Sweet me ?

I have been quite busy with my work this week and will be so next week too with the Chinese New Year Day added to it :-). I think what is challenging to me right now is how to balance all the things I want to do (work, Etsy, sketchbook) properly and productively. I try to create at day when there's enough natural light for me to work on computer without stressing my eyes. Communicate at night when I can just sit back and enjoy all the beautiful blogs and sites. I still think I haven't visited and commented all of your blogs often enough though. Will try harder. I love the feeling of commenting and getting feedback. ^-^

I have just added this new illustration card in my shop. It comes from a doodle I drew last November The doodle was done in red and blue lines, which I really like but I also wanted to see the flower in color too :-) I always like pastel pink. The color gives me a feeling of fresh air and sweet moments or rose tea. Something innocently romantic :-)

I think 'Thinking of You' is an appropriate caption for this design, but I like this 'Sweet me' better. It sounds like cute and friendly 'tweet me' :-) What do you think?

You can find my card here : Sweet Me Flower Girl card

It's Saturday already. The weather is a bit cool this morning and I feel like doing nothing all day!

Hmm...this post seems written incoherently, sorry about that. Somehow my head is so foggy that I cannot even take in a good news that comes in my mail this morning :-)

Better get up and do some exercise to clear my head now.

Thanks for coming. I wish you a merry day :-)

Come fly with me

Hmm...I have just realized that I completely forgot to post about my latest illustration card! How could I let it slip from my mind??

Anyway, I listed this Come Fly with Me Hot Balloon design card in my shop just last week. I got the concept from my best friend. She wanted a cute illustration New Year card for her fan club (she's a novelist). Book and traveling were keywords. I thought of airplane and travel luggage first but they seemed so dry. Then I thought of a blogger talking about her hot balloon experience over canyon. I was impressed. It must have been mesmerizing moment to be up there in the sky, feel cool breeze and admire the beauty of the earth.

So, here is my illustration originated from the idea. My friend got her personalized version, of course. She is kind enough to let me put the design on my shop too. I really enjoy drawing this and the result is satisfying.

If you like this, please share. It would be nice to see my girl riding balloon and be out in the bigger world of internet!

Sunday sketch

I have tried to make Sunday my non-digital day, no digital drawing, no internet just hand drawn art or reading, for some time. But sometimes, like today, I just can't help it. I turn on computer, check mails and do some work. I know that I will feel tired tomorrow, probably feeling like I have no rest from previous week. So, I think I'd better be offline and read something now :-)

Have a merry weekend everyone!

sketchbook : new theme

So now I'm beginning a new sketchbook. This time I prepared the book first. I use the same kind of book which is Moleskine cahier. The downside of this cahier is that its paper is very thin so I have to back up every other pages to make it thicker. My Sketchbook Project has all kind of different colored paper sheets. But for this book, I choose to limit only yellow, brown, gray and black :-)

As for the theme, I first thought of 'nature', something that I always enjoyed drawing but it might be too familiar already so I thought about 'birds', which I rarely drew and wanted to practice drawing. Then one of my MerryDay FB page's friends, Susi Art suggested this theme of 'friendship'. I think the idea is very interesting and challenging. So, here my first page of the new sketchbook.

Now, do you want to join me in building this book? I'm looking for nice, cute or funny quotes about friendship to draw. Just tell me your favorite quotes or your own words and I will draw for you!

My most favorite quote right now is:

"A good friend will always stab you in the front." — Oscar Wilde.

This is not nice nor cute but quite funny and definitely true!

Drawing Lab Challenge compilation

I spent last week taking new pictures of all my Etsy items on my shop. I think the shop looks more refreshing now. I'm also creating a new cute design set. Will talk about it soon. But for today, let's talk about some sketching!

I have totally neglected my participation in Drawing Lab Challenge for so long. It's about time to catch up with it now.

These are 3 labs I just did last weekend. Not really complete pieces, just hand drawn practice and I enjoyed them very much :-)

Lab 41 : Nature Walkabout

The idea of this lab is to grab paper and pen and walk outside, observe and draw whatever you see. Fill the page. Come back and connect all the things you draw together to make one piece of work. This is my final:



And this is what I had drawn before:



Lab 12 : For Your Eyes Only

Basically just to draw eyes. There are more details in this practice but I was too tired to follow everything. So, I just enjoyed drawing. First realistically:



Then stylized:



I wish I would draw more weird shapes, play something with these but it seems that I kept repeating some similar lines. My imagination didn't work very well that night :-P

The last one, Lab 24 : Scribbly Drawings

Just scribble. Work lines from within not from outline as we generally do. I drew my little bear doll. It's a strange feeling not to draw outline first but It's getting more fun as I drew and drew. I guess I could keep on drawing through the whole book!



I love my little bear running on the lower right corner, do you?

Last Day of FREE SHIPING!

Today (January 15) is the last day of MerryDay's FREE SHIPPING! There is more cuteness to come but, to save some money, why don't you grab this chance first!

Have a merry day! ^-^

Sketchbook Project 2011 : mission complete!!

And now it's all done! My Sketchbook Project 2011 is all done! Forgive my repetition but I'm doing happy dancing and feeling so relieved now :-D I spent my whole yesterday drawing and coloring like mad, all 22 pages! I got really dizzy at the end of the day :-P

There are some pages that I don't quite like so I don't put them here but I have already uploaded the whole book on my flickr set for you to browse. The pages are not in chronological order as I jumped around through the book.

Now I think I will choose some of these pages and make them into digital prints or cards for my shop. What do you think? I have already done my most favorite : Savor the Moment and will show it here soon.

If you have time, please go and look at the whole book and tell me which one you like best. I'm really curious!

Thank you so much for all your comments. You really keep me going and please come back as I will continue another sketchbook project, this time of my own! :-D