Book Beauty Monday : I am a Bunny by Richard Scarry

Books are my main source of inspirations, especially those with beautiful covers and lovely illustrations. I have been updating (on and off) on this blog and my other facebook page about beautiful books I collect since I discovered the joy of looking at beautiful book blogs like Books-by-its-cover and Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Now that I decided to make this blog a better recorder of my creative life, I'm going to include my book collection here too. Besides, it 's much easier to search old posts here on blog than in facebook :)

And this is my latest update, I am a Bunny by Richard Scarry. It seems that Scarry's works are childhood favorite for a lot of people but I have to confess that I have just learned of his name a few years ago when there were suddenly many books of his works republished and for sale in my local bookshop. Love his sweet character, how he used colors and play with composition. Beautiful, beautiful book :)

The magic of drawing

I'm getting (very slowly) back to blogging and drawing. This short film is just the right film.
She is my Muse.

Book Beauty Monday : Water Paper Paint

I took watercolor class once in high school and once in college. I tried other kinds of paints like acrylic and gouache too and I think watercolor painting is the most difficult for me. The paint seems too hard to control and fix when I ruin something. Still, I love looking at watercolor paintings. They usually give out the feeling of sweet, lively happiness.

I found this book accidentally and was immediately drawn to beautiful cover and inside layout. There are so many watercolor painting books in the market but most of them look like textbooks with busy layout design and I feel heavy looking at them. 

This Water Paper Paint looks different. The book has such light and airy layout design with beautiful colored photos laid out carefully and cleverly throughout the book. The content is readable and practical too. The writer gradually walks you through each step from basic knowledge of the paint, its equipment, how to take care of them and all the different techniques. The main fun is all the projects the writer explains in step-by-step which seem so easy to follow along.

Although I'm more a digital painter, the book is so beautiful and inviting that I want to try some lessons in the book :) This will be a valuable reference and good for inspiration for years to come too!

I have taken some shots of the lovely pages here. Enjoy!

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 :)

Book Beauty Monday : Painted Pages

I found this book while I was browsing some other books on art shelf in my local bookstore. I'm not really a mixed-media person. I just hate cleaning up art equipments after painting or drawing, to be honest. But I do love watching other artists working in this art field. Their patience in doing layers step by step always amazes me.

This book grabbed me instantly with the first spread layouts. My job mostly focuses on book design so it's kind of my habit to look at cover and text layout of each book first. Sometimes if I open a book and find something in design terms that I don't like (lousy use of fonts, bad layout design etc.) I generally put it down. This book has it all that I love, airy layout, easy to read text, gorgeous colorful photos, I especially love its chapter pages with full spreads of closed-up photos. The overall color palette just grabbed me too. The art director of this book really did a good job to present Sarah's unique character. If you go look at her website and blog, you will see how this book is really a connection.

I hadn't heard of Sarah Ahearn Bellemare before but after looking through this book, I fell in love with her work. I have seen several of mixed-media art pieces but I think I love her work best. Her paintings give out the feeling of happiness and remind me of childhood with sweet, bright and colorful world.

The book has a lot of interesting sections: Sarah's own art experiences, her creative journey, step by step working process, some mixed-media techniques (which although I don't do this art, I enjoy reading it anyway) inserted with inspiring short notes and I love the guest artists interviews!

I think you can tell how much I love this book, find it if you haven't had a copy yet :)

Joining creative group and today is red!

I always love the idea of creating art based on keywords. That's how I start with each of my graphic design work project, find main keywords and develop connections from those words.  My 365 days I draw works with this idea too, also the Treasure Hunt photo prompts I talked about last week and other creative groups I found on blogs and facebook.

The latest one is from a facebook group called #amonthof. The general concept of this group is to create things based on keywords the group members select for each month. For this April, it's a month of color. And red is the first!

I spend most of my time in my studio which is also my home. So, I don't have many shots of traveling outside. I love taking pictures of everyday things though. The red plastic spoons come with ice cream boxes, I think. The red and green apple pattern is on cookie tin box which I bought just because of its pretty package :P and the beautiful red rose gift wrapping paper for the background.

Below is the other shot of my favorite thing. It's not red-red thing but I think the same red rose wrapping paper could help :) It's a close-up shot of my recently-bought notebook which replicating illuminated manuscript art. The details are embossed beautifully. It's a bit expensive but I can't help it. I'm glad I did buy it now :)

Thanks for coming, have a merry red-red day everyone :D

How do you find inspiration each day?

How do you find inspiration each day?

I used to live my life as I like it. I mean if I woke up one morning and didn't feel like working or creating, I wouldn't do it thinking forcing myself to do things when I was not inspired was fruitless. I would never do good works anyway. But now I realized that that was a kind of giving up without even attempt to start. The key is that when you get uninspired, don't let such boredom bring you down. I could be bored and depressed for days or even week! That's not good for my creative work at all.  So, I try to adjust myself, to try to find something to inspire me whenever I begin to feel bored.

Generally, I would go to books, browsing through beautiful illustrations, reading lovely words. Or I would go through all the lovely blogs or go to coffee shop, sketching and watching people. Today I have realized that you can get inspired on a daily basis with some payment.

That doesn't sound good, right? To buy inspiration? But I have learnt that it's really worthwhile to pay some money to support those who work so hard with their words, their research and their inner selves to get people inspired.  This I mean some e-courses I have taken. One of them is Creative Courage, Not sure if I talked about this class on this blog yet. I have enrolled for this course twice already and both session give me so much.

Another class is Treasure Hunt photo prompts from Andrea Scher's Superhero life. This is a self-paced class where I get photo prompts in my mailbox everyday. The thing is that Andrea doesn't send me just topics and tell me to shoot this or that. But she sends her little stories along with the topics too. It's just like reading mini inspiring posts everyday. The topics get me curious and want to go out take some photos, her voice gets me inspired and want to do more of creative things. She makes me think, that is.

These two classes made me write the word 'each day' How do you find inspiration each day? These classes give me inspiration each day and I think it's very important to wake up each morning and ask myself what will inspire me today. Don't wait for inspiration, sometimes you have to find one for yourself to keep your creative life on track.

The picture above is what I'm working on, to build up my work for my shop and my portfolio. Yes. I'm still working and I think this is the reason I wake up and try to find inspiration so that I can keep this work going :)

How about you? How do you find inspiration each day?

Book beauty Monday : Charlotte Voake

Light and airy are words I think of when the name of Charlotte Voake comes to my mind. I'm not sure when I first saw her work. It seems that her works have been considered classic to me for a long time. Strangely enough, as much as I love her illustration, this book is the only one I own.

When I was a kid, Aesop's fables are my favorite. The Thai edition at that time was printed in separate stories. Each was thin and small, about postcard-size I think. I collected several stories and put them in a pretty box, like a treasure. I don't know where that box is now though. I recognize just a few of these stories. It's nice to read them again and enjoy another illustration version. And I think I love this version the best :)

Looking at her work, I imagine her sitting in her studio, a pencil in her hand and then she raises her wand (the pencil) and suddenly the magic is in the air. :D Come to think of it, maybe the word I'm looking for is 'friendly'. Her work is like a sweet friend whom we can sit with and enjoy sharing our dreams and imagination under the beautiful blue sky or something like that :)

I want to talk more of her art but sometimes admiration cannot be put into words. So, I hope you enjoy her magic :) Also, This book, Insect Detective, looks very interesting too. Love the idea and the name of the book :)

Before you go, I wonder, how many stories of Aesop's fables you remember and which one is your favorite. Mine is The Hare and the Tortoise. It's the only one I remember best :P