Happy Chinese New Year 2017!

Happy Chinese New Year 2017! 

A bit late for posting this post. Just want to talk about this illustration done for the occasion :)

This week of each year is always busy for me as it's my duty to drive my mom around the city buying and preparing things for the event. Chinese New Year is the time for celebration, family reunion and specially for paying homage to our ancestors. We spend a day buying fresh fruits, preparing food like boiled chicken or duck or pork and various kind of sweets and candies. Mom always cooks her famous fish maw soup and we all have a portion of stir-fried chicken to take home. 

In China Town area, they celebrate with dragon or lion dance which became an inspiration for this special drawing. When I think about drawing Chinese New Year, I think about colorful costumes, dragon and lion dance, music, fun activities and lively show. Here is my initial pencil sketch for the ideas.

Then I traced the drawing in Photoshop. The challenge was how to draw the details of the lion dance. I looked at tons of lion dance photos in google and simplified what I saw into the drawing. Next was the matter of colors. Red was generally used for Chinese-related art but in this drawing I'd like to use subtler color palette. Bright pink and cheerful yellow were my favorites and really suited the topic.

 

You may notice that I didn't have the smiley-faced man drawn in the pencil sketch. He may be also called 'Big Head Buddha' and is the main character for the dance. I didn't know this until my husband asked about him. There are different stories about the origin of the lion dance. One of them says that the lion was a troublemaker. He did so many bad deeds that Buddha was called down to earth to put the lion under control.

 

I had fun drawing and painting this illustration. Since this is the year of rooster, here is the rooster proudly walking ahead of everyone. Rooster is the symbol of diligence, honesty, protection and fortune as well as strength and courage.

Thank you for visiting my blog. I wish you all have good fortune all through this year!

Behind the Lines and Colors : My Peace illustration, personalized bookplate and notebook

My merry bookplate design with illustration originally from one of my 365 days I draw sketches. The topic is PEACE.

What is peaceful to you? To me, peaceful means when I am at home with book or pencil and sketchbook in hand. When I take evening walks with my mom around my dad's garden and sit down on soft green grass when mom needs to rest. When we listen to the wind and little birds chirping in early mornings. When I do yoga to start the day and when I take my eyes from book I'm reading for a while to listen to quietness of night time.

I have been thinking about pattern in my art, meaning what I mostly have in my pieces. I guess swirly flowers may be that pattern. For this illustration, I drew the flowers first and imagined my little girl spending her time alone (with her little bear) in a tiny rowboat floating in a little pond after the rain. A book in her hand, a greeting from the butterfly and a glimpse of rainbow up in the sky. In her peace, my imaginary peace :)



When I took this sketch to put it into design, I decided not to add anything more, just change the colors to make overall picture brighter and more refreshing. I had dark green for flower stems first but liked this purplish blue better. I hope you like it too :)

This illustration is for sale on my MerryDay Etsy shop in various kind of product-- a set of personalized bookplates as well as One and Only Limited Edition MerryDay Notebook and also art print to brighten up your place.



I have just realized that having this shop and talking about my work process for each piece on this blog really help me in many ways. It keeps me on my track and when I look back and think of what I thought and did on each artwork, it seems that I see something new. I just hope I can carry it along and apply it to my next pieces :)

Thank you for coming and if you have just happened to be here, you can learn more about me with my post of the history of MerryDay here and other work process posts in Behind the Lines and Colors category :)

Behind the Lines and Colors : Let me tell you the story of my heart mini card

Busy time again, with work and classes. I thought of writing some posts since Monday but when I had time to write, I was just too tired. It's not good to write something when you cannot concentrate, especially in English which is not my native language.

Yesterday I got a message from Coralie, my collaborative art project friend, From Paris to Bangkok. She wondered why I was kind of quiet around here. It suddenly occurred to me that I'm not writing this blog just for myself. One of my facebook followers once told me that she enjoyed following my work process updates. She said that it inspired her to do her own art. I think that is the best compliment :) I guess that is the same with my blog. I get inspired from so many blogs that I follow. Maybe, readers from somewhere out there might be inspired by my posts too? Whether this is true or not, I will keep it in mind and will try to write as regularly as I can :)

Enough for my rambling, Today's Behind the Lines and Colors is my most favorite MerryDay mini love card, Let Me Tell You the Story of My Heart. Again, I developed this card from one of my 365 days I draw project. The topic is TALK.



Not sure how I got the idea of tin can phone. Maybe from some children's book I browsed while I thought about this word. I like tin can phone. It represents many things, childhood, connection, friendship, love and relationship. It also says a lot on how we talk in these modern days, how we email, send text messages and chat on Line. I'm not opposed to such technology. They are useful and convenient tools but I'm sure there are times that some of you might miss talking or sending thoughts in your own voice or hand writing :)

So, when I worked on my Love is... collection, I immediately thought of this drawing. The drawing was already lovely. I really liked how the line connected the two cans spelled out into words. But since Love was the main concept, I should have more beautiful wording for the card. Remember your period of falling in love? You talk long hours with your love even though you are not that naturally talkative just because you want to hear his or her voice? The topics can be as silly as why he or she is attracted to you and you to him(or her). This comes my wording of 'Let me tell you the story of my heart'. I tried to think of something else but the wording was just stuck in my mind :)

Now the drawing is ready, the words are perfect. Next is how I can put the whole image in a card. The problem of this design is the same as of Mr. Giraffe and Merry Girl mini love card. The drawing is horizontal and long. If I put it in standard 6x4 inch card, it would be too small and you couldn't see the details. I had to work with a better paper format. The idea of hidden design came when I thought of the phone line that could be pulled out.

So, I designed the card folding in a way that you see the boy and the girl with cute paper cup phone first (the top picture)



Then open it and you will see the hidden big pale pink heart shape inside.



Unfold it completely and you have the sweet message of 'Let me tell you the story of my heart' with a lined space for you to fill in your own story :)

I'm really happy with this card design. It went through some thoughts and imagination. Hope you will love it too.  The card is available for sale on my Etsy shop, you can look at the details here :

MerryDay mini love card - Boy Girl Talking Love through Tin Can Phone

If you enjoy reading my behind the scene, you can read more of other design under the category of Behind the Lines and Colors. Coralie and I also have updates for our art project, From Paris to Bangkok. I will post about it soon :) or you can just hop to Coralie's site to see the sneak peek! :D

Thanks for coming. Have a merry day :)

Behind the Lines and Colors : Sweet Candies MerryDay Notebook

What do you usually draw or doodle in your spare time? I guess most of you draw flowers. I do too. It's like a simple common theme. Another most favorite topic I love to draw is sweet things : cake, donut, cupcake and specially sweet candies.

I love drawing candies. Mostly because they have a sense of happiness and merriment. You can feel happy just looking at different interesting shapes, bright and beautiful colors and especially cute and fun designed wrappers.

Above is my MerryDay's Notebook : Sweet Candies. The cover design is developed from my candies doodles, one of them done for Sketchbook Project 2011. The pink and black spread below.



I like playing with the wrappers' details, adding patterns, cute little faces and doing lettering. I thought I would design the notebook cover just like above close-up candies. But I found that the big, close-up drawings didn't go with other designs in my notebook collection, which has clean and airy feeling.

So, I made everything smaller, spread them out making it more like a pattern. I liked the overall look but was afraid that they would look too small and would not stand out. But when I tried printing it out, I really loved it!

I normally print my work at home using Epson Inkjet (affordable with great printing results). But I cannot make notebooks by myself. I sent the files to a printing service. The designs were printed digitally on nice, slightly textured white paper with blank, unlined paper sheets inside. They turned out so lovely that I almost wanted to keep them for myself :D



I also played with the back of the notebook. You can say that it's me drawing a candy here :)

The notebook is my MerryDay limited edition. It's for sale on my Etsy, just click on the link if you are interested to see more details :

MerryDay's notebook : Sweet Candies

You can also take a look at other notebook designs in the collection here :

MerryDay's notebooks limited collection

I hope you like my behind the scene here. I'm currently working on my new drawing collection, the Secret Garden. Each artwork has its own story and I will try my best to record it and post it here when it is launched.

Thanks so much for coming. Have a merry day :)

Behind the Lines and Colors : Will you be my honey bear?

One of MerryDay's card that I love. This design is originally one of my 365 days I draw challenge. The topic is SMITTEN. Not sure what came to my mind first, drawing a bear or the caption 'Will you be my honey bear?"



I really struggled with drawing a bear here. As you can see the bear's shape looks so strange. It looks funny and reminds me of some big fat grilled turkey :( The drawing was done with marker and I could not fix it so I just left it as is. I really like the girl loving gesture though and the word 'honey bear' is kind of cute. Then, when I decided to make this drawing into a card, I kept overall idea and fixed two things : redrawing the bear (of course!) and replacing the 'o' in the word 'honey' with a little honey pot to add some dimension :)

Now, instead of the grilled turkey, I think of Winnie the pooh with his honey pot, the beloved little bear who always makes me smile :) I guess my ultimate goal in this career may be that when people look at my work, they will smile and be happy just like Pooh does to me :)

The card is available for sale on my Etsy shop here :

MerryDay's Will You Be My Honey Bear Love Card

You can read more of my work process for each artwork under the category of Behind the Lines and Colors. If you would like to learn more about MerryDay, I update my MerryDay facebook Page almost daily. The page has reached 2,500 likes today, I think I'm going to do a giveaway soon ;)

Behind the Lines and Colors : Love is Being Together

Tell me how do you define 'Love'?...

This 'Love is Being Together' card is one of my Love is...collection. The illustration came from a sketching I did one Saturday afternoon. I especially love this piece as it has a bit of my personal story here.

My husband and I went out together for over 9 years before we finally got married last year, a month after our 10th year anniversary. Before I met him I lived my life reading romantic novels in which handsome guy did sweet things to his love. They met, fell in love and got married. Then when I finally found my guy, love was not just that. It's really a matter of accepting each other and maintaining the relationship. It needed some adjustment for both of us and, luckily, it didn't  take us too much effort. I guess that's another aspect of love, to be comfortable enough to be around each other 24 hours.

Then, when we finally got married, I realized even more  that Love is just really being together. It's not about gifts, sweet words or anniversary celebration, it's just being together in Saturday afternoon. Me reading quietly and him browsing the internet beside me. It's really just that :) 



I actually drew this sketch without thinking but when I looked at it again, the words came to me. It also makes me smile every time I look at it because the 'being together' doesn't just mean me and my husband. It includes our large dog and my little bear. Both are stuffed dolls :) and they are here :


I know we are grown-ups and having dolls in the house may seem ridiculous for some. But they really are cute little (and large) things called home to me.

That is the behind the story of this card. If you are interested, it's available on my shop here :

MerryDay greeting card : Love is being together

I really enjoy talking about my work process and ideas behind my design. If you like reading it too, I plan to write about it weekly. As you might notice, I already have the name of this blog series, 'Behind the Lines and Colors'. You can read my previous posts in the series here:

Behind the lines and colors : my dolphin and MerryDay preparation

Behind the lines and colors : she lost her heart in the sea of love.

Behind the lines and colors : how my little girl and Mr. Bunny came into a greeting card

Behind the lines and colors : the warmest place is you

Behind the lines and colors : Mr. Giraffe and the Merry Girl mini love card

These card designs are all about love. I'm curious, how do you define your love? Are there any objects or stories that make you connect to the lovely word? Please share :)

Thanks for coming  and have a merry reading!

Behind the Lines and Colors : Mr. Giraffe and the Merry Girl mini love card

I have noticed lately that my 'I'll be with you, no matter how far' mini card gets more favorite on Etsy and I have already shipped out some of them to new customers. This really heartens my spirit as, although I have been working on my Etsy for a couple of years already, I'm still really a newbie in selling my art.

I am especially excited with this card sales because it means that my idea behind the design is working.



This drawing of little Merry girl having a date with Mr. Giraffe is one of my Love is... drawing collection which focuses on animals, something that I needed to practice drawing. The idea was to simply practice drawing a giraffe at first and then I wanted to have something to play with the height of the animal.  Then I thought of the ladder and the girl climbing up to kiss the giraffe. The idea was similar to what I had drawn for my 365 days I draw project here.



So, I put a different story to this design. I made up a scene of Merry Girl having a glass of soda pop with her date, Mr. Giraffe. How could she be with her tall boyfriend? She needed a ladder so I drew one. Then the design still looked too blank. How about some lettering? This was when the concept of long distance relationship popped in my head. I thought of the phase 'no matter how far' and tried different fonts and ended up hand lettering it myself. I incorporated the lettering to the ladder making it as one of the ladder's steps. The black cat and the '...or how hard' was then added to make it cuter. I thought I finished.

But not yet. The illustration was in portrait format which would look too small in a standard 4x6 greeting card. Since I printed all cards by myself using a nice Epson ink jet, I had to figure how to make things fit in A4 paper sheet. I thought of long card 4 by 11 inches but the image looked awkward and didn't really fit in. Different folding might be key. I tried cutting A4 sheet in half and folding it down in accordion way. It looked nice but I didn't want to have too many folding creases on my image. So I moved the image to the lower part of the paper and added the final touch of 'I'll be with you' in the blue bubble to complete the story of long distance relationship :)

I really enjoyed the creative juice that flowing during the process. It really gave myself more confidence when I launched it out on facebook and got good feedbacks on this piece. It also made me realize that the design format, the size and shape of paper were also important in making a successful work.

Hope you enjoy my work process. This card is available on my MerryDay shop. You can look at the details of this card here :

Mini love card - I'll be with you no matter how far

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 :)

Behind the Lines and Colors : how my little girl and Mr. Bunny came into a greeting card

One of my Love is... card design collection, Merry Girl and Mr. Bunny are preparing paper hearts to spread the love from the sky :)

My very first idea was that I wanted to draw a big bunny playing something with my Merry girl. Then I thought of this sketch below which I drew during work ( I have an album called Playtime dedicated to a few minute doodles during work. it's almost like my sanctuary. If you are on facebook, you can look at my drawings here.)

When in need of drawing but have no idea what to draw yet, I usually warm up with my merry girl's smiley face. Next, I would think of an activity for her to do, reading, running or eating? And should she have some friends with her? etc. I try to train myself to make a story during drawing and it's really fun when some lovely ideas come up along the way.

For this drawing, I combined Mr. Bunny with the above doodle. The paper shapes she cut were changed to paper hearts so that it looks like she and Mr. Bunny are spreading love. And when you want to spread love as much as possible, the best location should be up on the sky. So, I put them on the lovely, fluffy light blue cloud :)



The final part was thinking up a nice caption to go with the drawing. I simply use 'spread the love' and I truly believe that when you spread your love, 'you'll get it back' :)

This card will be for sale on my etsy shop, which I'm sorry to say that I'm still in the process of redesigning the whole thing. I know I keep repeating this for some time already. A bit guilty for my slowness. Right now, I am in the process of reshooting every shop items. Taking photos is the most difficult and crucial  part in having an online shop. I'm not a good photographer but I'm doing my very best.

ps. Maureen from Daydream Living asked me in the previous post if my character has a name. I think it's really good idea to name my girl. So far I call my character my Merry girl and people who are following me on facebook page seem to remember me by that calling. I wonder if I should stick with Merry Girl or should I find other lovely name? What do you think? :)

Behind the lines and colors : She lost her heart in the sea of love

I think I already talked about the origin of my 365 days I draw project but since this project seems to have a great influence on my current illustration style, it would not hurt to talk about it again.

I started 365 days I draw project in December 2011 right after I sent out my Sketchbook Project 2011 to Brooklyn Library (if you have not known about this sketchbook project, you might want to click here). The idea of waking up every morning thinking about what I would draw and then do it is really addictive. I like the feeling of fulfillment with a drawing done at the end of the day. So, I began to search for another challenge to keep me in such creative track.

Stephanie is one of the artists I admire. She was doing her own challenge of drawing everyday at the time and was kind enough to let me join in. The idea of the challenge was to draw a picture from one word. It was very hard at first but when you draw everyday, you get the hang of it and ideas come more easily. So it began my 365 days I draw.

Why is it so important that I keep referring to this project? Because before this project I drew differently. I drew directly on computer using mouse and then pen mouse. The results were crisp and clean and beautiful but it lacked ideas or stories to pull viewers in. This reminded me of all the design teachers who always say that your own hand draw best. It opens your brain, challenges your imagination and there is no technical tool limitation.

So, I stayed away from the computer and drew everything by hand. The fact that I didn't need to rely on computer  or technical stuff and I could just take a pen and a sketchbook with me and drew whenever and wherever I wanted to brought me more ideas and stories.

Then after some 100 drawings and everyday doodles on my facebook page, I found that I really enjoyed drawing. My lines changed, my use of colors looked different and seemed to be better than my previous works. It suddenly came to me that I finally established my new drawing style. :D

That kind of realization brought me confidence. I can see how my drawing can be developed into something more wonderful in the future but that will need time and hard work and I'm working on it right now.

Not sure if anyone feels like I do, that when you have finally set your goal, you have some kind of liberation too. I mean when you determine to do something,  you have more focus and less confused. Your life comes in order. Problems that come in your way will be fixed as soon as possible because you don't want to stay with them too long. You have your goal to meet!

I love the kind of idea, to have a goal. It makes my life busy, sometimes energetic, sometimes exhausted but with peaceful mind all the time :)

..................

The illustration above is developed from one of the 365 days I draw project drawings. The keyword is 'sea'. I'm not sure how the caption 'I lost her heart in the sea of love' came to me but I really liked the sentence and the idea of combining lettering and picture then happened.



The original drawing is done in black and red. When I put it in my stationery design, card and notebook, I made it look softer with orange and pale purple. I like both color versions. They both give the feeling of fun and whimsical, I think :)



How about you? Which one you like better, please tell me :)

Behind the lines and colors : my dolphin and MerryDay preparation

Drawing animals is one of challenging drawing topics to me. I remember drawing an elephant on school wall in an art class when I was in high school. It was in such a wrong proportion that everyone laughed at. It was so humiliating at the time but I know now that there's nothing to be ashamed of.  Art can be unrealistic, distorted or completely different. There is no right or wrong, only opinions...

When I started my 365 days I draw,  I intended to draw animals as much as I could. Animals, backgrounds,  stories were what I thought I lacked in my drawings.  I used to draw single thing and stop. My friends told me that it looked cute but not interesting enough. I needed to give my drawings unique characters, give them actions, give them stories. It was very difficult at first but with  365 days I draw project, I gradually built up my own catalogue of animals and stories.

I 'm not satisfied with my drawing of cats or tigers yet but it's not so scary or difficult anymore. You just have to keep on drawing until you get them right.

Above is one of my Love is... drawing collection. I finished this collection just before Valentine's Day. There are 11 designs altogether, some of them are developed from my 365 days' sketches, some from my everyday doodles. Drawing animals is hard, drawing cute animals is even harder. Dolphins are always considered cute. They have such friendly faces and look smiley all the time. I tried drawing them several times and ended up using the cheating way by finding a reference photo then traced the outline :P



My dolphin looked in need of a companion so I added a little mermaid and I think they enjoy dancing together :) I usually work from a very rough idea and continue adding elements in the process. The caption "If you dance, I'll dance with you" just came up when I almost finished the details.

This illustration is designed for a greeting card but it suits well on a notebook cover (and other stationery items) too. And here my dolphin notebook with front and back view!



Please note that although this drawing collection is already posted in my facebook page, it is not for sale on my etsy shop yet. I'm in the process of revamping my shop and plan to reopen it very very soon. Just want to share my working process here so you know what I'm working on. I think, in a way, sharing this publicly prevents me from slacking off too! :D