages
Book Beauty Monday : Painted Pages
Book Beauty Monday : Painted Pages
Book Beauty Monday : Painted Pages
Book Beauty Monday : Painted Pages
Book Beauty Monday : Painted Pages
Book Beauty Monday : Painted Pages
Book Beauty Monday : Painted Pages
Book Beauty Monday : Painted Pages

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