Fishing Fun at Pacifica Pier

So I want to show off my fishing skill... and I'm so generous that I want to share the secret here. The above pictures were taken on the 22nd of this month at Pacifica Pier, it was our second time fishing there. The first picture (top left) is me holding a Silver Surfperch (I caught this fish in a funny way... on the dorsal fin, haha). And the picture on the top right shows total fishes we caught within 2 hours there! There were Silver Surfperches and Walleye Surfperches and two Anchovies on the sticks.


It did feel like hitting the jackpot, because we were the only one kept getting fishes. We actually learned the secret from a family when we were there fishing for the first time. This family's two boys who are probably just 9 or 10 years old but they were the fisherman on the pier that day, and they totally caught about 10 fishes with cheapo looking fishing rods. 


So we think the secret is not so much about what fishing skill, or what equipment because I also used a cheapo fishing rod that's only $10.99,  we think it's the bait. The family was using lived sandworm, and we thought the color of the sandworm might be what make it happen. So we bought artificial sandworm in orange color and it worked! And we were so very glad the family was not there, so we got to hit the jackpot. ;)


The bottom left and right pictures show we tried both grill and steam, and we got to taste surfperch more by steam (the meat came off easier,too), and smelt is definitely great by grilling because you can eat from head to eyes to tail to bone! Crunchy all the way!

Pots and Pans Man

Like Dancing Ninja, Pots and Pans Man was not Pots and Pans Man to begin with... It was a nerd with super clean cut hair sitting in the coffee shop (yup, I'm stubborn with coffee shop setting) enjoying his music and laptop. And when I drew to his arms... everything started changing from there, arms just naturally positioned like they're dancing. And then I felt like changing his hairdo to dread like, I felt like giving him an urban look with a plaid shirt and fit denim and my favorite green color high converse. 


And there he started his day with his music in the kitchen synchronizing with pots and pans and 'I like to move it move it' to his music before he can cool down for his breakfast. ('I like to move it move it' is from King Julien in Madagascar)


I think Pots and Pans Man came out not as I originally planned because he's jealous of Dancing Ninja. He can't let Dancing Ninja take all the spotlight, there's a need for balance, a competitor. He represents Day and Dancing Ninja represents Night.


Pots and Pans Man was also done in oil, and I left pots and pans undone because my feelings told me to. The focus is on the Man.

Dancing Ninja

So the "maybe" didn't happen, because artists change their minds all the time... I mean me. So all the sudden I felt like drawing people because they are still my favorite subject. Why? Because people are funny. I had the most fun drawing people and this one is fictional.


My idea comes in a weird way and usually changed along the way as well. The initial idea for this painting was a cowboy sitting down enjoying his coffee at a coffee shop on Monday to get rid of his Monday crank. And funny as I drew to glasses part, I started changing the shape of glasses to heart and star indicating his good mood after sips of coffee, and after I finished his head, I felt like he should be a hipster dancing. 


So I literally just drew as I felt what he should do, and at first he's dancing with twinkle twinkle little stars and saying 'follow me', but I felt his colorfulness from head to toe is so colorful as a disguise of who he really is, so I made the twinkle stars to throwing stars. 


So, he's a Dancing Ninja. Don't be easily fooled. ;)

Sleeping Fox - The Cuddle Family

So as I was finishing up the Bathing Monkey for the bathroom, I felt like creating one for the bedroom, too. And fox came to my mind first as my sleeping beauty. Because they just look so comfortable with their fur tail curled up and wrapped around like an all-in-one comforter-ish cushion pillow scarf...


And I remember last month when I watched Grizzly Man, the foxes that followed Timmy were so cute like dogs, they just wanted to be pet and want to cuddle. And they always look sleepy with their squinty eyes. To make it the same like the Bathing Monkeys, I made the youngster awake because they are always restless. This painting is also done in oil, and the background I used painting knife to make the hatching.


What room next? There are too many rooms now I've seen at some people's houses... bathroom, master bedroom, kitchen, dining room, study/office room, guest room 1, guest room 2, game room, kid's room, changing room, laundry room... Maybe I'll do storage room next. ;) 

Bathing Monkey - The Hot Tub Family

So I'm watching myself eating my own words... I've not been able to update my blog every other day. And I'm sorry to those artists who I criticized not update often enough. I now criticize time. It probably flies faster when it feels like to, and we don't even know. 


So I didn't slack off after the Camping Bears illustration, I was thinking hard what to draw next but it turned out thinking hard did not help me produce any art. Until last Sunday Raul and I went fishing, I got to play all day and on Monday I doodled outline for this Bathing Monkey painting. So, we should always play for inspiration. Yeah, I don't know why fishing has anything to do with monkeys or hot tub. Maybe I'm the monkey eager for a hot tub to relax and play. No parents, please. ;)


I painted this with oil colors, haven't done oil painting for a long time! And actually this is the first time I did oil painting this way, cartoony way. I used to do realistic with oil, that's how I was taught. And I feel painting realistic with oil colors is actually easier. I like this new experiment though.

Not When I Go Camping 5

No, I was not attacked by any bear nor did I attack any bear when I went off-trail camping in Yosemite last month on the 20th. I haven't posted anything for the past two weeks because internet break down until this morning. Boy! my brain was blank for the first couple of days without internet. So I did above 4 more camping bears in the meantime. Like the 10 Pastel Dog Series, I felt 10 Camping Bears Series reached a good amount, and I'd like to move on to next I don't know what yet illustration.

Making Camping Bears Series illustration was fun but required a bit brain juice for me, because coming up with the bubble talk line took some thinking plus I intended to couple them up by bears facing each other and by color themes as you can see the above (and from my previous posts)... not that it serves any particular purpose or has any deep meaning... I just like to torture myself.

This Camping Bears Series made me miss art markers a lot! They are so efficient and look great when it comes to both rapid visualization drawing and fine product rendering. And I like to play with the streaky look when you draw it slow, and when you blend the color faster you can also master a smooth surface without seeing any streak line.

Not When I Go Camping 4

I did this one earlier today, and the more I draw bears the more I feel I can speak for their behaviors. They are either curious or hungry. But they are curious because there might be food... so bears are simply hungry. I got this 'I Like Presents' idea from watching those youtube about how bears easily pop-open coolers by putting their paws on the cooler and using their whole body weight to press on it... the movement looks like they're giving CPR, and quickly food pop out like presents. 

Not When I Go Camping 3

I just did this one couple hours earlier because those cute pictures of bears checking out people's cars on internet just cracking me up... maybe not so funny anymore if it happened to our car next Tuesday.

dogbatcat Shop NOW OPEN

YAY!~~~~
Our dogbatcat shop on Etsy officially opened today! My lovely Pastel Dog Series paintings (my July 8th post) are now available for purchase! You can click on the images shown on the right-side bar under SHOP MY ART to see what is currently selling in our shop, or you can go to
www.dogbatcat.etsy.com

?? dogbatcat? What the heck is dogbatcat? And how and who came up with it? you asked. It is literally dog, bat, and cat combined creature. Of course it was Raul the writer who came up with the name! Because we wanted to open Etsy shop together to sell and share our creatives and fun (and maybe other artists would like to join us in the future), and he thinks dogbatcat very well represents us different artists come as a group.

Not When I Go Camping 2

Here are another two. 

Not When I Go Camping

I started these two "Bear At Camp" illustrations because Raul and I are going off trail camping at Yosemite next week, and we truly hope bears won't come "Knock-Knock" us. Though we're prepared and we've rehearsed for meeting-the-bears situations. 

The illustrations were done in markers and india ink on 5x7 watercolor paper.

Lovely Best Friend - Pastel Dog Series

   

   

   

Dogs are the cutest thing on earth! When you shout high-five, they probably come faster than your friends and family! Before this post, I was just watching a cute clip on youtube about a dad's high-fiving his baby in the booster seat but baby's too little to understand it and the dog sitting next to the baby was watching first but probably seeing no reaction from the baby, s/he started passionately cutting in front to give its high-five like non-stop! How cute is that?


I started this series at the beginning of this month, and they are the first ten I finished by yesterday. There will be more coming, at lease I should draw my Yorkshire Terrier! They are done in soft pastel and size is 8.25x8.25 in, I also named them the way they looked to me... (the format here doesn't allow me to label under each image, so the names below go like the image grid above)


White Face Husky  |  Blushing Poodle  |  Pirate Jack
Pudding Shih Tzu  |  Eyepatch Terrier  |  Marshmallow Bichon
Earmuff Beagle  |  Beard Schnauzer  |  Bat Ear Chihuahua
Pink Bow Bull

Portrait Head Caricatures

So being an extreme-r... this post I decided to share some of my caricature illustrations with portrait head style, which is totally the opposite from the simple contour line illustrations I did on the previous post. Both are very interesting and fun in their own way. I like to draw people because people are funny. But I can't draw people funny on their face because they'll get mad and won't buy my art, so I draw them pretty and handsome on the face, and give them the usual retard-o cartoon body (sometimes exaggerating depends on who I draw, but usually family members suffer) to have my fun.


I like to do bubble talk, too, to show some connection/humor between us as a friend or family. And it brings that special touch to the illustration, and I like to see people's smile and laughter when they see themselves through my perception and my friendship/relationship with them.
All my caricatures shown here are done in pencil, color pencil, sharpie and pantone markers, and couple bubble talk words that look too perfect are from the transfer lettering.

SF Stories Movie Posters

Big heeeello to the blog space and all bloggers! I finally crossed the line to the blog community and am very excited to share my artwork and blah it up about process, ideas and inspiration here, and hopefully I don't end up blahhhing to myself the whole time. Come share and talk art!

First artwork I want to share is the posters I designed for SF Stories Movie that just had its world premiere at LA Asian Pacific Film Festival back in May 2010 and it won the Special Jury Award for Best Screenplay!! Allrrrrrright~And it's still going to be shown at other festivals throughout this year such as Chinese American Film Festival in October. I'm going! Are you?

So, if you or your friends have yellow fever or you are one of those Asian American feeling caught in between looking like Asian on the outside but white-washed on the inside, or you just simply love and support a good indie film, you can find further info at

www.rjwriter.com

www.SFStoriesMovie.com

(Click the posters on the left to see enlarged character details!)

Here are the total 5 posters with 5 main characters in the movie, the first poster (the stalker in yellow) is Michael the male lead who's a third generation Chinese-American with a misguided obsession for Asian culture and a fetish for Asian women. The second poster (the broken woman in green) is Wendy the female lead who's a frumpy Japanese-American woman, she's quiet and bold and is secretly fearful of the world.

The third poster (the kickass wannabe in blue) is Luk, a recent immigrant from China and he delivers Chinese food for the Chow King Express restaurant. The forth poster (the dude in brown) is Brad, who is Michael's best friend since high school, Brad lives in his parents' basement and desperately clings to his fading dream of becoming a heavy metal rock star. And last poster (the flirty in red) is Sulin, a female escort who is Luk's roommate and had a date with Michael.

No, this is not an animated film, I used line-drawn to depict the characters because this is an indie film and not yet any actor is worldly recognized, so we thought it'd probably be more interesting to use cartoonish style to illustrate both the character traits and their humor, and it turned out as what you see here, and we LOVE it!

There had been many many I mean MANY revisions and I almost killed the director a few times, because behind those simple lines that might seem easily done, there were a lot of homework from him like first was watching the film (yeah, the 3 hour rough-cut one) and then coming along with more character understanding, behavior studying and blah lessons by my ear... but I really learned how to portrait each character and who they are and how they are by putting myself in their skin to feel what they feel. It was not easy I gotta say, but it's rewarding when you know you got the look.

And that's why I truly appreciate and like to watch those behind the scene work of animated films. I think all animated films should include behind-the-scene features on their DVDs as a standard even on single disc ones, so people can see and learn how it's done and appreciate the art behind it all!