These are a few of my favorite things...

Christmas, cookies, wrapping, gifting, drawing...Christmas...did I mention Christmas... I love it... Here's some inspiration for my next project that I'm working on this weekend...maybe I'll get some inspiration from my holiday party tonight (e.g. mix of Tour de France and Carnival theme :)).
Hermes - Carrés’ Stories: J’aime mon carré Hobby Horse A beautiful piece of art for to wear many many ways; imagination is the only limit http://www.parismonami.com/ FILM COLOURS OF FLOWERS YELLOW Barbra Streisand- My Favorite Things I heard this on the radio yesterday on my drive home and I didn't even know it was Barbara until I heard her lovely, haunting voice in this song...it's so sultry and true to the spirit of the season...definitely bringing back memories of singing this over and over as a little girl...

Sing

a sketch... I discovered a wonderful music artist the other night by the name of Priscilla Ahn I love how genuine, simple, and pure her music feels....and here story...ck it out...

Cozy

It's that time of year when it's chilly and windy...and all you want to do is stay snug in your bed with a cup of hot chocolate...well that's me anyway...:) Here's a quick sketch tonight...something I haven't done in a while..inspired by the new Anthropologie catalog. I love the way their clothes are unique, luxurious but still effortless. The mix of patterns and textures are wonderful...

Dream a little dream....

I don't even know the words to describe how I feel right now. I finished hanging my artwork with the amazing team yesterday in one of our fabulous cafes at work. There was a crew to help me unwrap, prep and hang my art. I call this collection 'Dream a little dream...' because this has been a year long journey, drawing weekly, collecting feedback, finding my style, to finally come up with a collection that reflects the most influential parts of my life. I've chosen 11 pieces (one more on the way) that represent different parts of my journey. Some ideas come from my mother's stories of Chinese bird cages in tea houses, to my dream of living in a castle, to fashionable funny times as a child building towers out of playing cards. These are just a few things that tickle my fancy among many other things. It's truly a dream just to share my work with the world and to hopefully conjure up some dreams along the way... Big thanks to Alice, Chris, Mike, Heather and to all the usuals Opening to come...let me know what you think or if you'd like to attend...:)

1st Art Show

I am super excited to prep for my first ever art show! It's a dream of mine to actually show my art to the world but more importantly, go through the agonizing (but amazing!) process of just believing that I could even produce something worth showing. I'm so excited and feel lucky to have many good people around to help me along the yellow brick road....... I'm hanging my first experimental art pieces and I'd like to call the show 'Dream a little dream...'. Before I get to the details...I have to prep for how my art will hang, about flyers and tabs for each piece. I'm still pretty exhausted from a few long weeks and getting over some asthma issues but this should be good so just pushing through... Here goes and thanks all! Stay tuned...

Pocket full of posies




I've never received posies and never realized how delicate and beautiful they are..so I took some pictures of these jewel like miracles last week before they vanished into flower heaven!

There's so many updates I don't even know where to begin :)

I'm really excited to have my first art showing soon at Google. I have about 10 pieces of my early works and it's just so refreshing to be able to finally share this with the world. I had them all custom framed and didn't realize how much framing can make such a difference. Thanks to Michaels for the insight and doing such a good job.

I'm also excited to plan a trip to Hong Kong and China to train Wing Chun with some legends...and visit Ip Mans' memorial. I thought basketball was my ultimate calling, but the more and more I'm training, the more I feel this is a priceless gift unlike any other and I thank my father and family for supporting me through this path.

To moving forward and good stuff and things...

This is peachy


Some inspiration tonight..I've been working on a few projects and I just love working on dense, heavyweight, watercolor paper. There's something about loading a paintbrush and splashing puddles of water on the page that produces beautiful gradients of color. I think that's my favorite part...waiting for the paint to wrestle together and create a surprising pop of color ..something surprising yet intentional.

I call this piece 'Just peachy' since it's inspired by peach blossoms known to be good luck in many asian cultures and for me, the Chinese culture. It's popular around Chinese New Year clustered in big bundles and wrapped with a vibrant red or magenta colored paper. They're also tied loosely together so they don't fall all over the place with its' goodness.

There's something fun about the 'This is Hong Kong' childrens' book that made me feel connected to this piece..which also gave me the idea... Maybe it's also the intoxicating smell of the book itself and the crisp paper which smells reminiscent of library books...(best smell!)







Inspiration Sunday

photo by Trey Ratcliff

I love working on art over the weekends because that's when I can sleep in, roll around in bed for a bit...snack on something tastey and get up refreshed to create something I hopefully like. I'm preparing for some really amazing art opportunities and I can't help but feel overjoyed. My brain's still recovering from an amazing Swiss, French adventure the past month mixed with some Chinese tradition, martial arts surprises..I'm having a little bit of a creative stint with all of these ideas colliding but I just default back to keeping it simple and just trusting in the word of the fortune cookie (hehe, I love the cheese of fortune cookies and I'm convinced in its wise words...3 of my past fortunes came true..;)).

A recent inspiration came from Trey Ratcliff
who came to Google to speak about his philosophy of art and the Internet....and why he loves his craft...I couldn't agree with him more...the talk will be available soon...

Chinese trunk space with a french twist


I've been fascinated by travel trunks as of late and can't help but feel amazed by the craftsmanship that comes with creating a trunk...especially trunks from the 19th century. Louis Vuitton made some incredible trunks including buttery leathers, rivets, monograms...and the best part is the wear and tear you see from all the travel adventures and destinations...shows character... I also have a lovely Chinese trunk custom made in Hong Kong from my grandmother which shows some intricate carvings in rich wood....I also can't help thinking about what my own suitcase went through from my recent travels and what I tried to carry in it....

Clamshell case

This week is intense and I'm literally dreaming of books books books...5/7 books complete and now time for my final for my book arts class. In the meantime, I finished creating this clamshell case with black satin twist tie closure. I like the paisley italian paper motif against the black book cloth. I'm thinking of putting my rings in here.....:)




Sealed with a...


I'm beginning to love collecting seals of any sort. My parents were the first to buy me a Chinese 'chop' with my name engraved in it and a Chinese proverb etched in ink with the phrase of good health.

I recently visited a beautiful magic like shop in Rome, Italy which had this extensive collection of initialed wax seals
 What drew me to the seal was the rich walnut wood handle shaped perfectly to your hand to make the seal impression and the bronze seal itself with my initials. The pattern of the seal was this sophisticated and delicate waffle-like textured background.

I'm thinking about personalizing my artwork with the seals...but for now, my first wax seal is used on this letter carefully wrapped in Japanese hoshi paper. I love the touch and feel of the letter and for some reason the simplicity of the overall textures are personal. It's a bit tricky to melt the wax (which was this vibrant, smooth red tapered wax stick) so here's my first try :) (Each wax dripping and sealed stamp is different and imperfect, so you can't really get it wrong....yay for that)




Slipcase

I can't explain how refreshing and amazing I feel completing this book slipcover. I just returned from my trip to Europe and was so inspired and also feel pretty exhausted....The assignment this week was to create a slipcover for one of my books and I decided to create one for my series of Wing Chun booklets. I'm really happy with the way it turned out (being the first time I've ever done something like this). To me there's a sense of preservation and quality that I appreciate..my favorite was adding the final golden detailing to the spine...voila!



Past, Present and Future



I spend days thinking about how to put together a book for my next assignment that had to do with 'past', 'present' and 'future' without being too literal. I decided to work with the evolution of the written form (e.g. quill, pencil and touch among other examples). The construction was difficult but I used some really nice materials like Italian decorative paper (front covers), inner felt lining, hoshi paper, transparent paper...and some handy double stick tape mixed with PVA...

My favorite part is when you stretch the book out as an accordion and see all the flags spread out in a juxtaposing direction.

















Curiosities of the Sea

So I've been hibernating and trying to get this midterm for my Bookarts class done and finally! Here it is..It was super fun making this book and seriously, it made me appreciate all the work that goes into crafting a story, binding a book...and the works... Enjoy :)









pose








Experimenting on a few pieces this week with wine, ink, color pastel and light soy sauce on watercolor paper. I really like how the color combinations are blending..