Hand Drawn Stuff

Happy post easter week! :)
Let me share the works I did lately that are done by hands.
Figure drawing stuff:

A copy from "Sargent Portrait Drawings: 42 Works by John Singer Sargent."

From a picture of my favorite Japanese writer, Soseki Natsume.

Typographical painting:

Acrylic on canvas.

I did this because I have been keeping up with this website called "Six Word Story Everyday" and wanted to do something similar. I came up with the story, "She slept listening to the silence," inspired by Albert Camus' "The Guest." 

For the style, I looked through works by Jeff Rogers for inspiration. He also went to the school that I go to, and I have heard his talks several times :) He is so nice and a great great designer. Check his website out if you haven't!!! 

Branding Myself

Hi all! I hope you all are doing well. I'm being quite scared by the coming thunderstorm that I hear at work. Being alone in the office today isn't fun... :/
Anyways! I designed a logo for myself in identity design class. Here it is:

I think I'll start using it as my logo! Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Another thing I wanna share is that I GOT A GUITAR!!!!

It's not a great guitar but a good one for a beginner, I heard :) I want to be able to play well enough to make sounds for my videos!

Simple Animations

Hi all :) I'm happy that it's almost weekend!
These days, I'm getting more and more into animation and song writing. Let me share two animations I made this past week here:


Stop motion :)


This one is more of a test. The animation is based on my illustration earlier this year, and the song is still an ongoing project.

I hope you like them!

Me

Hi, I hope you all are having a great weekend!
I'm in Dallas now :) My friend is taking TOEIC test, and I'm working on some projects at a Starbucks. I love big cities!! Being in a big city helps me to be more productive.
Here's the portlait of myself I finished this morning:

I think it pretty much looks like me... do you have any suggestions?

Auction for Japan

Hi all :)
Today I went to get my portfolio, leave behind, and resume printed out. I'm getting ready for the DSVC conference on Saturday. I'm so excited and nervous at the same time because this will be my first formal portfolio review/job interview in English...!! Wish me luck!

Since I got my portfolio done, I will take a little break from graphic design stuff tonight. Instead, let me share the fine art side of me :D

"Nagasaki"

(Honorable mention at Intercollegiate student competition 2011)

"Music"

(Selected in the Intercollegiate Student Competition 2011)

These works(and 2 others) will be sold at the silent auction at Abilene for Japan event on April 9th!
The event will be held in the downtown Abilene. I don't have the details yet, but I'll update it here as soon as I get it. All the proceeds made there will be used for Japan relief aid, so please come support us if you are in Abilene!!

The Optimist article on what we've been doing.

This Is

Hi :) I hope you are having a great weekend!
I worked on the This Is That design.

What do you think?

Also, not to forget about Japan, let me share a video that my friend made.

If you love art and design, Cause for Design is a great place to support Japan! You can purchase designs there, and all the money will be sent to Red Cross.

This is That(edited)

Hi!

I'm working on a design right now called "This is that, and that this is."

Here are 2 versions of it:

I like the phrase, so I want to explore it more.
Please leave a comment if you have any suggestion :)

Cause For Design

Hi :)
As I mentioned in the last post, I designed wall papers for iphones and desktops for Cause For Design fund riser to support Japan. Below are screen shots of the website. You can download the actual designs for $1, and the money will be sent to Red Cross.

Help Japan

Hi, I hope you all are having a great week! I went on a departmental trip to NY for spring break, and just got back to Texas last night. The trip was mind blowing. It made me want to be a designer who is meaningful to a community and to the world.

As being a Japanese, this whole crisis over there is impacting me so much. I've been emotionally up and down even my family and friends are all okay. I cannot imagine how tough it is for the people actually live there and have lost their loved ones.
I want to be strong and seek ways to support them as much as possible. It would be great if you can, too.

I found some ways to donate money. Here are lists:
-Donate $10 to Red Cross by texting "REDCROSS" to 90999
-If you like soccer, this is for you! You can buy a tshirt here, and the proceed will be sent to the Red Cross
-Download $1 wall papers for iphones here. This design is by me.

I'm sure there are tons of different ways to donate. Please help my country out. It's much needed over there and will be much appreciated!

Also, if you go to ACU, Japanese here will set donation box in the Campus Center next week.
So, come out and put some money there. Even coins will be a big help all together at the end!

Thank you for reading, and let's hope for Japan's fast recovery.

Entertainer

I made another video yesterday. So, I made three videos in a day. It's my habit to be deep drawn in something for a short while when I explore new stuff and get tired of it soon as well. Let's see how long it lasts this time.lol
Also, I should try to slow down and  get better quality video from next time. Encouragements needed :)
Anyways, here is the last video of yesterday:

Notice that sign in the back, too!

Making A Sign

Out of boredom, I created another video.
Since I have some more ideas for more videos, I wanted some sort of sign that I could put in all my videos in the future. So, I decided to make a name sign and film the process.
Here it is:

Making videos is a lot more fun than I thought it was! I'm getting into it :)

Potato Love

Hi :)
Last night when I was cooking curry, I found a weird/cute shaped potato. I wanted to do something with it, so I decided to give it a try to make a stop motion video.
I was very hungry at the time so it is super short, but it's a fun little video. I did the sound, too.
Here it is:

Kazaguruma

Wow, I can't believe it's almost been a month since the last post. Time flies!
School is keeping me busy as always. Especially this past week was crazy. But the good thing is that I got my first version of portfolio, leave behind, business card, and resume done :) We'll have a critique next week, and I'll get them refined by the end of this semester. It's pretty exciting.

So, I got some free time to make an illustration for fun and blog about it! (yaay finally!) Here it is:

"Kazaguruma(かざぐるま)" means pinwheel in Japanese.

I got inspired by a short film called "These Four Walls" by Wong Fu Productions.

Their stuff is so cool :) Check them out!

lalalala

Hi, hope you all are doing well!
It got hot(82 degrees) here today, and it helped me be super productive :))
Here is what I made for fun:

Since I'm most likely going back home after graduation, I decided to start studying Japanese fonts and designs. Even if I got to find a job in the States as I wish, it's good to know how to deal my own language :) As a starting point, I played around with alphabet and Katakana.
I got this done at work. It's so nice to have a desk job :)

Warhol Revised

Hi!

Yesterday we had a critique in our Digital Illustration class for the ironic portrait project. I got some really good advice. So, here is the revised version of the same illustration. I like it much better than the first version :) I have some other ideas in my mind, and I'll work on it after getting the art history test out of my way!

Soup Cans and ...?

Hi all :)
It's nice and warm here and I'm super happy!
I just finished a project for a digital illustration class. We were asked to do an ironic portrait.
Here it is:

I struggled a lot to get the likeness.

Can you tell who that is? ...its Andy Warhol.

Let me know what you think! 

Happy Unbirthday!

Hi, Happy... uhhhh... UNBIRTHDAY!!
If today actually was your birthday, then, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you!! :)

This afternoon, I finally got to go check out a museum in town(The Center for Contemporary Art) to see if my works got into a student competition. The reception was like a month ago which I couldn't attend because of the injury in my neck. But guess what? Both of my works, a print and a painting, were there! This made my day.

Here are the (bad quality) pics of them taken by my cell phone:

(I'll make this pic small coz it's blurry and gives me motion sickness.)

Abilene is such a small town, but there are quite a few opportunities for us art students. I'm so thankful for that.

Oh, and our video on youtube got 100 views in a day. It's pretty good, huh? If you haven't checked it out, scroll down to the last post and watch. It's fun :)

Where the Hell are Xixi and Erika?!

Hi :) Today, my roommate and I made our first edited YouTube video. We had so much fun!

I LOVE having my own mac. We can do anything we want. Check it out and let us hear what you think! We will try to make more in the future and will get better at it.

Here it is:

50!!

YAY!! Finally, it's back to Spring here. It's 50 degrees outside now :) When it gets cold, it drops 60 degrees in Texas. When it gets warm, it also rises 60 degrees in Texas. WHAT THE..., well, but I'm happy about today's change!
I went to the school Mac lab and finished up an icon design project. Here they are:

Polaroid camera, Pumpkin pie and Sumo figthter. It was a fun project!

 

4th day of being bored and semi-productive

Ok, so 4th day of no school is ending. Gosh, it was so boring! I tried killing time by watching more youtube videos but it didn't go well. No more kevjumba videos to watch. I have watched all of them :( I can still watch them for 3rd or 4th times and enjoy, but doing so makes me feel so dumb. Because, you know, I start questioning myself, "What am I doing? Don't you have real friends!?"
Though, I still didn't wanna go out to find somebody because it's below 32 degrees. This is unacceptably cold to me.

So, what did I do today?
Well, I made burrito for breakfast with homemade tortillas. It was okay for the first try.
Then, I worked on a blog post for a class, and I did some more illustrations with pencil and watercolors. I really wish my Creative Suits got here this week. It will probably get here next week, though :) Can't wait!!!
Here are the ones I did today:

You are seeing the same girl over and over in the illustrations... yup, that's me! There are three reasons for picking myself:
1. I don't feel bad for messing it up
2. ...So I don't feel nervous
3. I don't have to get anybody's permissions when I upload them online

It's not that I'm in love with myself or anything, in case you are wondering!
I dug up old photos in my hard drive yesterday and today. The trips were quite nostalgic. The people in the illustrations other than me are my friends who probably wouldn't mind to be drawn. I will start exploring to draw different people when I have more confidence in this style. Let me know if you don't mind letting me practice with your face :D

...this might be the longest post ever.
I hope you enjoyed reading!

Watercolor and Pencil

Hi :)
The last day I had school was Monday... and it's Thursday today,  yeah. A big snowstorm hit us, and the whole city is completely frozen. If you are from the North part of the US, this might be nothing to you. But it's Texas, you know, we are not used to snow. It was up to 72 degrees on Monday at noonish, then it dropped 45 degrees in like 5 hours!! 
No school, no doctor, no running, no eating out... so what do I do!?


I ended up spending so much time Youtubeing and drawing.
I watched most of Kevjumba and Nigahiga videos.lol Now you think I'm such a dork. Well, I don't deny it, but they are really funny! I like their stuff a lot :)
I had fun drawing, too! My CS5 didnt get here on monday :(, so I couldn't do anything on adobe stuff yet. So I decided to explore a style that I long wanted to try but haven't. 
Here are what I did:

Pencil and watercolor on paper.

I was highly inspired by Esra Roise. I love her works!!! You can check them out here.


Stay warm, friends! :)

The Froyo Trend

Happy Sunday!
I went to get breakfast burrito with some friends this morning. It was a great start of a week :)
Today, I'd like to share an info graphic I made last semester. I think I will tweak some for my portfolio later, so it would be great if you could leave a comment!
Here it is:

AND I have a big news... I  FINALLY GOT A MACBOOK PRO!!!!!!!!
Now I don't have to be stuck in the school mac lab for so long anymore. My cs5 is supposed to come in tomorrow. I cant wait! :)

Daily sketches 2

oops, I didn't post anything for 10 days? Sorry!
In 10 days, my neck got so much better(now I can turn my head 45 degree to right and left) and my school started. This is going to be another super hard core semester, but I'm excited to start working on the projects!

I would like to share some more daily sketches I did in the illustration class last semester:

There There

Hi :)
I was super productive today. I've been working on an application for a design position in a Japanese company, and I got the first step almost done today. It's a highly competitive position. Wish me a luck!

As I worked on it, I played Pandora radio as usual, and one phrase from a song struck me. "Just because you feel it doesn't mean it's there."--There There by Radiohead.
What this phrase means in the song might be a lot different from how I take it, but who cares? I realized that pain is so subjective which nobody can see or major other than the self. And if anybody else could be sure that you have a pain, how can you be so sure that it's there?

 

(being philosophical with a help from the frog)

haha, well, I know this is pretty silly. But for sure this thought would help me go through the treatment.
Sorry for not posting any art today. The picture was taken by my roommate when we were in Boston!

The Stranger

Hi, I would like to share a book cover design I did in my Illustration class last semester.
I picked my favorite novel, The Stranger by Albert Camus, for the project. The story is about an existentialist guy. I'm really bad at summarizing, so I won't give it a try here, but I recommend you to read it! If you don't like to read, there is a movie with the same title, too :) It's very interesting.
Here it is:

Water color and some editing on Photoshop.

Pinhole Camera

Hi, I hope you all are having a great Thursday :) Let's not think about the Starbuck's new logo for now... be happy!

Yesterday, I was looking through my old art stuff in my hard drive and found pictures I took with a digital pinhole camera I made.
I cut out a circle from an aluminum can, made a hole in the middle, and put it on my Nikon D60. Here they are:

Nothing remains but Mutability

Hi,
Let me share my favorite poem by Percy Shelley today.
Well, before that, I'd talk about how I am. I still have not totally gotten over the accident yet. This is my bad habit all the time. Especially days like today when I cannot go out, I tend to let myself sink in a deep thought. It works in a good way sometimes, but not all the time.
This poem is about changes in our lives. Things are constantly changing and nothing stays the same. This is a good reminder for me that, this time too, I will get out of this place sooner or later.

Here it is:

"Mutability" 

Percy Bysshe Shelly

We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;

How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,

Streaking the darkness radiantly!--yet soon

Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:

Or like forgotten lyres, Whose dissonant strings

Give various response to each varying blast,

To whose frail frame no second motion brings

One mood or modulation like the last

We rest.--A dream has power to poison sleep;

We rise.--One wandering thought pollutes the day;

We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;

Embrace found woe, or cast our cares away;

It is the same!--For, be it joy or sorrow,

The path of its departure still is free:

Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;

Nought may endure but Mutability.

Cited from The Norton Anthology of English Literature

Happy New Year!

Happy new year, friends!! I hope you are starting off the brand new year very well :)

Well, I'm having a little harsh time right now. I got in a car accident at the end of last year. The good thing was that we all survived, and the bad thing was that I had to give up my trip to San Fransisco.
I was super sad and emotional for a while, but I'm gonna leave the bad things behind with 2010 :) I'm only gonna get better in 2011! Wish me a little luck that our treatments and rehabs would go well.

Forgive me for the quality.lol This is the best art I could make today.

Oh, one thing I might start this year...worshiping chiropractors. I'm serious. It's so amazing how they move bones and reduce so much pain!

Happy Holidays!

:)