The Versatile Blogger Award

Hello my dear blogger friends! I'm finally over a two week depresson, thanks to some wonderful people in my life...huzzah!  Feels good to be out of that kind of darkness and feel like myself again.  I'm going to try now to be a more regular blogger.

Anyway my dear friend and fellow artist Sasha has nominated me for a Versatile Blogger Award!  I was so shocked when she suprised me on Facebook.  Thank you sweetie, for the nomination!  I'm so touched that you find my blog interesting to read.  Go check Sasha out, she versitile in her many projects.  She can do enchanting faeries to beautiful wire jewlery! (Which I am honoured to have a pair of! Hehehe)



The Versatile blogger award rules are: that you should pass it on to 15 blogs you thoroughly like to read, and let the bloggers know they have been nominated.

Then you have to share seven things about yourself.

Finally you have to thank the award giver and link back to them.

 

So the nominess. (Which was hard to pick...I love all the blogs I read!  They all have such great and gorgeous things about them) Hope you don't mind if I share some of your works.

 

Diana Evans - A truely versatile artist.  This talented lady can do just about everything from wonderful artwork, to sweet and delecate jewlery and some very delectable looking sweet baking treats!  She is definately fun to read and I enjoy getting her updates on what she's doing next to get my socks knocked off my feet everytime.

 

Image owned and copyrighted to Diana Evans

 

 

Amalia -  A fellow dreamer and artist.  Amalia does gorgeous, poetic art work that expresses deep emotions and heart.  I find her work so inspiring, moving and a visual feast for the eyes everytime I see it, I couldn't imagine being on blogger without her on my reading list.  She also does some of the cutest little paper dolls. 

 

Image owned and copyrighted to Amalia K

 

 

Jennifer Noel Bower - A very talented and awesome artist that I've ever come across.  Her work has a sweet charm that verges on a nice '50's/'60's retro style, but expresses all her soul in her own unique way.  It's a treat to get to see her art and read about what she's up to with her projects.  I'm always glad that I bumped into her here in blogger land.  This lady will continue to go far in her career!

 

Image owned and copyrighted to Jennifer Noel Bower

 

Gingermelon - A very creative doll artist who also happens to live in the same area as I do!  I may have passed her on the street and not even have know it. *giggles* She can do a range of different cute little dolls, from felt to her sweet paper dolls.  I always find it amazing that she can do these on such a tiny scale. She offers kits on her Etsy shop to sew these wonderful creations yourself.

 

Image owned and copyrighted to Gingermelon

 

 

P.C.E - I love this girl's art so much!  Her doodles that she sometimes posts up never look like doodles, they are beautiful and full of life, dark whimsy and fantasy.  She also turns her little creations into pendants, prints and much more.  I always look forward to reading her blog and getting a peek at what she's working on next.  I wish her all the best on her read to her dreams.

 

Image owned and copyrighted to P.C.E

 

 

Cameron - Another artist I adore very much!  This lady has to much creativity oozing from her fingers.  She does a whole range of art that I find so enthralling and inspiring.  I mean, she can create amazing jewlery pieces, cards, adorable sewing projects and lost of gorgeously painted artwork and a busy mother to boot too...she must be an expert on time managment as well. *giggle*  Keep up the awesome work!

 

Image owned and copyrighted to Cameron

 

Sara Lynn - A wonderfully talented artist!  I enjoy seeing her work so much.  Her lines have such a delecate and detailed nature that really makes them come alive, gives them such an elegant charm.  I just could never miss one of her posts.  I hope to buy one of her prints one day!

 

Image owned and copyrighted to Sara Lynn

 

 

Victoria Stitch -  Now I got so excited when I bumped into Victoria  in blogger land!  She does these amazing, cute, elegantly gothic art cut-outs.  I'm always blown away at all the tiny details she manages to cram into her work and they are all so charming!  She's a definate worth to see and read and I can see her going to far places with the work she does. An artist to watch!

 

Image owned and copyrighted to Victoria Stitch

 

 

Okay, so lastly I have to write seven things about myself. *gulp*  I hope they won't be boring. *laughs*

 

1.  I studied ballet at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet for about six years(from age 4 to 9).  I love nothing more than to dance and let my body go to music.  If I could have been anything else besides an artist I would have been a dancer.  I had to stop going to classes once the company moved to a new location and to cover the costs, they raised to prices of their classes.  I still hope to return to ballet classes one day, just for fun.

 

2.  I also write.  Another ambition of mine when I was a teen was to be a novelest.  I wrote my first 400 page vampire epic when I was 17.  Which sadly has been lost to the winds after all these years, but the main characters still sometimes chatter to me.  I was really encouraged to write, I had a grade 7 teacher that would enroll me into writing competions.  I still write a little bit here and there, but they mostly turn out to be comic scipts.

 

3. I was once offerd a position at Tokyo Pop as a professonal freelance screentoner.  I ended up turning them down, which was a good thing since they went bust in 2008.  I turned them down because I just really wanted to draw my own work, which I guess was selfish of me.

 

4. I am a coffee addict to the extreme!  I can have at least five or more cups of coffee in a day and I can still fall asleep after that.  So the caffine effect has lost it's power on me. Mwahahaha.  I do like tea as well, as long as it's caffinated.

 

5. I can speak some Japanese, and am currently trying to learn Hebrew as well.  Japanese is way easier to pronounce than Hebrew...but that probably because I've been learning Japanese for more than five years.  What I find most interesting about Hebrew is that their numbers are the same as their letters...which is also very confusing. *giggles*

 

6. I also used to do figure skating as a child, I studied for about three years.  I loved doing the sipns!  Though I didn't enjoy it as much as ballet though.  The skates scared me, as I knew that if you had a bad fall, you could get seriously cut up and hurt.

 

7. I'm an old movie buff.  I adore old movies from the silent era on upwards...but my particular favorites are from the '40's to the mid '70's.  But my range of tastes is rather large...so as long as it's good I'll love it.  Though I do like some of the old horror movies from the '80's...which are great for a real laugh!  My top picks are "To Kill A Mockingbird", "The Seven Year Itch", "An Affair To Remember",  "Rope", "The 39 Steps", "The Bad Seed" and "The Picture Of Dorian Grey".  Ther are more, but I can't remember all of them right now. *laughs*

 

Well, that's it for this blog post for today...I'll end it with this little doodle  I rather quickly did as thanks to Sasha for the nomination and all of you who read my little rambling and look at my doodles. Thank You and have a terrific, creative week!!

 

 

New Mucha Baby: Yuko

A little lady I did as a commission for a good friend on Deviant Art .  She requested Yuko, the Time Witch, from XXXHolic by CLAMP.  My gosh, she was so wonderfully patient with me, she's been waiting for this since Christmas,  I've been so caught up in comic making that I've fallen badly behind in other projects.  I'm a little unhappy about the colouring though, my printer ran out of ink!  So, I had to do some touch ups on the hair and also did some other work digitally on this, so it will look nice on the screen.  I'm just happy that when she does get the original doll, that it will be the proper colour. I'm such a perfectionist that I hate any little detail to be off...even if it is only slightly.

I used watercolour pencils, white and brown ink to colour her in and I added a background from one of my Mucha calenders.  She took me only three days to do.  I hope, Allyson likes the doll she ordered.  There's nothing I love more than to make someone happy with art!

Oh man, only a few weeks ago we had a huge dump of snow here...which in Vancouver, no one is used to driving in or walking in for that matter.  But it was beautiful to watch it fall.



The snow was here for about a week or so, then the rain started and it was all gone in a matter of hours.  As much as I love snow, I'm glad it's gone.  I don't have proper shoes to go out in snow with.*giggles*  I just stayed in and drank warm cocoa and drew.

Now, back to work on my two other short comics.  Hope you are all having a wonderful and creative week my dear friends. Love to you all!



Good Coffee, Fine Coffee

Hello dear friends!  I hope you all had a great New Year's start last weekend.  Mine was pretty quiet, watched movies until midnight, with some wonderful, yummy snacks.  It was really fun to open my window and see all the people dancing, kissing and setting fireworks off in the street after the countdown.  Me and my mum even waved to a few strangers walking down the street.  I always find it amazing what happens to peoples spirits this time of year.

So the above illustration was a bit of fun I had before I started on my new one shot comic.  I wanted to try painting with something really different, after some thinking of what I could use, I decided on coffee.  I'm a huge coffee addict!  I simply can't tell you on how much coffee I can drink in just one day alone, but I will tell you that it's a lot.  I also miss being able to go to Starbucks, which is one of the places I always enjoy to sit, people watch and sketch some art at.  I wanted to express the mood that the mere smell of fresh brewed coffee brings to mind.  I hope I've managed to do that fairly well.  I used fresh coffee, coffee grounds(which I found out rub off the paper easily when they dry), and just to enhance some of the brown effects and to add darker highlights I used some(a very little bit) of my watercolours, as well as some white ink because I just can't seem to not put shiny white dots in my work.  I also avoided using a thick, dark out line around the woman and fancy borders.  I felt that anything like that would ruin the feel and look of the final painting.  This has to be one of the best smelling paintings I've ever done. *giggles*

Great, now I've given myself a coffee craving.  Now, I'll have to go brew some. 

Wishing you all a happy, creative week!

Work in Progress: Interlude

Hi everyone!  I hope you all had a great holiday.  I know I've eaten way too many latkes this year...so I'll be throwing my scale out the window until the whole holiday thing is over.  I don't even dare to step one little toe on it.  New Year is coming up, super excited to have a nice clean slate to start things over again. 2012 better be a good one. *shakes fist*  A year of positive change and new hope for the future, that's the only resolution I ever make, mostly  because I can never keep any of the other ones I make.*giggles*

Anyway, I've been busy these last few weeks getting my one shot manga done before the middle of January.  I have just two pages left to screen tone, and I'll be very happy once it's done and sent off because another idea for a story has popped into my head, making it very hard to focus on anything much else. I feel like I'm going to explode with it if I don't get it out soon. Stranger still, is that I'm having dreams about it, which has never happened in the past in any of the stories I've done before.  Maybe that's a good sign, who knows.

I have managed to get some line art done for other drawings when I've needed a break from toning the comic.  This drawing here is a little prize for someone on Deviant Art.  I hold Kiriban, which on DA means when you reach a certain amount of page views and someone takes a screen cap of it and notes it to you, they win a drawing.  Two people won this time, I have yet to fully get to the other, but I have a new fondness for drawing couples and I just could not resist this charming couple.  Did I mention that I love pointy ears as well? I do! So another bonus score for wanting to draw this.I still don't know what colours I'm going to use, but, if anyone has some suggestions I'm quite open to hear them.  Only took an hour to ink, but three days just to find the right reference to use for them.  I do hope she likes it when she gets it.*crosses fingers*

Oh! Before I dash off to tone more pages, I shall be opening a paper doll contest soon!  I'm just finishing working out the details of the rules and what not, so stay tuned and I'll be posting about that in a short while.  The prize will be your own personalized paper doll. 

Happy New Year my dear wonderful friends, may this year be a bright and happy one!  I'll be catching up with all of you this weekend, so expect to see me Christmas ghosting your lovely blogs. Have a creative week!

May All Your Christmas' Be White

Not in my usual styling, but it was certainly fun to break away into something new.  I've always loved poster designs from the 1920's and '30's with their stark contrasting and minimal lines...adds to such a visual delight.  I got inspired to draw this from a stamp I found in an art magazine, and I thought it would be fun to draw!  So I just went for it.  I love the old time, "Christmas Carol" mood this has to it, and I just fell in love.
 I forgot to use my circle templates, to make sure every line was as crisp as possible, but you know, I kinda enjoy the slight off-ishness(is that a word?!Hm, for now I guess it is...*giggles*) of them.  I like seeing little imperfections in art, shows that a human hand actually made it.
This only took about an hour or so to complete, normally, it takes a week for me to finish any illustration.  It took a lot of black ink though.

Christmas and Chanukah are at the same time this year...I'm so looking forward to all the yummy, delectable treats and loads of Latikahs awaiting!  Eek, and Eggnog Lattes as well...mmmm..I think I need one now.  Ohhh, I love this time of year!  What are some of your favourite treats to fix this time of year, my dear friends?

"Christmas is a time of giving.
It is a time of wrapping gifts and making cookies...
a time of presents, tucked in secret places...
and of children waiting.
It is a time of toys and drums and dolls...
a time of holly and lights...
and golden tinsel
and green pine boughs.
It is a time of stars and midnight...
and soft prayers whispered in the dark.
Christmas is a time of family...
and good friends meeting once again.
It is a time of song and caroling...
and silver sleigh bells jingling in the snow.
For some people, Christmas is a time of remembering...
remembering other happy days filled with laughing voices...
and other treasured times, now past.
But for everyone, it is a time of magic...when troubles melt
and once again the world is young.
It is the time above all others, when peace my visit earth and find a dwelling place in every heart.
Christmas is a time of giving...
a time of hope...
a time of joy.
Christmas is a blessed time....
of love."
From "Christmas Is A Time Of Giving" by Joan Walsh Anglund.

I know it's early still, but Merry Christmas my dear blogger friends...may your New Year be bright!  Love to you all!  Have a creative week!

Illustration Friday: Vanity

Blogging again so soon...I'm so happy!  Doubly happy too...I just managed to get this done in time for Illustration Friday's topic this week. Huzzah!  A very quick ink sketch that was all done in three days, which is fast for me.   If I had added any colour at all, it would have taken me much longer to finish. (Psst...sorry to my lovely lady readers out there, that the poor girl on the left has nothing on.) 

It's been a very long time since I've done a straight black and white illustration.  I mostly stick to using a sepia coloured ink and leave the black just for comic work.  So, this was a fun deviation to do. I also had a lot of help from Coral DRAW...I'm getting addicted to touching things up digitally now.

I might as well explain some of the symbolism I've used here.  I wanted to incorporate the idea of twin vanity goddess', though on the surface to appear to be beautiful and their lips dripping with honeyed words of how gorgeous the person they are dwelling in is, they are actually ladies of the underworld.  They stand ready to wither away the most tender hearted of people.  The two mirrors that each of them hold distorts the viewers perspective of how they see themselves, to the point of despair. 

Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, stands for the impossibly too thin female figures of the fashion magazines.  Thus, why some of her bones show through her pale skin and she wears little or no clothes.  On her top hat, much like the Mad Hatter's, display the numbers of the so called ideal dress size of 2 and 0.  Though, Aphrodite's mirror, not matter how thin the on looker to this mirror gets, will always lie, showing the figure of a pig instead. 
I hope her hungry looks gets across on her face...I really wanted that to show.  This idea for Aphrodite came from the movie "Devil wears Prada", where the model's never eat or eat a cheese cube to keep from passing out.

Narcissus, the goddess who loves only her own beauty, has much of the same effect as her twin on those who dare look through her mirror.  They love only themselves, and cannot tear their gaze away from their own visage that they waste away or begin to indulge in risque relationships.
I got this idea from noticing a young teen aged girl on the bus, who spent the entire trip looking at her self and preening into her small hand mirror.  She even managed to walk down the street after she got off, still looking in her mirror.  I sort of laughed at that...what teenager doesn't do that? *giggles*

Well, that was rather a dark trip wasn't it?  I'll post something a little less, um, dark next time.  I took a lot of inspiration from Takaya Miou , who is one of my favourite manga illustrators of all time.  I tend to visit her website and blog a fair bit.

That's it for now.  Thanks for coming by and paying a visit my lovely friends, I wish you all a creative week!

Tiny Beauty: Zoanthia

This was a commission for a good friend, Muffin , on Deviant Art.  It's her own original character that she draws a lot.  I feel a little bad that she had to wait longer than usual, normally it takes only two to three days to finish a paper doll, but, I've been working hard on completing my short story.  It's my first time working with in a tight deadline date, and I really want to make sure I make it.  Plus, my order of the mini-brads is late.  I've been trying to hunt down brads locally, but that has proven really frustrating.  Amazon.com I'm so grateful to, that have everything!  Saved the day!  Now this little lady is set for her plane flight to merry old England where she'll be happily reunited with her lovely mummy.

My own mum has been so kind as to design and make my doll boxes for me. Sakes, that woman has been working really hard with doing research, making a master template and putting them together.  Which sometimes is a frustrating process when it comes to sticking the designs on.  She once stayed up til 4 am trying to fix a problem box!   I'm so grateful to her...more than I could ever express.  She's been such a great help, I really wish I could pay her for all her hard work. 

Here are some of the designs she's been working out....


These were the first two ideas prototypes she made.  They were later scraped because the packaging was a little too tight and there were some major problems in trying to get the coverings I picked to match up.  It also turned out that it would be too weak to travel through the mail.

This is the final design prototype for the box. It's on a hinged lid, which is much sturdier and is easier to open....and also much easier to match the patterns up.  I created  as well, a monogram stamp to seal the tissue paper and to go on the back of the dolls, and, a little Thank You note card that will carry my business card along with it.  I'm quite happy so far with the results.

The drawing that appears on the front of the box.  Took me at least three months to come up with something I felt really satisfied with. Took a lot of tinkering around in Coral DRAW to get it just right.

I'd love to hear your opinions on what you fine, and lovely friends think of this.

Oh! A very happy(I know it's early) Thanks Giving to all my wonderful American Blogger friends!  I hope you guys stuff yourself silly with good food and good friends and family! 

Happy creative week everyone.