Boom Bang Bang

Man I haven't been doing this on a regular basis. Well I suppose that's because life is quite busy. I really wish I had more new art to post but I haven't done a whole lot. I do have one new piece though. I had so much fun making the koi fish from last time that I did a second one. I worked really slowly on this one and I wouldn't be surprised if I changed it some more in the future. But as of now this is what it looks like.And on a completely different note, it is current Africa weeks at my school. This past Friday we had our Africa night performance. I was in one dance and the end of the final dance, Waka Waka. One of the dances that I wasn't in was to the song Bumpy Ride by Mohombi which is pretty much my favorite song now.



I have a whole sketchbook full of colored pen drawings form the summer that I need to scan and I will try to do that soon so that I can put those up. Once I get that done you can expect quite a few more art posts :)

fishie

So pretty much this is what I did today when I had no motivation to do homework that isn't due till Tuesday; thus producing my fishie little friend here.

Self-Portrait

The other day I suddenly got the urge to do a self-portrait. I can't even remember the last time I did one, so I broke out the paints. This took me all day, literally, I started after breakfast and didn't finish until 11 at night. At least half of that was spent working on the hat. The painting looks a lot better in person then it does here (I had to take a picture of because it is too big to scan). I have been doing quite a bit of painting this summer, but other than this one I only really happy with one other painting (I'll put it up later). I think tomorrow will be another day spent in my painting pants, and possibly one of the last for a while; I haven't decided whether or not I am going to bring my paints back with me yet.

I wanted to portray myself with my Domo kun hat 1. because I love that hat and 2. because it meant I wouldn't have to paint my full face, and I put the blue hair in even though I don't have it anymore (no worries though blue will be back before school starts), and finally I couldn't paint a self portrait without a mushroom.

noodles!

This summer I have a new favorite for lunch. Cold soba noodles with soba tsuyu (sauce). I had made miso soup with soba noodles for the family for dinner one day and had a bunch of leftover noodles and got the idea to do this from justhungry.com, my go to site for Japanese recipes. The last time I made it I ate it with edamame and sliced daicon (Japanese radish). It is incredibly refreshing and yummy!

octo

A few weeks ago I went to the Fremont market with my family and I bought two really cool screen printed tee shirts and one of them has an awesome octopus design on it which inspired me to draw an octopus myself. I guess you could say I went through a bit of an octo phase, and I'm sure if I am quite fulfilled yet so you might be seeing more in the future.

Cream Puffs

Lately I have been watching the Japanese drama, Zettai Kareshi (Absolute Boyfriend), and part of the plot line revolves around the cream puffs that the main character makes. This made me wan to make cream puffs really badly, so today I did. I made some with a chocolate pudding filling and some with a vanilla coconut custard filling, and they were pretty tasty if I do say so myself.

Wonderland Sketches

I have almost filled up my current sketch book, and as I was looking through it I realized that a good chunk of it was Alice in Wonderland themed. Although I must say that all but the last one I drew from the original illustrations.

Product of random inspiration

I have two new pictures. I have been doing a lot of experimenting lately but most of it fails, however I do think that these two came out quite well.

When I started this one I just wanted to make a picture with a tree over to the side. I was then left with an excess of negative space on the left. I also just figured out how to do vertical text in word and I'm on a run with incorporating Japanese into my pictures. I don't really know Japanese but I am studying it and plan on studying abroad in Japan, so Japanese in on my mind quite a bit; I've even been signing all my digital works in Japanese. Here I put lyrics from one of my favorite BoA Songs: Possibility , it says
"The pendulum is still swaying,
a thread which follows my last hope,
why did it snap and break off?
this kind of heart breaking,
for each other to do trial and error and acquire preparation,
I understand but I'm lost,
was this really okay?"

This one was inspired by the Boom-box SNL digital short. It actually started out as a hip hop tribute like one I am working on in my pen sketchbook, but sort of turned into something else completely when I added the webbing.

I was also inspired by by the Ghetto Blaster boom-box which I want so terribly badly. Just the thought of having one makes my dancing feet excited. Speaking of dancing I have sort of been in a creative rut with one of the songs I am choreographing to; but yesterday a butt-load of inspiration hit me for an entirely different song. I now have a very good start for a dance to Drake's song "Over". I know the mood I want it to give off which fits well with the lyrics, and I think I might even be able to sneak some krump in there. I have very high hopes for this one.

Digital Art

Today I decided that I wanted to try doing digital art. So far I am completely addicted. I don't have a digital tablet yet, but I want one really bad and will hopefully get one in the near future. I have a feeling that I am going to be making a lot of art this summer. So far these are the two that turned out the best. Trees are my second go to after mushrooms which is why I use them so much. The Japanese on both of them says "nature".

For this one I used an online application which made the webbing effect possible.

For this one I used open canvas. This was my first time using a digital sketching program and since I don't have a tablet with a pen yet I was just using the mouse pad on my laptop. I'm pretty happy with it though considering, and it was really fun to make.

Hippies and Hip Hop

As I was sitting in my house thinking about how I really wanted to get in on Seattle's hip hop scene I somehow found out that the Massive Monkees Crew was celebrating their 11th anniversary and that there was going to be a big b-boy/b-girl crew battle going down. Shortly after finding this out I was on the phone with one of my friends making plans to go downtown and see it. Just so happen that Seattle Folk life festival was going on as well; thus began a day of Seattle hippies and hip hop.
The Massive Monkees are a b-boy crew from Seattle that made it to the top three on the MTV show America's Best Dance Crew. Basically they are crazy good.

We began our day at the Seattle Center for Folk Life. This was my first time at Folk Life, and it was quite the experience. What struck me the most was the amount a variety of food! We didn't really stay for too long, instead we ended up walking around Seattle. We found a path that went along the waterfront and just followed it. We followed it for a long time. Before we knew it we were quite far from the Space needle (where we started and had to make it back to). But along the way we found a lot of interesting things and took a bunch of pictures.

I was so glad to see the waterfront. I missed the salt water while I was in Minnesota.

Along our way we stumbled upon this awesome looking wall.

At the same place that we found the wall there was also strange writing on the ground.

We also passed a boat from Korea

As you can see we were quite far from the Space Needle

When we decided to turn around we crossed over this cool double helix bridge.

After we finally made it back to the Space Needle we headed out again to find the place for the Massive Monkees anniversary. We of course ended up walking way out of our way but did eventually manage to find it. And I am ever so happy that we did. We walked in and it was like a dream. A room full of break dancers (a good number of them Asian). There were several circles and we stood in one for most of the time. We got to see quite a few incredibly talented dancers. I even got to see Twixx from the Massive Monkees break dance, which was just epic. To see him dance in person after seeing him dance many times on TV was a completely different experience; it was so intense.
Then the battles began. Two crews faced off against each other going five rounds. There were crews there from all over and the age range was quite large. I got some footage of the first two crews that battled (the video is taking forever to upload so I'll post it later). The whole event went till midnight and I wish I could have stayed longer than I did, but even with the amount of time that I was there the experience was fantastic and my passion for dance continues to grow.

Newest Creations

I have finally been able to release some of the artistic energy I have built up. The one downside of college is that I have less time for art. However at the end of this school year I got to make tea bowls for my Arts of Japan class. I hand built two tea bowls. I had never really dealt with clay before so this was new for me. My favorite part was glazing. I hadn't painted in a while so it felt so good to have a brush back in my hand.

This is my first one. I was really happy that the inside and part of the outside turned out really red. On the front I painted a tree and on the back I put the Japanese character for heart 心。

On my second bowl I painted a branch on the outside and 心 inside.

Yesterday I broke out all of my paints at home and made this plaque. The character is sakura (cherry blossom). I also did another painting but I'm not quite sure if it is finished yet.

This one I decided to sign in Japanese.

Hip Hop Love

Ok so I'll take a break from talking about Asia and blog about something else. Via Pandora I came upon one of my new favorite hip hop artists, Blue Scholars. They are a Seattle based hip hop duo and something about them just draws me in (I like how I find all this out after I leave Seattle). Their vibe is different from main stream hip hop and I find it to be really refreshing. Anyways you should check them out.

Rain / 비 / ビ

Well this is how it is folks. Rain. Rain is my newest obsession. He is a Korean R&B singer, actor and dancer. Basically he is the Asian Usher. In America he is probably best known for staring in the movie Ninja Assassin but I fell in love with his dancing first, his voice second, and his acting I just recently came to appreciate. I just started watching a drama that he stars in Full House (not the one with the Olsen Twins) and it is actually really good. There is so much I could say about why I like his so much but it is really just best if you see for yourself!

note* I included several links in my post that you should check out!

Hip Hop Weekend

This weekend was absolutely EPIC in terms of dancing. Friday night our dorm had a "rave" which was really just a dance, but it was incredibly fun, and I actually went out to the middle of the dance circle (although I didn't break dance).
Then there was Saturday. Oh boy Saturday was intense. I went up to Macalester College with PRYDE (St. Olaf's hip hop group) for a hip hop conference thing. Macalester and St. Thomas's hip hp groups as well as Macalester's break-dance club. Each group took turns teaching the other groups dances. By the time we got to break-dancing we had been dancing for many hours, and the Guy teaching breaking was one of the most intense people I have ever met, but he was crazy good.
We performed that evening in their chapel, and I think that we did really well. We had the most energy in doing that routine than we ever have and I felt really good about it.
The only downside to all the awesome dancing is how painfully sore I am after. Yesterday absolutely everything hurt, but even though there was pain I feel so incredibly inspired and have oodles of new ideas!!
On a more random note: here is one of my current favorite music videos

I'm Back... again

Ok well I decided to go back to blogging. Maybe it's because it is spring time again, but I was starting to miss it. So, Here I am once again. Well, let's see here... updates: I am in the middle of my my second semester of college now and completely loving it. Time has been going by so quickly! I am living happily at school.
Right now I have two major loves (besides art, that's always a given) Japan and dance. My love for all things Japanese has continued to grow steadily since I started learning Japanese. I am even going to be an Asian Studies major (well doubling with art history). Next January I am going to go to Japan for a few weeks and I am incredibly excited.

My other love, dance, has been taking over so many of my thoughts lately. I am in my school's hip hop club, but I seem to do way more dancing than that. If you have never seen the show America's best dance crew, I suggest you do, because it is awesome. Krump has gone from being something that I found amusing to a passion. I am determined to be a krumper, but we'll see how it goes. My break-dancing skills have virtually disappeared however and I would really like to have them back.

To combine all the things that I love: Asian hip hop! Ok so most of what I like is Korean and not Japanese, but the Korean singer do occasionally do songs in Japanese. I recently found a site that is really good for finding good Japanese and Korean music: JpopAsia If you have never heard of the Korean singer BOA she is basically my goal! She is intense but still maintains her femininity. If I am ever as BA as she is I will be infinitely happy.