Kenny's Kristmas Kookies

Label and cookies...
Kenny helped.

More holiday illustrations...

holiday 2007 illustrations

for gift tags, cards, thank you cards... whatever
done in watercolour and colour pencils on paper.

Flower crochet hair band

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i've been making these for gifts.
they actually stay in place pretty good.

Okay...now Mr. Bear with crochet scarf

Yup. you've guessed it! more of these scuplty things for christmas.
The clay are from Kenny's class. They are "air dry" molding clay, they are super lightweight and non sticky.
So kids don't end up smearing it on their clothes or on the furniture.
I think they are made from paper pulp.

Foam like clay mini sculpture

Hey, my first time doing something like this! Kenny's class always use this foam like playdoh thing. So one day after I've picked up Kenny from school he brought home some dough like thing...and I gave it a try.
The first one was a froggy - "Freddie" from the Sprout channel "Little Peoples" show.
I've decided not to paint and finish the "present" like sculpture that's in front of the froggie, because it didn't turn out right.
The second was a sculpture of a snail, because recently we found out that Grandma Betty used to eat raw snails from her garden when she was younger.
Gross!
Before and after shot.
I first sculpted these little pieces and then used acrylic to paint and topped it off with gloss varnish.
I'm thinking of adding some strings to it and a tiny label just in time for X'mas tree ornament. hah.
won't grandma like this.

Holiday card designs- I can't decide

Two Holiday card designs- I can't decided

and seems like it's too expensive to print, so I might just hack them up the cheap-o way.
Anyways, here's the illustration for both.
Kenny with a matching sandman taken at the Manresa Beach, near Santa Cruz.
And the other with just straight vector in illustrator cs2.

Halloween treat bag illustrations

This year's halloween treat bag illustrations. Originally done with water color pencils and then pen. These were brought into PS to add the borders.
I'm not going to make Kenny's costume this year, I have absolutely no time.
oh well.

Remember Shrinky Dinks?

Yup, that good old drawing and shrink'em thing from the 70's?
So I just take the very old concept and make them into necklaces. Prisma colour and Derwent Pencils seems to work the best for me.
Click on this title above and the link will take you to their website.

Paper Bon-Bon box

Found a scanned template for these bon-bon box. So I imported into Illustrator CS and just line drawn the vector graphics around them.
You'll need a sharp exacto knife to cut them out. You can tie them up using twine or ribbon. But yeah, you'll need a color printer. Other ideas, color papers or patterned papers will work too.

Felt - hand sewn keychain

Got these ideas from a Japanese Craft book...has tons of great and simple ideas from everything...knitting to jewerly making. Unfortunately, I can't read one word of Japanese.

More Watercolour Cards...

More cards using watercolour paints. Mostly hand stitched binding.

Happy Mother's Day to all

I painted a watercolour flower that I liked so much. This style is so easy and fast too. That I scanned it in and made Mother's Day card out of them. But why stop there?
I applied the graphics on candles as well!
I won't tell you all how I did these! )ah hah

Promo booklet and more cards

A handmade booklet, using Japanese stab binding, that I made a while trying to think of ideas to promote my collage work to galleries.
It never made it. I was too busy at work at the time. I have not done anything in this area for a few years so someday I'll get back to painting, when I officially retire or get laid off again from a new job.
Another handmade card set, originally sketched out in my sketch book, then pages torn out (neatly) and assembled.

Went bead shopping in Oahu

Went bead shopping for a bit in Oahu. Unique flower shapes made from sea sells.
Anyways, I would of bought more so I can make more necklaces if it weren't for the fact that the store took so long just to buy one bead.
Had fun over there... and the people don't rush or hurry. Which is so opposite of the Bay Area. Think people here are too stuck on their hyper Starbucks.
end of rant.

Certain Cat like illustrations

A particular cat illustrations for a company called "Google"
(I'm sure you all heard of this place or use it as a verb in your daily life)
The top one is a composite I did based on the theme in the valley (metaphorically speaking) that everyone needs to "chase down" a Starbucks coffee or they would go absolutely ape-shit. This cat is chasing the mouse for the mouse sake or getting that four-fifty cup of sugared coffee? You decide... I shouldn't bitch, I do need it now and again.
But the top one never got sent in. I thought the face of the cat was looking really Dr. Seuss like and seemed strange to me. The mouse, however, turned out alot better than I thought.
The cat illustration just below, is the one that I submitted.
It's probably not good enough, or not what they are looking for. But what the heck, I had fun drawing these guys out.

Sketches from Lanikai, Oahu

We went to Oahu and stayed on this cool beach house on Lanikai.
So at night, when I couldn't sleep and after the kids went down (couldn't get use to the heat and was probably jet lagged) I'd sketched these from memory at 2-4am in the morning. Using the Derwent Pencil and watercolour pencils, these were fun to draw with. Now contemplating wheter I want to spend some money and get more colours because I only bought a few (red, yellow, blue, green and purple).

"Urban Dwelling

Combination of both traditional and illustrator cs2.
Sketched out the urban area with pencil, charcoal, and ink. And drew out the no leaves tree...scan them in and just used Illustrator CS2 to put them together. Ink splatter was done in acrylic paint.
This urban/ghetto area was originally an idea I had for a non-profit organization, helping and educating folks about kids living on the streets, but ended up as more of a personal design direction for me instead.

My son had these two white teddy bears and decided it would look pretty good if I can watercolour paint them onto cards. Eventually looking into temp. gigs as a children's illustrator...
I try not to use computer generated stuff for this blog, everything is hand drawn.
Remember pen and paper days?

More watercolour flower cards

Using exisiting hand-made paper. Sewn in for the flower on the front as well the binding of the card.

Latest from my sketchbook

(top Photo)
New direction in the "Easter Bunny".
The one of the left is the traditional pose. The one of the right, broke the Easter egg, bad bunny!
I think the next one will have an empty cardboard Starbucks cup tipped over or something. Easter Bunnies shouldn't be all that perfect. Hey, they can screw up too!

(bottom Photo)
If you buy the "Canson- Sketch Universal recycled, microperforated" sketchbook...
you can turn out your interesting and quick drawing into...Greeting Card!
ta-da! It's perforated so small when you pull it out of the sketch book the sides are really clean, no one will know its from a spiral bound book. Cool and convenient.
I just happened to have matching envelopes, so it turned out pretty good

Link to my freelance website business

..well, having a very slow start of it.
Haven't the energy for it, but here's the website.
I've read this comment from the Taschen Design book series "Icons- Graphic Design for the 21st Century" and it sparked a big connection to what I feel alot of designers, especially in the Silicon Valley are doing. And I know alot had to due to the fact you want to live in this expensive area and trying to make ends meet...
But interesting nevertheless.
Quote taken by David Foldvari, London Graphic Designer.
"There's still a fear of the unknown and a lack of trush that exist in current art direction which in turn, leads to illustrators and designers all too often producing comforatable and unchallenging work in order to survive. This leads to everything eventually looking the same.
The most successful projects are always those that allow for creative freedom and experimentation."

take this with a grain of salt...

"Pig" illustration

Seeing if I can do children's illustration. Trying out pencil and pen on card stock.
Next door neighbor had the cutest stuff pig toy and I had to draw it.

Brown Kritter Kap

Kenny as model.
My third one and my first "freelance" knitting job. cool

Windowed greeting cards

Tri-fold windowed greeting cards. I pencil sketched the drawings that is shown through this die-cut opening of these cards.
I'm trying to stay away from digital drawing, see if my old hands still works.
...And hand sewn little shaped buttons on the front.