Things that make me smile

Things that make me smile...

1. Cuteness will get me every time, even if its gonna make me to buy...clothespins. Got them at an Asian supermarket:

2. Flowers from Math boy..."just because":
3. Seeing a friend's 1 and a half year old light up when she played with the puzzles I illustrated for. Not alot of my friends have children and this is the first time I got to see a child reacting to my work. Its a wonderful feeling.

4. A lovely call from an art director for a job well done. I just finished a picture book and it was so satisfying to know I did a good job!

Hope you all have something to smile about today! :-)

Spring

Working at home sometimes got its disadvantages- like not getting out of the house enough. I went to visit my parents in Philadelphia so I can get a break from my own place. I love my laptop and can just work about anywhere. Now I am back and feeling refreshed, here are some finished crafts I've been meaning to take pictures of.

Above is my recently finished needlebook- who knew a girl needed a needlebook? Honestly, I didn't know of such things until I've seen a few people made them and indeed, it was handy t0 have. So I decided to make it out of felt, something I haven't worked with since childhood.

This is my initial sketch (done in Illustrator, of course!) Originally I wanted to use scraps of fabric with the felt, but it didnt turn out the way I wanted. Its fun to see my idea and the final result.

I've wanted to post this for quite a while now. Its my first quilt-and first project made with my hello kitty machine. Its a lap quilt-around 23"x23". Now I have a whole new appreciation for quilters!

Thank you so much for all the wonderful comments on my website. I am so happy to get so much positive feedback. Happy Spring to all!

Website finally updated!

Wow, I didnt realize its been a while since I posted. I've been working on updating my website and its finally done! Please visit and let me know what you think. I am not the most web saavy person in the world, so updating my website really means redoing the whole thing. Now that I have that done...
To promote the site, I also got these postcards made at psprint...I am pretty happy with them. (The color is a bit off because of my camera and poor picture taking skills). They have the option of a short print run (starting at 125 cards) which is way better for me.... the prices are reasonable and they have sales for different products every month. I also like Modern Postcard-very good quality, but the problem is that their printrun starts very high and I have way too many left over, enough to cover my walls.
Here is the actual illo, some of you may remember the sketch. Thats about it for me here. Busy working on a book that I am excited about. Its a secret right now but more soon!

The crafty side of Chickengirl

I finally got around to taking some pictures of the crafts I 've been working on. I got this fabulous Hello kitty sewing machine for Christmas (you can get one too from Target.com, isn't it cute!) Its very basic but it gets the job done.
I am only a beginner and right now I am just happy to figure out the technical side of things. Everywhere online people are so generous to give tutorials. Also, I 've been getting many books on sewing from the library.

So here are some stuff I've been making. My first lined tote bag. I even made pockets on the inside for my cel phone and things. I squealed with glee when it "worked." The tutorial was from Super Eggplant:
And the coolest criss cross coasters tutorial from Allsorts. Here is my version, except I kinda made them too small...but glasses still fit on top of it OK. I like how the color combination worked out though:
My TV died about two weeks ago, so to keep myself entertained I've been crafting in the evenings. Its better than being a couch potato....

Goodies in the mail

Yippee! Samples in the mail! All the fun projects I've worked on last year is starting to show up on my doorsteps. Yesterday, I got two packages in the mail. One was a cute phonics book:

Another was Mix and Match Memory puzzles I did for Cranium. The two titles, "Come on Down to the country" and "Follow me to the Sea" should now be in stores-I havent seen them yet in the stores but I will definitely be on the look out. They are also available on Amazon:

Thanks for visiting and have a good weekend!

SFG Challenge: Board Games

I saw the SFG challenge for this week and had to dig these up from my old computer. They are from way back when I inked a drawing, scanned it in, colored it in photoshop- and thought it was the coolest. The game pieces were the these blobs of "germs" and the objective was to get to the smelly armpit. But watch out for Deo the Deodorant! Believe it or not, this was part of my senior thesis when I was in school.

Illustration Friday-Gravity

Something a little different this week. I've been working on this self promotion piece on space and aliens but I won't have time to finish it this week. So this is a sketch/color comp... good to change it up and show my actual hand drawn lines.

Year of the Pig

Happy Chinese new year! Above is a poster I did for Scholastic. This may look familar because I posted the different zodiacs separately a while back. Don't know what animal you are? You can find out here. I am a dragon and they are the best, haha!

Funny how 2006 was the year of the dog...look at what I got from my valentine-chocolate doggies! They are too cute to eat!

Illustration Friday-Crash

Wow! Thank you so much for everyone who came to visit my blog and left all the lovely comments. It was a nice surprise and very exciting to be the pick of the week at IF! It even pushed me harder and continue to do what I love to do, so thank you. Here is another fun piece... just in time for valentine's day.

A Swap and talented friends

A swap with Anette- look at the beautiful illos. Plus, she did a drawing of a chicken for me! (Thank you!) We are part of the Illustration for Kids group, and recently started a blog. I couldn't of survived without these talented ladies. I am grateful for meeting them when I did- I had just started to freelance and it was so important to have a support sytem in place. Most of the time, I am alone working on projects, and sometimes you just need a fresh eye on things and get some feedback.

Another talented friend Nadia-she is an awesome art director in advertising and always gets me un-stuck when I am in a bind with an idea or sketch. She just launched her website www.nadiaswork.com. Go check it out, will ya?

Illustration Friday-Sprout

This idea came to me and I wanted to execute it quickly- mostly thinking about simple shapes and a limited palette. Poor Mr. Tomato.

Tagged

I have been tagged by Anja to list six weird things about me. (Thanks, Anja!) Let's see...

1.The words "Bod" (short for Body) and "hubby" (short for husband) makes me cringe...so if you say "hubby's bod" I may just kill over.

2. Very scared of Chinese hopping vampires.

3. I like using sound effects when I talk.

4. I love play food/toy groceries, drawings of food.

5. A big fan of the anime series Naruto and have been watching it nonstop on YouTube for the past few months.

6. A disturbing amount of chicken things in my home. 80% of it are gifts from friends/family. They are very good at feeding my addiction.

I tag Courtney, Emila, Chris, Shawn, Paula and Mrs. B. Have fun! :-)

Inspiration: Japanese packaging

I've always had a love for Japanese packaging- a huge inspiration and influence on my work. The well thought out design, color, and not to mention- incredibly cuteness- makes me want to buy it even if it contains lumps of coal inside. Above is a few boxes tacked up on my new corkboard.
This past summer, my brother bought me a few Japanese kids books when he was in Hong Kong. I have no idea what it says, but it does put a smile on my face.
Just this weekend, I found this in a chinatown candy shop. It was the character from the book! Inside are indivdually wrapped chocolates- each with a different character. The attention to detail is amazing. I am off to gobble up the chocolates (but saving all the wrappers.)

Illustration Friday-Super Hero

Its probably not surprising that I had a sketch of a chicken superhero for a while now in my sketchbook. Is the egg ammo disturbing? Like cartoon chickens eating sunnyside eggs for breakfast?!

Amazing Travel Fun for Kids on the Go

A lovely little surprise came this weekend: some samples of this travel Game kit for Kindermusik I illustrated for. Its so wonderful to see my artwork sprinkled throughout the kit. The design looks great, I am very happy with the way it came out.

Illustration Friday-Buzz

One of my favorite self-promotion pieces. It got me alot of "buzz!" (sorry, that was bad....)

SFG: Fast Food

Over at Sugar Frosted Goodness, the week's challenge is "fast food." Ohh how I LOVE this topic! This is an oldie but a goodie. I love drawing food, restaurants, kitchens, etc. Perfect!

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone had a great holiday and all best for 2007! I've been bitten by the crafty bug, having the need to make all sorts of things. So many talented people out there inspiring me. I also took a few classes at Make Workshop, so I wanted to put my new skills to use. Here is my chicken stuffie (thanks to Geninne for the link to the pattern, check out her cute piggie!) How can I resist!?

Holiday Cards

My holiday cards are off to friends, family and clients today. The inside says, " May all your holiday wishes come true!"

Cool chickens spotted!

I found these wind-ups at my local drugstore for $2.50 each. They are so awesome!!!

Girls in the rain

Drawing alot more kids for my portfolio. I wish I had these outfits myself! I wanted to be a fashion designer when I first went to art school. In the end, I picked illustration (thank goodness for that!) Being an illustrator allows me to be everything- fashion designer, interior designer, etc. in my own world. Thats why I love it.

Illustration Friday-Invention

The wacky scientist have been living in my sketch books for quite a while. This was the perfect topic to get him outta there and into color.

Illustration Friday-Thanksgiving

I have a confession to make. When I first came to the U.S., I didnt know what Thanksgiving was. What was this strange holiday that included eating turkey and cranberry sauce? At school, the teachers and my classmates asked me, did I have a good thanksgiving? Did I have turkey? I always LIED and said yes. But really, it was just like any other day at my house. And we had....chicken. I remember I didnt want anyone to find out like it was some terrible secret. Of course when you are that young, you don't want to be different. I asked my mom to cook turkey and her answer was, "Chinese people dont really eat turkey."

Funny how last year was the first year my mother finally started making turkey for thanksgiving. That took long enough :-)

Happy thanksgiving, everyone! Turkey or no turkey.

Bunnies...and more bunnies

Oddly enough, I've gotten two bunny-related assignments back to back. Guess I could use a break from drawing chickens. I've also been busy with holiday cards/and promotional stuff. This is the first year I'm actually early and prepared in making a nice holiday card for once....and its still November!

I also went to this incredibly inspiring illustration Symposium hosted by Parsons/New School this past weekend. Usually when going to these things it could be a little depressing when you see so much talented people out there. But it was so positive and I got a great creative jolt of energy. I originally wanted to go because children's illustrators/authors Maira Kalman, Peter Sis and Peter de Seve were there, whom I am huge fans of. But I was also very entertained and inspired by the various panels of animators, comic artists, you name it-and especially toy designers Friends with You, who were so funny. It opened up my mind to the possibilities. I stayed the whole day and I was completely exhausted!

Oh and thanks so much for everyone's birthday wishes last week! :-)

Illustration Friday-Smoke

This is a very old piece, about 2-3 years old. It was at a time when I finally was going somewhere with my style and wanted to take illustration more seriously as a career. Its always fun to draw evil strangers having a cigarette in his mouth, although in the world of children's publishing, I won't be able to do that, most likely.

And it my birthday today, wheee!

Chinese Zodiac

Got to work on a Chinese New Year poster for kindergarteners this week. My parents should be proud I know all the Chinese characters for each animal in the zodiac. Haha!

Illustration Friday-Ghost

I've been playing around with textures and transparencies in Illustrator. This is also my submission for the black and orange contest...for those of you who don't know about it, there is still time to submit! Deadline is Oct 31st.

People sketch

I've been trying to work on drawing more people lately. Animals are alot of fun but some projects call for humans, so I've been exploring how many faces and hair styles I can come up with.

Red the Rooster in color

Just finished a fun little story about a Rooster that doesn't want to get up in the morning.

Illustration Friday-Trouble

Yikes, I've really took a hiatus with IF and general blogging. I don't really have any excuse except my life is full of libras and had tons of birthday gatherings to attend to. Above: Some doodling, colored in photoshop.

Some exciting news: I am listed on Amazon! Penguins' Perfect Picnic will be out in Feb 2007 and two other critter craft books is also listed, coming soon. I am thrilled to pieces!

Creativity

This month I finally had some time to do some personal projects, which was a great release. Here are some characters from a story I'm working on....most likely they will change once I get to know them more in my mind.

I've been reading The Creativity Book by Eric Maisel (reccommended to me by Amazon). There are exercises for a year (sort of like The Artist's Way) but since I dont have the patience, I just read it like its a regular book, picking up little inspirations here and there. One of the exercises was to list 5 obstacles to my creativity. Mine are:

1. Procrastination
2. Not getting out enough to see art, to be inspired
3. Too busy sometimes, no time to even breathe
4. Feel like I have no voice, a phoney baloney
5. Jealousy/envy of others sometimes stops me cold

So many things are swirling in my head regarding my art and creativity these days.

Cows

*No butterflies were harmed in this illustration.

Thanks for everyone's comments for my IF entry this week. Wow! I may just do more hand drawn stuff, thanks for the encouragement.

Illustration Friday-Change

I thought in theme with this week's IF, I would change up my usual illustration technique. Its hard to part with my vector art (I heart Adobe Illustrator) but its nice to explore other ways to create art. This is hand drawn, scanned in, and colored in photoshop. I also love the idea of a limited color palette.

9.11 comic

Click image to enlarge

I attend a comics group that meets in a cafe every Monday. Yesterday was 9/11 and a quick assignment was given: to draw a 9/11 comic in 30 minutes...and here is what I did. No time to think too much, no time to erase. I ended up drawing what my experience was that day, and surprised it was more serious in tone than many others.

Weekend

It was a weekend of inspiration and relaxation. I finally went to the MOMA to see the Dada exhibit, which ended today. I havent been to the MOMA since their renovation(!) so the space itself was a new experience. Its always been my favorite museum in NY.

Left: The Chocolate Grinder by Marcel Duchamp. Seeing artwork that I've seen before is like seeing an old friend. I imagine this piece of art traveling all over the world and was reunited with it again. It is very comforting.

Also, sunday brunch with a few of my girlfriends, in an outdoor cafe with grape vines above us. Enjoy the nice weather while we still have it!

On my desk

Thanks to Linzie for her invitation for me to participate in On my desk. On my desk is where creative folks go share stuff on their desks. For me, that means sharing a glimpse of my chicken collection! Some day, I hope to have as nice of a space as some folks featured there, as I think of my apt/studio as a temporary dwelling at the moment.

Illustration Friday-Farm

As a children's illustrator, I've drawn alot of farms. Luckily, I like drawing chickens and chickens live on farms, heh!