Moving to my new home : www.onmerryday.com

I have been working on my new web site for some time and recently decided to move my site to Squarespace. It has nice and clean templates and easy interface. This site is still under construction but you can view my about page and I have already exported blog posts over there. I'm pretty excited with my new home as it will contain everything merry that I have made and done including the section of merry diy which I'm working on right now. 

Welcome to my new home www.onmerryday.com and meet me at my new blog!

Year of the Spark : one-line drawings

Last year I took Carla Sonheim's wonderful online class called, Year of the Fairy Tale. I loved it so much that I didn't hesitate to sign up for her new class for this year, Year of the Spark. I had first learned of her name through the Drawing Lab book but didn't think about her work much until I watched her videos of drawing tutorials. I love her smile. She has an aura of Muse that whenever I watch her enthusiastic face, I feel like I want to get a pencil or a brush and work with her :)

Year of the Spark is a collaborative class of 2 mixed media artists, Carla and Lynn Whipple. I don't know much about Lynn yet but she really looks fun in the class introduction video and I'm looking forward to learn more of her work next week.

Mixed media art is not really in my comfort zone. I have graphic design background and generally have clean organized look in my design. However, I feel that my work will look more fun and more attractive if I can be a little more relaxed and play more with paints and paper.

Above are sketches of our first assignment : to do one-line drawings. I actually had a headache when this first assignment was posted and I considered it as an art therapy while doing the homework. I felt fun, relaxed and enjoyed the time I had with marker and paper. Next step is to play more with different medium. I'm going to post it here soon. Below is my draw everyday 179 in which I used the one-line drawing technique. It's not really one line but I tried to lift my hand as little as possible :)

I hope you enjoy what I'm sharing here. Coming more next week :D

MerryDay Goes to School : Make Art That Sells Bootcamp 2015

I'm going to school again! If you have read this blog long enough (at least since 2013) you may remember that I took an online design course, Make Art That Sells in 2013. The course focused on design, illustration and art business. I learned so much from the class and always thinking about it. (You can read my class experiences on the topic of MerryDay Goes to School in this blog) This year, I decided to take the class again, not the full course but the mini one called MATS Assignment Bootcamp. This Bootcamp focuses on monthly assignments in which the students receive brief of an assignment at the beginning of the month and they have the month to complete it. It is different from the full intensive course as we can work at more relaxed paces but with the same energetic atmosphere in the class group :)

Each assignment starts with the mini which is a topic of drawing and sketching to ease us in the main assignment in the following week. This January's mini is 'Edwardian brooches'. This is quite challenging but when I searched for the keyword in Pinterest, all the gorgeous design just took my breath away. I'm not a jewelry wearer, it just looks too luxurious for me but I love looking at each design closely. Like all forms of art, jewelry design are mostly based on nature, organic shapes and geometric forms. It's fun to look at all the details and try to capture them into drawings. I enjoyed sketching these and felt in love with each design I found on Pinterest. Such beautiful shapes and colors! Can't wait to do the assignment next week :D Below are what I have so far. Sorry for the dark images, I'll do better next time :)

And I also have the topic in today's draw everyday project too. Thank you for coming and please come back as I will have many more art projects to share here.

Have a merry day!

draw everyday 173 : little drawing in little notebook

Staying at my mom's home tonight. I didn't bring the draw everyday sketchbook with me so I just grabbed my nieces' kid markers and drew on a little notebook instead. 

This drawing is part of my draw everyday project. You can follow my daily updates via MerryDay facebook and instagram :) 

Happy New Year 2015!

Happy New Year 2015! May you have a merry and fruitful year!

I'm especially excited for this year as I will be participating in a lot of creative art swap groups and art classes. It will be another year of creativity and more focus on my art and business. So, my resolution for this year is to have constant focus on each and every projects. Create, share and blog. Make this year of 2015 as fruitful as possible!

Here are classes I will take beginning this month. Promise to myself to blog about them every week :)

• Watercolor painting class (live class)

• Make Art that Sells Assignment Bootcamp

• Carla Sonheim's Year of the Spark