Reading Heidi on merry Sunday

I have been really crazy reading children's books lately. Especially the ones written before I was born. No vampires, wizards or exciting adventures. Just simple ordinary lives of children living in a period long time ago. I bought this edition of Heidi years ago but just actually read it today. Then I found Heidi Puffin postcard matching perfectly with the book. I use it as bookmark :)

Lovely reading and lovely Sunday. I wish you have a merry time as I do :)

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

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 I had thought the content might be outdated already due to its age but delightfully found that it was still helpful in the present time context.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 :)

What is your favorite drawing subject?

What is your favorite drawing subject?

I think my favorite drawing subject might be butterfly as you can see here, here, here and here. What I like the most is beautiful pattern design on their wings. No man can design such beauty like Nature herself, we can only be inspired by her great work :)

I had tried to find this kind of butterfly encyclopedia book for some time. Most of the butterfly books I saw have very realistic photographic images which scare me a bit (I don't like insects). So, this book with soft-colored illustrations is just perfect for me. Take a look inside here:




So beautiful, aren't they? Maybe my next drawing would be something inspired by these lovely butterfly :)

Oh! this book comes with a comparison sheet here, very nice! :D


Hope you enjoy your day. See you with my next drawing hopefully with butterfly.:D

My latest indulgence

Beautiful postcards featuring classic Puffin book covers. Some of these match with books I already own. I guess it's also their strategy to provoke potential readers' curiosity when they see unfamiliar book illustrations and want to know what the stories are about ^-^

For Just One Day by Marc Boutavant

As piles of unread books in my room was getting higher and higher, I thought I would stop going to bookshop for at least 3 months. I think I already knew it would be mission impossible though. It has been just only about a month and a half and with so much work and stress plus some sickness, yesterday I suddenly felt an urge to have beautiful books in my hands. I did go out and came back home with 2 bags of books!

So, I have just used almost half of my fee for my latest work which I have been working on for a month in one day!

I think it's worthwhile though because I am absolutely happy with all the books I bought. Especially this one.

If you like children's picture books, I'm sure you must know this amazing illustrator, Marc Boutavant

'For Just One Day' is a wonderful book of 'let's pretend' theme. For just one day, what would you like to be?

I think, for just one day, I would like to be Marc Boutavant himself. Just want to know how he sees the world and how he can illustrate such wonderful book.

Now enjoy the inside pages :-)

illustrated book covers

Apologies for the long absence. I won't say any excuses except that it's all my fault for neglecting this blog for so long.

I don't have any drawing to show today. These book covers are what I did a couple of months ago. They are series of Japanese-teaching text books and since the covers are illustration focus, I think it's appropriate to post in this blog.

Generally, my book cover design would look more graphic. but it has been getting more and more illustration-oriented lately. It's more work on details and time-consuming on each piece but I feel it has more charm and style.

I enjoyed doing these illustration pieces very much :-) You can click on the images to see the bigger version in Flickr.

By the way, my MerryDay shop is still on vacation. It will be open again when I'm ready. Thanks for stopping by!