Sunday Sketch and my gratitude

Peaceful Sunday. I have tried to leave Sundays in my planner blank for each week. It's supposed to be no-work day but some Sundays I just can't help it :) It's going to be sketch-only day though so that I won't feel drained out too early next week.

Sunday sketch today is also my work, a new drawing collection. I call it 'secret garden' at first but maybe it doesn't completely go with other keywords I set for drawing which are flowers, fruits, birds and grateful. The theme of gratitude comes from a friend's post on my facebook feed about her husband noting down three things he felt grateful for each day. It's a common idea you hear constantly but it is really an idea that we tend to take it for granted especially when we are so busy with our lives. It's also strange that people tend to focus on bad things that happen rather than good things that we have.

I'm still working on how I present the theme in different formats. A Thank you card for sure and cute little gift tags. I also want to see it in bookplates and how about letter set? People write letters less but there are those who cherish the more intimate friendship activity and it would be nice if I can make some lovely paper that someone would love to put their writing on and send to their friends. I have just got a feedback from a customer who bought my Flower Kraft letter set saying that she can't wait to write letters to her pen pals. It's just a simple feedback but it struck me that my work could be a part of someone's loving activity and I feel really happy. To be honest, I'm still struggling with my sales on Etsy but you have to know that a short line feedback like this really keeps me going. I think this can fall in the gratitude theme :)

I think I need to get going and do some more sketches. I hope you enjoy my 365 days I draw project. I'm really far behind the schedule but believe me I'm trying to draw everyday :) There are two more posts I want to talk about Make Art That Sells class too. This needs organized thoughts and as I'm writing in English which is not my native language, it will take some time :)

Thanks for coming. Hope you have a merry weekend.

:)

365 days I draw (day 123-126)

Hello Saturday. Still working on my new drawing collection, my 365 days I draw and try to write another Make Art That Sells post. I feel a bit overwhelmed sometimes but they are all what I love to do so I shouldn't be complaining :)

Here are what I have drawn so far for my 365 days I draw project.

Have a merry weekend!


day 126 : entrance


day 125 : plot

day 124 : salad


day 123 : literature

MerryDay Goes to School : Gift (pouch design)

Two more posts plus an extra one about Make Art That Sells Class. I wish I could be more disciplined in both writing and reading other lovely blogs. But here I am trying as best I can...

Make Art That Sells class's last week is about Gift. Everyone in the class has his or her own favorite topic they had expected to learn more. Most of them including me said it's children book week we eagerly waited. It was a fun and challenging week but after class ended, I found that the Gift week is related to what I have always wanted to do most.

My MerryDay on etsy is focusing on stationery design and illustration items which can be produced at home by myself as I want to start it small first. But I have always imagined it in my head that, in the future, I would have a range of various kind of products--coffee mugs, tote bags,  pouches... anything in gift shops.  This class helps direct me to focus on what to do to reach that goal :)

We had done pattern, plate design, children's book, wall art and in this Gift week, we got to do a pouch.  As usual, we started with a mini exercise first : to gather things you love to collect.

Most students had large collections of various kinds of things, buttons, miniature dolls, stones, stamps etc. As for me, I don't collect anything seriously except children's picture books which I have started collecting recently. I have also just moved from my parent's big house to live with my husband in a small apartment. So, I had really limited collection here.







The reason Lilla wanted us to collect things as much as possible was that we had to do a hyper-lush pouch for the main assignment.  I heard the word hyper-lush for the first time but it didn't take me long to picture how the pouch would be with such style as Lilla had tons of examples to show us.  If you wonder what exactly is the 'hyper-lush' style, you can get a general idea from these google images.

Basically, the style involves around vivid colors, a lot of large and small flowers or photo objects overlapped or crammed in. This was quite a challenge for me as I usually work in simple graphic style and when there's too much going on I tend to lose my grip on overall design. Lilla said we didn't need to do the hyper-lush, she just showed us the current trend in fashion which could be done in gift product line too. I was quite sure that I couldn't do it but it never hurt to try :) So I started by sketching things from my little collection.



I tried doing photo collage and failed so I went back to something I was more familiar with, digital illustration. I still want to have a look of the hyper-lush with my own illustration style and here is my initial pencil sketch of the pouch.


I found that it was much easier to do the digital work when I had the pencil sketch. The sketch was quite complete and I could imagine how it would turn out so I didn't have problem to visualize it into this digital form.



Before I started this drawing, the idea of this color palette, mint, magenta and taupe, suddenly came to me when I saw a mini-cooper car in cute mint color drove pass me one day and I thought 'oh, I'm going to have a mint pouch!' and magenta and taupe sort of come along after that. You have to love the moment when inspiring things happen while you are doing something else :)

Above is the hyper-lush pouch in my style. I tried imagining this design in various kind of products and it's very exciting to see that there are so many possibilities from only one theme, one design!

So, this is the end of the Make Art That Sells class part A. I'm going to join in part B this October. I still feel the energy and inspirations going on in me and I think I have more focus on my goal too. I will wrap it up about how I feel and what I have learned from this class in the next post.

Thanks for coming and have a merry day :D

365 Days I Draw (day 122 : finger)

Day 122 : finger :)

I'm in the process of working on playground theme for Global Talent Search at Lilla Rogers Studio. Don't expect to win just want to see how far I can go. The drawing will be made into a new collection for my shop too. So, there's nothing to lose :D

Have a merry Tuesday!

365 Days I draw ( day 120-121)

I have neglected my little project 365 Days I Draw for months. Time to get back and seriously continue. Here is my day 121, the topic is Shop. And below is my day 120 which I forgot to post it earlier, the topic is Baby.

It's a digital drawing day today. I hope I can post some sneak peek of my playground drawing here soon :)

Have a merry Monday!

ps. my drawings for 365 Days I Draw are scattered everywhere right now. I plan to get them all in one place soon. Meanwhile, you can look at my flick or my facebook for what I have drawn so far. :)

merry weekend :)

Merry weekend :D Going to spend this weekend sketching for my new drawing collection. The theme is 'playground' :)

I'm also excited about taking a mixed media art class starting next week! Have not forgot to talk about Make Art That Sells final week. I'll definitely post it soon :)

Ps. Just got blogger app on my iphone, hopefully it will help me blog more regularly?

MerryDay Goes to School week 4 : wall art assignment

So, Make Art That Sells class has already ended but the energy of the students in the class is still going. We are talking about how far we have developed in just only 5 weeks. But to complete my record of this class experience, I need to talk about week 4 and week 5 homework first :)

For week 4, we learned about wall art market. As usual, Lilla introduced us to beautiful wall art in the market. She emphasized that as this kind of art would be hung in someone's place for a very long time, the piece would have to be charming and refreshing enough so that you wouldn't get bored too easily. It should be something that you can find new things or feel refreshed whenever you look at it. Colors are key and we started this week assignment with a lovely mini exercise : to find items based on colors of our astrological signs.  My sign is cancer and pink and yellow are my favorite. I was so glad to have this duo as they are colors that I always relate to my MerryDay. Happy and merry colors :D



In each week, Lilla always encouraged us to go beyond our familiar boundary. To try new things, new techniques, look at things with fresh eyes. If I normally work digitally, this is a chance to try traditional medium and I did. :)



The main assignment is to create a collage-style wall art for a shop like Anthropologie.com or UrbanOutfitters.com. The piece should have floral elements, either as a focal point or just tiny details. I haven't done collage and complete canvas painting since college time, felt a little nervous at first but decided to dive in anyway. Knowing that acrylic paint could be painted over, I felt more at ease and actually painted white over the first layout that I didn't like and started all over again :P



Then it came the part of collage, gluing things on surface. This was very difficult as I was so used to hitting delete or command +Z  buttons. I really just didn't know what and where I should put on the piece. I ended up pasting only a few scraps of wrapping paper and cutting shapes from coffee filter paper. I really liked the subtle texture and color of this filter paper (the light brown flower pod shapes below) although it absorbed too much ink and you couldn't draw a lot of details on it but it's really a nice touch :)



I really liked the details on the big flower pod but when I tried hanging it up on the wall, it just lost it own charm. The details got lost and there's nothing popping up to you when viewed from afar.



So, as mush as I loved what I did on the flower pod, I decided to cover it with bright yellow paint. The solid yellow shapes helped, I think, make the overall image look better. Now it had a strong focal point and here is my final painting.


To be honest, I don't think this painting suits Anthropologie or UrbanOutfitters. I believe they want to see something with more exciting elements. Something with strong visual contrast? But I do think this is for my own MerryDay shop and the fact that I tried to do something I was not comfortable with at first makes me proud. After all, in this class, the process of working and learning along the way is much more important than the end results. :)



I had so much fun painting acrylic that I did another design. This time, it looked more like me and MerryDay.  I did the rough sketch above and then painted the final on watercolor paper below. I think I love this design better and began to think of incorporating acrylic painting with digital drawing and maybe a bit of collage. There are so many things to learn and the idea makes me excited and eager to experiment. Who knows It can be a great step that leads me to even more unique style of mine :D




You have to love this inspiring moment. I haven't reached my goal yet but it feels like it when I know which way I will go :)

Thanks for coming. I will talk about week 5 assignment and my thoughts after class very soon.

Have a merry day!

MATS week 5 sneak peek

A bit busy this week and it's the final week of Make Art That Sells class. I'm going to post about my week 4 and week 5 assignments here next week. And the cute things in picture above are sneak peek of what I'm working on right now ;)

Thanks for coming and have a merry day :D