Doodles from Today

The doodles were actually from last night when I was watching TABOO on National Geographic... I LOVE THAT SHOW! So amazing. The hair style in the last doodle was inspired by one of the tribal hair I saw on the show.

One more day to go before I have to go back to work. Sign...
(I did mow my lawn! YAY!)

Nate Williams Pillow

Got this awesome Tree House pillow by Nate Williams at Urban Outfitters this afternoon. I love the artwork and the fact that the cover is removable. The insert is really soft too! There is another design (see it here ) but the shop didn't have it, otherwise I would get it too...

Doodles from Today

I love long weekend! (Even though I had to mow my lawn... The grasses are too tall now, and I am too embarrassed to hire people to mow it for me.) I got to stay at home, relax and draw. Here are some doodles from this afternoon. I am hoping to put them on wood next week! Are you having a good weekend so far? Hope yours is relaxing and spent on doing something you love too!

Girl on Wood Block

I put her on a 3" by 5" wood block! I haven't done this for awhile and doing so just reminded me how much fun (and delicate) the process really is! I am planning to do more characteds on the wood blocks in the near future.

Artist: Gemma Correll... what a gem!!!

I am so in love with Gemma Correll's funny and whimsical drawings. The first time I saw them, I laughed out loud because they totally spoke to me and made me so happy! I have since then been a fan of her works; so when she told me that she blogged about me, I was so flattered! I have long wanted to blog about her artworks too, and here are some of my favorite pieces from her! Aren't they just so cute? I especially love the expressions on all her characters. She also does awesome hand letterings. Please check out Gemma's blog, her Flickr page and her Etsy shop.

Girl in Costume

A quick ink on paper doodle; colored in computer.

2 Little Doodle Paintings

No heavy paint job tonight... Tonight I just painted some shapes with acrylic paints and then doodled on top of it. I found this really fun to do since I get to mix colors and paint (simple shapes... hard to mess up too much) plus I get to doodle which is my favorite! I love using really fine pens and draw thin lines that somehow make the artworks look like etchings. So I added indentation of frames to make them look like faux etchings... is that stupid? I kind of like it...

Faces

Acrylic+pen on cardboard
Man... it's a real test of patience to paint on a rough textured cardboard... so hard to get a clean edge...

Girl with Red Dress

Acrylic + pen on cardboard
This is based on a doodle in my sketchbook awhile back...

Girl with Blue Hat

Acrylic + pen on cardboard

IF: Routine

My favorite routine everyday: Sleeping!

Doodle Book Cover

Acrylic paints and ink on my black sketch book cover

Animation : Ice Cream Monster

watercolor + ink doodle animation

Animation : Red Hat

Another little animation using a watercolor doodle I did this morning.

Little Dorky Animation

I turned a little watercolor and ink doodle into animation today! But as I was so excited and tried to upload it to my blog, I did not know that Blogger doesn't support animation at this moment... I spent like an hour trying to figure out what was wrong with my file. Well. my file was fine; it was Blogger that has the problem. I hope in the near future they can get it resolved. If anybody knows the other way to do this, please let me know! (I had to upload it to photobucket.com instead)

After note: I figured out that I can just upload it to Flickr instead of Photobucket. Once it's uploaded, I have to click "ALL SIZES" and then choose the "LARGE" one, copy and paste the HTML code to my blog. If I choose anything other than "LARGE" then it wouldn't animate.

Acrylic Paints Practice : Rainbow Girl

Another practice... Acrylic and ink on paper.

Acrylic Paints Practice

No more crappy cheapy craft acrylic paints... I got new acrylic paints today so I practiced again and see if I can paint more neatly this time. I started by just test painting some red shapes and this is what happened...

Girl+Pattern

I gave my girl a body and turned her into a pattern.

Armi and Danny

I can't go to sleep without sharing this with you guys! My lovely bandmates from Softee left me this music video on my Myspace page... Let me tell you, folks, this clip is DYNAMITE! I really really want to learn those fancy choreography; I bet if I do that every morning I can lose a lot of weight.

You have to watch it! I guarantee you won't regret it! I can already see so many future artworks inspired by this one...

(Photo taken from here.)

Little Portraits Pattern

I tried to turn another old doodle into pattern...

Baba Pattern

I learned how to repeat designs to make patterns today at work. (Just the basic; I can't do too complicated stuff yet.) So I tried and turned one of my doodles from the past into a pattern.

LOVE: for Hallmarkers Give Back

I recreated the design last night, with a hand-drawn girl and collaged background, then output from the computer. I will donate this version for "Hallmarkers Give Back" instead of the previous one because I think this one looks warmer. "Hallmarkers Give Back" is an event at our work which raises money and awareness for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, American Heart Association and Children's Mercy Hospital.

Friends

Something I did during the weekend.
Acrylics and ink on an 11" by 14" wood artist panel.

Black Hat | Black Hair

I had to draw a digital version of the girl with a black hat...

...or she could be having a bowl cut.

Green Hat

Little painting while waiting for my laundry tonight

Doodle Painting #2: Robot

Mr. Robot controlled by an alien...

Doodle Painting #1: 3 Headed Mystical Creature

I am taking tomorrow and Friday off for a much needed break (even though there are tons of chores I have to do at home too, like mowing the lawn and cleaning.... urrr). Since I don't have to worry about waking up and go to work tomorrow, I relaxed a bit and turned some of my doodles from last night to little 6" x 8" paintings. A this point, I've come to the realization that I probably will never be able to paint neatly, so heck yeah, I am just going to paint loose and have fun...

Painting Tonight: Come Play with Us

Acrylic and ink on 8" by 8" artist panel; I haven't decided if I want to distress this one or not... not sure how it will turn out. It's a gamble.

Doodle Board for Art Unleashed

Besides donating artworks, artists can also grab some of the pre-cut 5" by 5" doodle boards and create little artworks for auction.
This is a quick one done with pink highlighter and pen.

Art Unleashed 2008

I did this little 3" by 5" painting on an 1" thick artist panel. I distressed it afterward so it has an older/folk art quality. It will be donated for the 2008 Art Unleashed. Art Unleashed is an annual live and silent auction, with 100% of the proceeds going to benefit for The Humane Society of Greater Kansas City.

Happy Chinese Father's Day + New Studio Space

First, let me tell you that today is not only the opening day for Beijing Olympics, it's also my 10 year anniversary being in America. I came here on August 8, 1998 (which by the way, is also Father's Day for Chinese) to go to grad school in San Francisco. So YAY!!! 10 years and HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to my dad! And a thank-you to all my friends here; you have loved me and I wouldn't be able to survive 10 years in a foreign country by myself.

Second, i finally got my studio cleaned up and rearranged!!! (If you don't remember how it was before, look at this.) Took me a whole week to do so and I am really tired right now. I've been only sleeping for about 3 hours everyday for the past week, but that's just me....when i start something I don't like to quit until I get it done. Not a very good habit sometimes. So here are the pictures as promised earlier. As you can see it's all cleaned up (at least in that space; it's a different story in my basement cause I dumped everything there and still need to sort through lots of craps... but I can do it slowly later.) The 2 giant tables are from Target and I highly recommend it. (Note: I put them together by myself even thought it's really a 2 people job. it's not hard to assemble at all but just chunky.) They are really sturdy and solid and also offer a lot of work space. I also had to purchase two antique cabinets for more storage but they are so cheap... I love antique malls.

Last but not least, please check out my pal Sarah's blog. She posted a super super sweet bird drawing. It's so darling!

Fun Friends Doodle

Did you notice something? All the characters here have bodies... not just heads floating around. : )

I am in the process of rearranging my studio space. I don't know how I accumulated so much craps in that space. It's taking me forever to clean and it's a slow process. I am very tempted to just grab everything and throw them into the dumpster!!! (I won't really do it since lots of them are art supplies, but uuurrrrr....why do I have so much junk???)

I will post photos once I am done cleaning up the space!