2: cats, lots of cats (one will not do)

one of things i fell in love with in japan is kitty mangas-monthly magazines devoted to 4-column (mostly) comic strips of kitties and their pet human. there are so many publications of the same type of magazine it’s hard to stop myself from buying them all. but luckily for me, i have a few favourite titles so with a little self control, i can pick out the one i want and escape from the bookshop. i already have a shelf full of them, which means a shelf full of kitty reference.

this is the lineart for item 2: cats (lots of cats, one will not do). i initially started designing for a wall paper but ended up with a tree instead. it’s been coloured digitally but i’ll keep that for a little later. hurray for kitties!

edit: and this is the coloured version.

 

a post full of colours

pictures from the design festa* gotta love the things they wear.

i couldn’t resist the namecards. i mean who can resist pandas with twinkly eyes and pigs in briefs. aliceandthecat.com if you are interested. oh, and he’s not the artist but the agent. and italian too. but for a split second, when the flashes of cameras that suddenly appeared behind me went off, he broke into a j-worthy pose.

gotta love the things they wear part II. the cutie with the blonde hair and big white bow is a HE! he knew that i knew and was looking away, all uncomfortable, the whole time. how kawaii <3 love the CD hat too. and lots of bondage-animal sightings.

too cute. what more can i say!

one of my favourite installations. for the sake of art, she was stuck there in that awkward sitting position pretending to read a book under really dim orange light. and all i can think of is pins and needles. ouch.

another nice booth and installation with cool models thrown in for good measure: the ever photogenic cynthia,

and meriel and jason. i love their spontaneity! the picture would have been so blah without them.

it was a good weekend trip despite having been on an energy low for the past week. i met up with my ex-housemate, her hubby and sister too. if there’s one thing i’m blessed with, it is that i’m surrounded by really kind people. there are lots of things that i’m leaving unwritten, but i just want to say that i’m always counting my blessings.

and now, to break out of this inertia i have been feeling for so long.

 

wedding pictures, smiling faces, bubbles all around (edited)

i was visiting a friend’s friend’s blog and she wrote about how awesome her wedding photographer was. i had a peek at his site and true enough, he is indeed awesome. so awesome that there was suddenly a lot of frothing going on inside my head.

so i dug out some pictures i took for my friends three years ago and started editing them. vivian and johnson were the nicest people to photograph-spontaneous, happy and infinitely kind. i had little confidence but they told me to come along anyway, and i was glad i did. in any case, being the backup took half the stress away, and it turned out to be so much fun.

so many white poofy memories, and bubbles in my head. lots of them.
i would love to do this again.

(bubble)

lynn? if time and money allow, on lah ! (^ ^)/

(pop)

 

so yummy

this is officially the next new thing i’m lusting after. not kimura takuya, though he’s pretty yummy too. japanese boys are usually quite cute. even if they are not, their hairstyles kinda make up for it. but that’s until uncle-dom strikes when they are in their late 20s. kimutaku is already in his 30s and still looking dishy.

back to the other delicious looking thing. the nikon d40x. i’d have easily settled for the original d40 since 10 megapixels means nothing to me when a good quality 6.1 can do the same job. i’ve never really been the more/bigger-the-better type. but over here, they are bundling the d40x lens kit and an additional VR 55-200mm zoom lens for an attractive price.

i love my d70 and the best thing is that it’s still working really well after 3 years. the only gripe i have is the size and the weight. d70 is not something i want to lug around on a casual day out. the d40 looks perfect. and if it’s as light as people claim it is, i can totally do away with the need for an extra compact camera.

i’m really tempted to buy it. like right away. just as i was tempted to buy the scanner-printer combi and a macbook pro right away. but i’m taking some time to think it through. and with time, i realised that some things, like the 超 expensive macbook pro, can wait. i guess a newer and better equipment doesn’t mean anything, just like an expensive, big-ass camera doesn’t necessary make a good picture. anyway, photography, illustration, graphics are still just hobbies for me. i could as easily spend time making rubber stamps with the carving set i bought for a 100 yen and feel just as satisfied.

 

the said pants

and she made this herself! isn’t it amazing? my fabric is kinda brownish with blue threads running through it. jay bought two. a dark-grey-good-for-all-occasions piece, and a very japanese-dark-blue-hakama-lookalike one with subtle white stripes. nozomi’s was a really soft beige colour, perfect for tie pants.

i wish i knew where to start when it comes to being crafty and all. but according to the random wisdom that gmail sometimes generates, the very apt advice of this morning went something like “the best way to do something, is to do it.”

on another note, i think i am pretty much in a どうでもいい phase right now. i can only do what i can do, as best as i know how. and since the rest is really not within my control, i shouldn’t need to worry about it.

the photo above is courtesy of inas. you can see more of her works at rebites.blogspot.com

 

aizu’s tradition, tie-pants and portuguese artists

when we saw ines, the new portuguese artist of nishi aizu, and the cool tie-pants she made from traditional japanese woven fabric, we all wanted one. inas offered to make them for us if we bought the fabric. and for payment, we would give her the rest of the fabric so she could make new pants for herself! how cool is that?

so jay, megu, nozomi and i went fabric choosing and were also shown the really old machines, supposedly more than a hundred years old, which made them. it was amazing.

then we drove down to where inas is living with another fellow portuguese artist. an old elementary school building, no longer used for that purpose, in the rural countryside. i saw her art works and they were so pretty.

dinner was yaki udon and avocado mousse.

i feel so inspired. and i guess it is a really good start.