Saturday, March 31, 2012

Polyvore

I took an hour off today to doodle something, intended for a letter to a friend: Connie, if you're reading this before you've received your letter, now is the time to close the window... or is it too late?


letter to connie march 2012 sm


Polyvore-style! Drawn with my faithful Uniball Signo DX this afternoon. I haven't done this kind of stuff in a while -- it feels good. That's my Alice and the Pirates stained glass OP badly featured on the left, by the way.

The current completeness levels of my essays are 90%, 50%, 5% and 0% respectively. Help!!


Friday, March 23, 2012

I'm bushed

*_* FINALLY finished my submission for Lolita: the Artwork. It is exactly 1.11am as I am typing this. I still have four essays left to complete. One of them is 3/4 done.

pockets embroidery princess finish sm

I know I was going to try for a pop-art look with this one, but the deadline came looming at me again like an iceberg from the mist, and I turned out not to have the time or the brain space left to get used to a new style. :S I'll probably experiment with it some more when I have time, to see if I can do it. My actual submission doesn't have the poetry, since I wasn't sure about copyright issues; it's part of Inger Christensen's sonnet cycle, 'Butterfly Valley', translated by Susanna Nied.

While my nerves are still fried from all that painting let me take the occasion to squee over a new dress that I hadn't known I'd wanted: Alice and the Pirates's Seraphim Stained Glass one-piece in black.

Alice and the Pirates Seraphim OP

Thing is, I already have the same print in another style. Help! I was going to look for the jumper skirt in white, but the black OP came by and... those who came here looking just for nice art had better be warned that there'll be plenty of lolita fashion too, because the clothes are certainly artworks in their own right; the dress featured in this painting is the Pockets Embroidery JSK in cream from Baby, the Stars Shine Bright. I've been looking for this dress for ages, and I still haven't managed to find it yet. One day it will be mine.

OK. Time to cram some readings and sleep. I think I'll take a break from artiness next week if I can't finish that second 5000-word paper in time. I still have no idea what I'm going to write.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

have some berry pink background

I'm in the midst of making art, but those can't be posted online because that would invalidate them as anthology submissions. Here is an older piece: a thank-you note I made for a wonderful Japanese lady who invited me to her house in order to teach me how to put on and tie kimono.


thank-you to yumiko-san II

The inspiration for this style was children's crayon art, title-screens from oldish Chinese films, and the kind of graphic-minimalist-ornate aesthetic you find in Japanese and Shanghainese advertising from the 1890s-1930s. Both the kimono set featured here and the yellow dress exist in real life; my hair is not that long yet, but it's getting there.



Saturday, March 10, 2012

The Polish Well

A friend of mine who co-runs a blog on nail polish (her name is Jane!) asked me to produce something for her webpage, and after the most shameful long wait I managed to cough up something. The name of the blog is 'The Polish Well', and they wanted multichrome nail polish (the sparkly kind) featured somewhere, so I tried to combine the two concepts as best as I could.

well sketch
I was meant to have left the background white to match the white background of the blog layout, but somehow I got carried away -- you know how these things go.

well ver 2sm

Green so pretty. I didn't want to give it up. I didn't want to give up the big golden FWOOM at the centre either, but it was interfering with the layout. Here is the final product:

well ver 3sm

Not my best work by any means, but Jane and Michan seemed okay with it -- they even put it up on their webpage! And here I thought we were all going to sit on it for a while until I had time to redo everything. *_* If you like nail art, check out their blog at http://thepolishwell.blogspot.com/ for reviews on the latest polish products!


Wednesday, March 7, 2012

work in progress: princess

I didn't post last week, so I have to make up for it this time by posting twice before Sunday! I have several ongoing projects, some of which shouldn't be shown yet because works in progress tend to be very ugly, but here's one that's looking pretty good right now.

work in progress 01

If things go as planned, this picture will have a more pop-art style than I normally use. The pencil sketch is a few posts down; I've decided to update post-by-post after all, since I can only work on this intermittently. I'm not used to doing linework on my tablet, so that part took longer than usual. I want direct pen-to-screen interaction. :/ And/or a better scanner.

In completely unrelated news, I caved in to my cravings and ordered BABY's Fragrant Rose Memories Camelot JSK in rosemary on reserve. Here it is in the sepia colourway.

Fragrant Rose Memories Camelot jumper skirt 01

This dress is one thing I am very sure I will never have the guts to draw. And it's just about as expensive as it looks. Where on earth shall I wear it to? Maybe I'll find some guy to marry just so I can have it at the wedding. (And then promptly divorce him)

I can't wait for it to arrive!!!