I Like : Chanyeevon's lovely bookplates

♪ lu~la~la~lu ♪

I love the sky.. especially the passing clouds that look like a curious baby whale

I enjoy the beauty.. of million lonely fireflies above the deep blue velvet sky

I listen to the rain.. tapping outside my window on a Sunday morning

Above is what Chanyeevon, the creator of these wonderful bookplates, says in her Etsy profile page. I think it's beautiful and represents her work very well. Go and look around her shop and you will know what I mean :-)

This could be considered as a new year gift I bought for myself :-) It took me some time to choose which one I wanted the most. Actually, I was considering some cute bookplates from Yeevon's other shop, WhimsyWhimsical where you have to visit too, what adorable rabbit and fox drawing! I was torn between the beauty of these girls and cuteness of the fox, finally the girls won :-)

I love her illustration, especially her choice of colors, very unique. The blue-haired girl, I think her name is Luna, makes me think of a peaceful night, sitting under the dark blue sky sprinkled with tiny stars and feeling nice cool breeze. Just wonderful...

Yeevon is also kind enough to give me extra bookplates of her whimsywhimsical's owls and rabbits, Love love them! Thanks Yeevon, you inspire me! ^-^



And you gota love her cute little Thank You card!



*A little update : come and take a look at Yeevon's beautiful unicorn here, took my breath away :-)

Book Beauty Monday : Marguerite and A Christmas Present by Ueda Makoto

I think there's no book more appropriate for this time of year than this book, especially when a lot of people are surrounded by heavy white snow now.

Marguerite and a Christmas Present is written and illustrated by Makoto Ueda, a Japanese author and illustrator. I cannot read Japanese so I'm not sure if it's she or he, the name 'Makoto' could be either male or female as far as I know. I stick with 'he' for now though.

Ueda's illustration is so lovely and mesmerizing. The airy feeling and almost transparent look give me an illusion of standing in a vast space of white snow land. You could almost smell fresh winter air through his book.

You can see more of his/her work here The name of the site is called silentphase.com which I think it suits his style very much.

See the big picture by click on the image and click zoom on flickr page :-)

Sweet Christmas 2010

I love taking pictures of package design I like :-)
Merry Christmas everyone! ^o^ Wish you all a happy holiday!

Sketchbook progress (page 32-33, 34-35)

More pages for Sketchbook Project 2011. ^-^ The first one comes from my favorite quote;

Never be bullied into silence.
Never allow yourself to be made a victim.
Accept no one's definition of life;
DEFINE YOURSELF.
----Harvey Fierstein

And the second one is a tweak of Thai characters.

I think everyone out there are enjoying the coming of the holiday. Hope you all have a merry Christmas!

Book Beauty Tuesday : Le Petit Empereur de Chine

I found this book in a box while I searched for something. It is a French children's book monthly magazine called Les Belles Histoires. The publication date is May 1994, long long time ago. Not sure if the magazine is still running.

The illustration on the cover is the feature story of the volume called Le Petit Empereur de Chine written by Michel Amelin and illustrated by Ulises Wensell, a Spanish illustrator.

I really like the picture style of this story, the soft colors, the details of the settings and the characters' cute expression. Unfortunately, I have just basic knowledge of French language from high school class which is not enough to tell you the story with certainty. So, I will let the images tell the story for you now :-)

Click on the image to go to flickr and click zoom to see the big picture.

Sketchbook Project progress : page 30-31

I completely forgot about Book Beauty Monday :-P I think it has to be Book Beauty Tuesday for this week. Luckily, I still have something to post today.

This is one of the Sketchbook Project spreads I did last night. I think There are about 23 spreads left for me to complete. Hopefully I can make it! ^-^

Sweet and crunchy bird's nest

I found this photo in some old folder. I think I already posted about this on my Thai blog but not on this blog. The balls in the glass are Thai snack called Bird's nest. The orange one is potato and the brownish one is taro, sliced, fried and coated with sugar. It's sweet, crunchy and delicious. If you would like to taste it, you might need to visit my country first ;-)

What I like about this photo is the contrast of the modern glass and the vintage-looking Thai character design. The paper is just a simple label but somehow I found it's quite pretty :-)

It's 9.30 pm now and I feel like reading something before bedtime.
So, whatever time you come and read this, I wish you have a merry day (or night) :-)

PS. Last night I found a helpful post about achieving things that you might be interested :-) Inaction is your enemy

Good Luck stamp

I'm working on a new illustration for my friend. I'm quite excited about this one and plan to give it details and story as much as I can.

In the mean time, this is a pretty rubber stamp I just bought yesterday. I don't do much of stamping things but there was a time when I collected some and this one looks lovely. I wish they had more variety in wording like 'thinking of you' or something like that for me to choose. Anyway, I choose this to stamp on my first page of my newly-bought day planner.

There it is : Good Luck for me in the next year and for you too!

Some flower design

This pattern may be used in card design. Still thinking how I am going to make it more complete. Maybe some lettering? :-)

Today I bought a new daily planner for the coming year. A very simple one. I think time management and self-discipline will be my keywords for my next year :-)

MerryDay Christmas ecard on pingg

Another ecard on pingg.
Christmas is coming and I realize that it's too late for me to do Christmas paper cards for sale on my MerryDay shop What a bad seller I am :-(

However, you can still send this illustration online as an ecard :-) Just go to this link below and send out your love!.

http://www.pingg.com/gallery/design/merryday-christmas

If you send this ecard, please drop me a note. That would make me very happy :-D

I also print it out to see what it looks like on paper. Now I have Christmas cards for my friends.

Book Beauty Monday : A Merry-Mouse Book of Months by Priscilla Hillman

I bought this book from an Etsy shop. I rarely buy vintage books but who could resist these lovely illustrations? The end of the year is coming and the next year is waiting to bring, I hope, positive things to our lives. Why not encourage ourselves with happy drawings of this little book of months? :-)

You can click on the image to see the larger scale on flickr.

Sketchbook Project page 26-27 and 28-29

A bit busy this week but I try to draw at night ;-)

Sketchbook Project page 24-25

Another spread for Sketchbook Project

The right page with red flower lines is not my drawing. It's a back side of shopping bag paper I used in Drawing Lab Challenge which is the book's next page. I just put on the extra lettering :-)

I think I have about half of the book left for the Sketchbook Project. One way to finish it in time is to draw everyday. Hope I can make it!

Book Beauty Monday : Buffalo and His Buddy

This week for my Book Beauty Monday, I would like to show you a beautiful picture book illustrated by Thai artist, Patcha Disyanant.
The book is called Buffalo and His Buddy The story is based on Thai traditional nursery rhyme, rewritten in a beautiful, easy-to-read prose tale. The tale is about a common myna trying to find insects to eat. It encounters various problems and cannot find food until it meets a kind buffalo who lets the little bird eat insects that are annoying him. The tale teaches children about adjustment and dependency.

What I love about this book is the bold simplicity of the illustration that seems to pop up from the white background. Each spread is designed to be viewed as a whole. The zoom-in and crop-up images make the pages look so striking.
I also like how they incorporate text into images beautifully. Although the overall book looks graphically sharp, the detailed texture of each animal softens it. The animals' expressions are so cute and you just can't help keeping looking at all the details. :-)



Pretty layout design of preface page.



A myna is wondering where he can find food and then he says 'Insects love to stay on animals' bodies!'



So he tries flying to an old turtle but the shell is too slippery and he cannot hold on...



He tries going to a hedgehog but he is too spiny and the bird is hurt!



'Try again,' he says. This time he goes to a giraffe but the animal is too tall and no insect flies that high.



The monkeys are next. But they are always jumping and moving. The bird cannot peck at any insect!



The little myna then goes to a kind buffalo. There he can eat lots of insects finally! The bird can eat insects and the buffalo, with the annoying insects got rid of, feels more comfortable. They are so happy!

walk around doodle

I just love drawing on brown paper and I'm glad that I bought this brown paper book. Because of its small size (4x5 inches), I can fill in each page in a few minutes. This works quite well when I cannot complete any bigger artwork to post on busy days like today.

I would call this 'the brown book project'. Well, it's not really a project but the word sounds nice somehow, makes me want to draw in the whole book :-)

This weekend is going to be a big holiday for us who live in Thailand. December 5 is Our King's birthday anniversary. It's also Father's Day. I think I will spend this beautiful time walking around outside with my dad and draw some trees :-)

Merry weekend everyone!

Savor the Moment

I think this spread is eligible for Illustration Friday's this week topic which is 'savor'. It's also another spread for my Sketchbook Project ;-) There's only a few weeks left and I'm beginning to get nervous :-P

What do you think about my barbecue drawing. I think it doesn't look like barbecue but I cannot undo it now :-(
I love doing the pink lettering though. It's fun!

butterfly on my desk

It's the first day of December and the Art Every Day Month has just ended. I feel a bit sad. However, I think I have more confidence in my blogging. I have been blogging since year 2000, but just on and off with general topics. It's the first time that I post in a regular basis and really focus on my art. Drawing and posting (almost) everyday helps my creative juice flowing more smoothly.

I want to talk more about this December. It seems that there's going to be a lot of things going on both in my work and my personal projects. But after a long day work, my eyes are so strained now. I will talk more and maybe with some drawing tomorrow.

The butterfly above is die cut from my sketchbook. It's going to be in my Sketchbook Project but I don't have any exact idea yet :-P

By the way, although there's only a month left for Creative Every Day 2010, Leah says I can still participate and she will host CED2011 too! I have a feeling that it's going to be a great year and I determine to make it the best year for my art :-D

Let's see how far I can go!