The Little Mermaid - book cover

One of the stories I illustrated for my thesis is The Little Mermaid. I've been working on this story for almost a year. Last year, here is the book cover I designed and painted:

I still really like this painting, but it doesn't work very well as a book cover. There's too much going on, the composition is kind of stiff and there's not enough room for text.

I struggled a lot with a design for a new cover, because I wanted to show the mermaid, with her tail, but also a closeup of her face, and I wanted to fit in the prince and maybe a castle in the background, you know? I got frustrated with a lot of designs that just kind of sucked. I was starting to wonder if I had lost my artistic groove. That desperation caused me to finally let go of my many self-imposed requirements and focus on something simple.

If you haven't read the original story, the mermaid is a tragic, saint-like character, not at all the rebellious redhead of the Disney movie. Andersen describes her as "a strange child, quiet and thoughtful," always dreaming and longing for the surface world. The new cover better depicts the sad-sweet mood of the story, and also has a lot more room for text!

I actually think of the mermaid as a sort of Christ figure. I was going to write in my thesis book all sorts of deep thoughts about the parallels between Jesus Christ and the little mermaid. But that sort of pretentious monologue belongs in the fine art department. Ain't nobody in the illustration department got time for that.

The Little Street Painters

Last time I visited home, one of my neighbors told me that he used to walk past my house and marvel at the elaborate and colorful chalk designs I drew on the sidewalk.

This photo is me at a street art festival somewhere. My Mom purchased this small square of asphalt for me to show off my talents. I drew a lotus flower - I had heard about lotus flowers on Reading Rainbow. Or was it Mr. Roger's Neighborhood?...no, I'm pretty sure it was Reading Rainbow.

This photo is funny because all the kids around me are so much younger, and they're just scribbling away, having fun. Meanwhile I'm like, "this is art."

The Nightingale - pencil interiors

One of my professors suggested that I try rendering my Nightingale illustrations in pencil, so they would look more like interior illustrations from a book. I did these at full size, 6x9". I enhanced and cleaned them up slightly in Photoshop.

Because this illustration is so dark, I did it on toned paper with white pencil. This method saved a lot of time, but it needed a lot of enhancement in Photoshop and doesn't look as smooth as the white paper. Perhaps drawing at 150% size would help minimize the appearance of the paper texture.

I can has scholarship?

Yesterday I found out that I won SCBWI's Student Scholarship! The scholarship pays for admittance to the SCBWI summer conference in LA. I have never been to a SCBWI conference before, so I am super excited. Luckily a few friends from school are attending as well, so I'll have some moral support for my introverted self.

I am very honored and genuinely surprised to have received this award. The other student who won, Katie Kath, has a really really strong portfolio. When I applied for this scholarship, I remember telling my husband, "yeah, there's no way I'm going to win this." "Then why are you applying?" he asked. I think I said something like, "I dunno, I guess it's just good to put myself out there as much as possible. And it's free to apply, so."

Special thank you to my teacher Angela Dominguez who wrote my recommendation letter for the application. :)

If you are going to the conference in LA, I will see you there!

The Sea Witch - before and after

Part of my thesis is a series of illustrations for The Little Mermaid. One of the first scenes I drew was this one of the sea witch preparing a potion for the little mermaid. Here's the old version, drawn last fall:

While there are parts of this drawing that I really like (namely the pile of bones), generally it's very flat and stage-like, which is a bad habit I'm trying to get away from. In my new drawing, I tried a more dynamic perspective, stronger lighting, and some foreground elements. The values are darker too, although some of that (ok, a lot of it) is thanks to a little Photoshop. As usual, I took my own reference photos:

Pretty frightening, right?

Bob Ross on Talent

Two things about this:

1. This is the first time I have ever posted an animated GIF
2. I never watched Bob Ross's show, but I like what he's saying here. And frankly I think you should listen to a guy who has the confidence to paint landscapes with his shirt unbuttoned and his hair in an afro.

Since entering art school, and watching some students flourish and others flounder, I've thought a lot about what talent is and if it exists. Illustrator Gregory Manchess wrote that "talent is a myth" and hard work is everything. 

I'm inclined to respectfully disagree, though. Two years of observing my classmates has led me to believe that talent exists, because I have met a few students who work hard but make little improvement in their skills. It's kind of sad to say, but I think it's true. Of course I believe in the importance of hard work, passion and practice, but it seems like people reap the rewards of hard work at different rates. Does that make sense?

What do you guys think?

Portrait of Alex in SF

This is my good friend Alex. She moved from Korea to San Francisco to attend Academy of Art University. In our first semester at AAU we bonded over our mutual terror of our professor, Bill Maughan.

It's been a privilege to get to know Alex. She is one of the coolest people I've ever met. Now that we're no longer afraid less afraid of Bill Maughan, we've bonded over our shared love of food. I've drawn multiple silly doodles of Alex, based on inside jokes and stuff, but I wanted to make a portrait that sort of captures Alex as I know her now - Starbucks sipping, art studying, San Francisco hill climbing Alex. So that's what this is.

The fish is inspired by one of Alex's drawings, which you can see below:

Iraq's Emerging Artists

Last semester I had a class with concept art student Walaa Haddad, who is the first Iraqi I have ever met. (And a very talented painter, too.) I introduced him to my journalist friend Kristin, and she interviewed him for an article titled "Iraq's Emerging Artists."

He describes the duality of feeling a love for his homeland and also an urge to pursue art. Although Walaa now lives in San Francisco, he described the homesickness he felt during a recent trip back home: “When I went back to Iraq, I used to talk to those walls (of his family's home), and they reminded me of my childhood, and even they used to beg me just to remember the old days, and not to leave." But unfortunately,  he feels that there "is no place" for an artist like him in his country.

It's a great article, I highly recommend it.

Happy Ending

It's. Finally. Finished. Behold: my most ambitious illustration ever. 13 characters, seven birds, one elephant. This is the final illustration for one of my thesis stories; Hans Christian Andersen's The Wild Swans set in Mughal-esque India.

Yes that guy does have a bird arm. It's part of the story, ok?

Why did I do this? I asked myself the very same question several times throughout the development of this drawing. This complicated setup solved several problems:

1. Summarizes the ending of the story, with the wedding and the princes restored to human form
2. Emphases the Indian setting of the story
3. Makes a colorful, high-key piece for my portfolio
4. My portfolio was lacking in crowd scenes, and also drawings of men

So when I first sketched out the thumbnail for this scene, I thought it was great. A perfect storytelling solution! I am a genius! Meanwhile a muffled voice in the back of my mind was shouting "YOU WILL REGRET THIS LATER".

So easy!

After a thorough internet search, I realized that I was not going to be able to find any birds-eye-view photos of elephants. It's just really rare to even see an elephant from that angle, I guess. So using a technique I learned from my teacher Julie Downing, I bought a toy elephant and used it as my model:

After working on the drawing for many hours, I realized how hard this thing was going to be. I set the drawing aside for an entire semester, hoping that my drawing skills would improve and I could come back to the drawing better equipped. Amazingly, my procrastination actually paid off. After six months, I battled this drawing again with renewed confidence and understanding of perspective. And I finished it!

This is what I imagine happening immediately after this scene:

Portrait of the Artist at 27

Last night I made this self-portrait using a demo version of a program called ArtRage. ArtRage is supposed to simulate working with traditional materials - and I have to admit that doing this portrait with the "oil painting" brush brought back a lot of memories from my portrait painting class with Fongwei Liu from two years ago. It felt a lot like real paint, although I couldn't figure out how to blend the colors together as much as I would have liked.

As I was adding the final touches on my painting, my husband came over and said "you should draw yourself with a really long neck."

This painting...disturbs me. But it was worth it to see my husband laugh so hard.