doljanchi

A doljanchi (돌잔치) is a korean first birthday celebration and it's a pretty big to-do as, up until even my own parents' generation, children didn't survive their first year of life. 

That being the case, you would think that with the advent of modern medicine and lower infant mortality rates the ceremony would have become obsolete, but, no, the tradition is going on stronger than ever.

I personally blame cameras and the internet.  

It seems to me the Korean-American crowd is more dol-crazy than even native Koreans, but that could just be because my search engines are set to English.  A bit of worldly wisdom: being selfish for your children doesn't make you selfless, my friends.

Happy first birthday to a certain awful child.  Auntie hates you.

medium: pencil, watercolor, digital

pets ii

Ripping off Madonna of the Rocks.

Madonna of the Rocks is a personal favorite of mine because I love the sketches and the angels (both angels: London and Louvre).

I know there's a whole Da Vinci controversy as to who painted what and what painted who, but I find these images curiously compelling.  Whether Da Vinci drew them or not, painted them or not, is of little concern to me; I like what I like and I can look at these all day.

medium: watercolor and gouache on watercolor board

main site siphon ii: background

This assignment came out of our background painting class. 

This was....an unusual class.  The teacher who normally taught it ended up going to the east coast for a short-term job, so instead we got a series of substitutes, starting with the ever-energetic Sam Michlap, of Dreamworks fame, who, after a four week stint of black-and-white composition boot camp, left us with these parting words: "Don't suck."  

Following him was Donivan Howard, of Disney fame, who had us crash course through the four basic compositions (abstract, deep, flat, and, for the life of me, I can't remember that last one...)

And by the 8th week, we were taking bets as to who would be our third and final substitute, when in walks none other than Mike Humphries, of just...fame.

So this was my fourth and last class with Mike, who decided to make this into an acrylics background painting class. 

good times.

medium: acrylic on watercolor board

main site siphon i: mouse house

gouache

I'm beginning the long-awaited plan to transfer some of the rougher work off my main site and integrate them here.  Shift some of the burden onto her sister site so she can handle the weightier, "portfolio" quality work. 

This was the final for our gouache techniques class at school.  It was my third class with Mike Humphries and the assignment was to design a small house made of natural materials and use it in a composition. 

Rule #1: no trees.

helen consulting with mike on her first round of sketches: "And here's one with a tree stump..."(1)

mike: "No trees!"

helen (puppy-eyed): "Not even a stump?"

mike: "Mmm, no. I want to give you a challenge."

medium: pencil (sketches), gouache on watercolor board (color keys and final art)

1.  The following dialogue is by no means accurate. The spirit of it is spot on, but the word-for-word playback is completely dependent on my incompetent memory.

intermission ii

The intermission continues.

I'm not ashamed to say that I am not above fanart.  I like me my television and movies and random, frolicsome fictions.

It's nice to get lost in different worlds and come back again with intangible treasures.  And being in the creative field, it's only natural to want to build still more onto these castles--as much as you can and as gloriously as still more can be built--before the spirited moment subsides and the remnants of our constructive effervescence washes away to be reformed, rediscovered, and rebuilt into some entirely other thing across the ocean.

That being said, I'm not sure if I'm a fan of Once Upon A Time.  I think I just don't know what to think of it.  It's different.  And different is usually awesome...but not being different for the sake of being different.  And I think the show toes that line of trying too hard.

But the characters are so fun.  They're expressive (equal parts silly and tragic), they feel like caricatures, and you get two versions of each.  That's a fun energy to play with!

medium: scanner, photoshop, pencil (not necessarily in that order)

intermission i

I was sorting through some old files and completely forgot about this.

Been a busy bee, though my hive is woefully neglected. So in this dearth of updates, I'll throw in this one I did a while back when I had the pleasure of taking Chris Runco's class at Motivarti.  It was for our ren-punk (that's renaissance version of steampunk) time traveling theme park final project, and this was a little photo-op I made of our characters discovering soda pop (which doubled as an ad moment for outside vendors).  The closest equivalent they know is sparkling mead, so they think they're drunk.

They're made of that weird plastic that everything in Disneyland is made of and they blow bubbles at you. 

I dunno.  I thought it was funny. 

medium: photoshop

holiday iv: happy valentine's day

disaster on demand?

My holidays were belated because I was at Thinkwell for three weeks or so making trouble with some old classmates.

So Willi, Patrick, Linda, and I are leisurely lunching (sharing old war stories, gabbing about the perils of business, and bleeding our sad little artists' hearts) and, with our patented plein air skills, taking in our surroundings (shadows and textures, interesting signage....). 

One does wonder how lucrative the earthquake business is...

I guess it'd be a bit like that Uma Thurman movie: the one where the villain's company sold weather (messing with agriculture and travel; selling ecological terrorism to the highest bidder and such). 

My color is still suffering.  I think I need to pull a Mary Blair and have a transcendent color epiphany in some exotic country....pity I hate to travel.  Must learn to make do sans transcendence, I suppose.

medium: watercolor & ink, photoshop

holidays iii: happy belated lunar new year

 *yawn

Mine!

If you want to play, you have to give it...

Happy Belated Groundhog's Day, too

medium: photoshop

sisters

What if Rapunzel had never been traded for salad and lived a happy life at home?

She would probably have siblings with long hair galore.  She and her sisters (and hippy-haired brothers?!) would prance around with an entourage of soldiers and servants, valets and grooms armed to the teeth with dustpans and brushes, hairpins and brooms.  They would gossip deep into the night while braiding each others' hair, fight over their favorite dresses, and, after terrible tantrums, threaten to snip away a lock of another's hair whilst she sleeps unaware.  Of course, they would never go through with it.  Idle, harmless little firecrackers.
Hopefully, by the fourth child, their mother will learn not to covet her neighbor's parsnips.


This week's respite was inspired by a day spent with the Shin sisters, by, of course, The Art of Tangled, and by a sentence I read in the last Harry Potter book: "It was in Godric's Hollow that, but for Voldemort, [...h]e might even have had brothers and sisters."

medium: photoshop

holiday ii: happy new year's

Isn't it funny how the day solemnized for renewed resolve in regards to health, wealth, and correcting our wayward perceptions towards the haves and have-nots of the world follows those particular holidays earmarked for excess spending, gift exchanging, and indulgent eating?  Kind of like Mardi Gras before Lent.
medium: watercolor on watercolor paper