Monday Drawing Day

I went to see the Collecting Matisse exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery today with my friend Don. What a great show it was! Every piece in the collection was beautiful. Imagine living in an apartment surrounded by paintings by Picasso, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, and gorgeous jewelries and artifacts from different cultures. That's the life of the ladies who fostered this collection.

After the show, Don and I lingered outside the Art Gallery to enjoy the weather and drew for a couple of hours. Here are some drawings from this afternoon.

This one is called "The Lady who Sat Down, Lit a Cigarette, Smoked, Drank Her Coffee, Read, Stretched Her Legs, Smoked Some More, and then Left".

What a great day it was!

Lithograph

I had recently taken a 5-week lithography workshop during March at Vancouver's Malaspina Printmakers studio. Check out some pictures from the workshop!

One Year

It's been one year since the earthquake and tsunami befell upon Japan on March 11 of last year. In this illustration I picked a few symbols - the bridge for getting over the loss of a loved one, the bridge's reflection (forming a complete circle with the bridge) for reincarnation and the circle of life, and the reversed Japanese flag, a white sun in red sky, to commemorate victims of the disaster.

Animation Test

I played around with some animation during the holidays. It's been so long. I miss it.

The good ol' lightbox!

Another shot of the lightbox.

Here's a still from the animation.

An animation test is something animators do before they move on to the rest of the production. It gives them a chance to make sure that everything is right before they spend a lot of time and money to produce the scene. In this case I made this little animation test because I've been doing some character doodling and wanted to see how my doodles would look like if they were animated.

Here are some of the doodles.

This animation test is still missing lots of drawings, maybe close to a hundred or even more. The holiday break just ended yesterday, I will have time to finish this little animation. There's lots of art to be made in 2012, cheers!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Here's a little sneak peek at what I've been working on lately. The garden where I made this drawing is closed for the next couple of months, so I might have to finish the other drawings in March or April. Guess I'll find something else to work on meanwhile. Anyways, Happy Holidays, everybody!

Another Cartoon Update!

The young boy is NOT smoking a pipe!

To Flick or Not to Flick - Part 2

The flick is a metaphor. The questions is - what for?

You tell me.

To Flick or Not to Flick

That, is the question.

Haiku Comics 3

the end of a branch

a petal departs, dancing -

through patches of light

Hmmm the print didn't come out the way I thought it would... back to the lab!

Last Week

This was my last week. Now I'm about to do it all over again. Yay!

Stop and Smell the Flowers

I'm trying to make this strip a weekly thing. Before I make a proper website for it I'll be putting them on the Urban Fairy Tale blog. Enjoy, and don't forget to stop and smell the flowers!

Haiku Comics 2

A petal departs,

Through patches of light, dancing -

the autumn wind cuts.

Haiku Comics

Leafs mostly green

Reflected in the pond -

and orange fish!

As I was drawing at the Nitobe Japanese Garden, a Mom strolled by with her two boys. The boys looked into the pond and were very amused by the fish. While they watched the fish swim, they enthusiastically shouted out the colour of the fish. I thought that was quite neat.

A Day at the Park

Just this past Saturday, July 9th, I went to Stanley Park, Vancouver, to check out the Summer Live event which celebrates the city's 125th birthday. Here are some drawings I did throughout the day:

The Gamelan group that my sister belongs to - Gamelan Gita Asmara - performed at around noon. They were followed by some also excellent musicians, including a jazz band, a blues band, Hannah Georgas, Neko Case, and The New Pornographers. I loved the diversity of musical programs they had throughout the three days.

The Gamelan musicians having conversations with each other 

The graceful dancer that accompanied Gamelan Gita Asmara

 This jazz band started off with All The Things You Are and had me right away

 Here's their bassist

 The event took place next too a bunch of totem poles - how cool is that?

 The day definitely had a very relaxing atmosphere to it

 Here's a drawing of Hannah Georgas on stage

 Here's a drawing of Hannah Georgas with her autograph and lovely comment. When I showed this drawing to her, she asked me if this was a picture of her. That made me feel like a creepy stalker for some reason. The truth is, I am a creepy stalker, but the person I stalk is not Hannah Georgas.

 She looks too cool for school, I look ridiculously tanned

The wonderful Neko Case. There is power in that woman's voice.

It felt like a mild version of Woodstock.

After working my butt off for seemingly an eternity, finally I have some free time to get to projects that I want to do for myself. Stay tuned!

Remembering the Fun

One of the earliest memories of my life that I can recall was of me receiving a box of old crayons that my older sister didn't want anymore. I think anyone with a sibling knows what I'm talking about. If you're a little brother or sister, you received second-hand stuff that your older sibling outgrew. With that box of crayon, I drew a bird out of geometric shapes - quite a Boccioni-esque picture, if my memory serves me right.

While I grew a little bit older, I think at around the ages of five or six, I started drawing my favourite cartoon characters. At that time there was no internet, so I had to wait once a week for the 30 precious minutes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to come on, and then immediately after the show I'd grab a pencil and and try to recreate Donatello and Leo on paper while the memory is still fresh.

At around seven, I started owning paperback issues and collector's cards of my most favouritest thing in the world - Dragonball! If my math is correct, 99.99999% of currently active comic book artists will tell you that they taught themselves how to draw when they grew up by copying their favourite panels of their favourite comic books obsessively and repeatedly. For me, those comic books were all the issues of Dragonball I owned. As a kid, all I needed to stay quiet and content for a couple of hours was a piece of paper and a pencil, seriously!

And lately, at the age of 26, after a long day at work, as I sit at my desk and watch TV - 'cause I'm too tired to do anything else - it occurred to me to grab a piece of paper and a pencil and try to relive those childhood memories. Picasso once said that it takes a long time to grow young - well, I'm gettin' there!

Spider-Man and Wolverine copyright belongs to Marvel, I believe. That, or the fantastic Mr. Stan Lee. Dragonball stuff copyright belongs to by personal favourite Mr. Toriyama Akira.