Butterfly Girl Sketch

Initial sketch for my new drawing collection. This is in a quite slow progress as I do it along with updating my web site. This style may look quite different from what I have done so far for my shop. It's not new to me though. I have drawn similar girls since I first started my art study.



This is the very first drawing I did when I applied for art school. The original one is hand drawn on a large drawing sheet (not sure where it is now), then I drew it again on computer. Since it's done digitally and I had limited knowledge of Illustrator program's function at the time, the drawing looks so dry to me now.



Here is another one. I think I did this for Illustration Friday on the topic of 'Mysterious' some years ago. I did some more of this style after that. Then I dropped it.

Now I find that I still enjoy sketching this kind of drawing and I think it would be great if I can incorporate this with my current sketching style. So, I'm working on it now.

Let's see what I can come up with :-)

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you have a creative day! :D

Honey & Lemon for You

Doodling while working :) The pink flower does not really relate to honey or lemon. I'm just having a coughing symptom now. So annoying :-(

sketchbook continued

No, I haven't dropped my friendship sketchbook theme yet. I guess my brain didn't work properly while drawing this though. I meant 'facebook', don't know why I drew 'me' instead :P But I think you get the idea :)

FruityCute Girl and inspired doodles

I have two things to show you today. First is my most favorite character, FruityCute Girl :-D. The design is one of the first drawings I did when I started my Etsy shop. The very first version of this girl looks very different. Her face was fat and she didn't smile prettily as the latest version does. It's the same drawing but just a bit of line adjustment can make the two girls look so different. :-)

You can find my FruityCute Girl notepads on my shop now.

Second is my inspired doodles! Here are my doodles for the topic of 'library' and 'sunshine'. Click on the image to see the larger version:



I like the idea of mobile library although I have never seen one :-)



I have always wanted to publish my own book, written, illustrated and designed by me. I guess I have to start writing a complete manuscript first!



Lollipop looks like sunshine and it makes you smile, doesn't it?

The Sunshine girl on the right page is a character I would like to be. She is always positive, energetic and she can be happy even in cloudy days :-D

Hope you enjoy my post. Have a merry, sunshine day!

Inspired Doodles : cat

I drew these last night. Not really thought of anything at first. Then some stories just came to me :-) I especially enjoy the top one, the nightmare of the faceless cat and sweet scene of a Victorian cat's tea time :D

Next topics are 'library' and 'sunshine'. Wondering what I will come up with ;-)

Off to take some photos of my new shop items now.

Inspired Doodles workshop

This month I'm taking an online workshop with Stephanie, an inspiring illustrator I admire. The workshop is called Inspired Doodles. I was a little worried at first wondering if I could manage my time properly. But now that I cleared up all my work and it seems that it's going to be a slow period again, I guess I will have more things to post here :-)

Above are my doodles for the workshop. I haven't drawn as much as I should have as I spent this couple of days making new design for my shop. Below are my two last items for my 10 Million Love design collection. I still love my little yellow duck girl but I guess it's about time to move on to new designs :-)

Here are links to these latest items, in case you are interested :-)

Little Yellow Duck label stickers

Baby Yellow Duck Girl label stickers

Sketchbook : friendship is a sheltering tree

I'm super busy again. But I will try drawing at night :-)

Some more sketches

Have you ever been like me? Have tons of ideas going on in your brain but zero energy to work more on computer to create things. That happens to me right now and I'm feeling a bit frustrated :-( But I guess I have to take care of my health first. Going to take a rest. Charge my work battery for next week. Enjoy my weekend! :-D

By the way, I did my friend-theme sketch at night. I intended to have only black and red but, with poor light, I mistook blue as black! Well...I guess it still looks OK :-P

I'm going off line to sit back, relax and read something now. What are you going to do this weekend?

Oh...almost forgot. My Merry Rabbit bookplate got to Etsy front page yesterday! It's the first time for my shop, so excited! ;-D

my sketchbook (plus some secrets :-)

No, I haven't forgotten my sketchbook yet. Although it is pretty slow, I'm always thinking about it :-) This week is a good (and busy) week. I have got five shop orders, one book layout and three book covers to manage. Plus two exciting things I have to take care.

One of them I cannot tell you yet because I'm not so sure about it at this moment. I think it could take months to be certain enough to tell the world (and it's possible that this thing will never happen too!) The other thing I think I can tell you as soon as tomorrow :-)

Too many secrets? Here's a hint for the latter: go and read this link. Browse around, enjoy and don't forget to come back here tomorrow!

Thanks for coming. Have a merry day :-D

February free desktop calendar :-)

Hope it's not too late for this February desktop calendar :-) I thought I would use other colors because this true red might look too strong for a desktop wallpaper. But other colors didn't look as charming as this red so I stick with it.

Come to think of it, it might be the right choice for this month, the month of Valentine, of course, and also of Chinese New Year Day, in which, red is the lucky color. So, now you have love, luck and wealth with this true red desktop calendar :-)

It's free for you to download. Just click on the links below:

1024x768

1680x1050

Talk about luck, I think I'm getting a habit of saying 'Wish me luck today' when I get up each morning. It doesn't always work, of course (just a wish anyway), but when it does, like today, I feel like saying it everyday.

What's my luck today? I sold 5 items from my shop, so excited! I have nice ideas for my book cover job and I could do 45-minute exercise (35 minute used to be my max.)

In all, it's a merry day :-)

How about you? What makes you feel merry today?

PS Thanks for all you comments about my time management post. I'm starting using the timer now, will tell you how it works.:-)

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 :-)

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?

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

Sketchbook Project progress : almost there! part2 :-)

Another pages for my Sketchbook Project 2011. If you just happen to come here, I have uploaded all my previous pages of this book on my flickr here There are more to come and I really really need to finish it by Sunday *finger crossed*

In the mean time, I have just been given a Stylish Blogger Award from 2 lovely fellow bloggers, yeevon and Saralynnart! Thanks so much you guys. I feel so honored :-D

Basically, the award works like this:

• Thank and link back to the person that awarded me.
• Share 7 things about myself.
• Pay it forward to 15 recently discovered bloggers.
• Contact those bloggers about the award!

Here are my 7 things:

• I am a super sleepy person. I don't fall asleep too easily, not like that, but I can yawn all day and always have a look of Garfield, you know, with half-lidded eyes like this (-_-) Coffee just makes me sleepier too, really!

• I grew up reading Japanese manga and spent my time after school drawing paper dolls, mostly with same repeated outfits :-P

• I never kept a complete sketchbook. I could fill only half of school sketchbook and never colored in it. That's why I'm pretty proud with my Sketchbook Project here:-)

• I'm a book-buying addict. My speed of reading is far behind the speed of buying :-P Anyone knows any group therapy?

• One of my client once said that my work looked much merrier than my appearance (read the first one) -_-

• My favorite time of day is at night when I sit quietly reading or sketching or doing nothing :-)

• I love using my favorite mechanical pencil drawing on Caslon Sketchbook. Never use ordinary pencil.

• My favorite drink right now is banana milk :-)

That's it! Just silly things but now you know me better ^-^ and now I pass on the awards to:

the yellow umbrella
Kristin Dudish
Facets and Fractals
Evelyn
Illustrations and Fimo Characters
The Quotidian Journal
pop-i-cok
melissa liban illustrations
Property of Kelly
My Giant Strawberry
vink design
life without novacaine
red yarn
waterstone
sweet tidings

Before you go, have you seen my new item for Valentine's Day yet? >>

I Give My Love to You Valentine's Day Gift Card by MerryDay on Etsy

Sketchbook Project progress : almost there!

I try to draw every night. There's still more I have to show here and 12 spreads to fill in. My mind already jumps to the next sketchbook. This time it will be my own project so that I don't have to part with it at the end as I have to for the Sketchbook Project 2011 :-(. I feel sad already but to think that more people will see my drawings, it's kind of exciting!

I should finish this book by the end of this week. I must, actually :-P

Happy New Year 2011 (and a free calendar desktop :-)

Happy New Year everyone! The rabbit year is welcoming us and I'm pretty sure she will be kind and cute just like my rabbit ^-^

There are so many projects I have noted down for this new year. One thing is definitely the Sketchbook Project 2011 which I haven't completed it yet and there are 15 days left! My Sketchbook fellow, Catherine has just finished her book and I feel so happy for her. What could be happier to complete a project at the end of the year? It makes us more confident and ready to start a new journey at the beginning of the new year, I guess. I envy her :-)

Another thing that I vow that I must make it better is my MerryDay shop. I started the shop on January last year but I admit that I didn't put enough effort to make it live. This year I am going to push myself more. Be more creative, be more disciplined. That's what I try to recite to myself since I did the Art Every Day Month last November

These two projects (Sketchbook Project and Art Every Day) really help me focus and I feel that they have already contributed to my Etsy attempt. My shop still looks the same just now but I have already prepared new items, new look for it. Just have to shoot photos and make new listings :-)

Meanwhile, do you want my January rabbit calendar for your desktop? You can download it here. There are 2 sizes :

1024x687 : pavinees.com/wallpaper/merry_wall01_1024.jpg
1680x1050 : pavinees.com/wallpaper/merry_wall01_1680.jpg