Category: Slice of Life

Start of the Weekend

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"Yakiniku Time" Cedar Park, 2018
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/125 sec, ISO1000
 “Yakiniku Time” Cedar Park, 2018

こんばんは。How’s it going? The first day of the long weekend we have here in the States was a hot one! The thermometer in my car showed 95° F, which seems a little on the warm side for the month of May, doesn’t it?

Anyways, today Bay and I went shopping for some gifts he needs for his school, then to REI to pick up his birthday present (a Hydro Flask which was on sale), the to the Jerry’s Artarama for some art supplies, and finally, we stopped at Kinokuniya again. It was a pretty fun outing, and the only thing I bought for myself was an inexpensive oscillating fan for the home office. It makes sitting at the computer a lot more comfortable, especially since the computer is on the ground near my feet and it gets pretty warm – nice in the winter, but not great in the summer.

Later, I worked on an illustration on the computer before dinner, which was a yummy yakiniku (Korean-style grilled meat) meal. It was so good, but the house smelled like a Korean BBQ restaurant afterward. 😁 We enjoyed three types of meat: marbled beef, sliced pork belly, and spicy sausage. The pork was especially delicious. For dipping, we like a simple sauce of sesame oil and salt. Simple but perfect taste to complement the pork.

To finish off the day, we watched the movie Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. It was an ok movie, but there was nothing special nor memorable about it.

I hope you had a nice Saturday!

またね～

Hang Out

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"Music Mural" Austin, 2018
Photo info: Motorola Moto G (4), 3.64mm, f/2, 1/25 sec, ISO500
 “Music Mural” Austin, 2018

こんばんは。How’s it going?

This evening I went with my sons to the new Korean supermarket, H-Mart, to buy some dinner at Donkey Mo’s fried chicken restaurant. The market has a pretty nice food court area with a small stage for live music. And it looks like they have a line-up of local musicians just about daily. It’s pretty cool! And also, there’s a little beer bar that sells bottles for only 99 cents.

I think Koa liked the place and he said it might be cool to hang out there with his friends and listen to some music (and probably eat wings!). It’s too bad that it’s a little far to bike to, but I’ll be happy to drop them off since it’s not a long drive.

The chicken at Donkey Mo’s is pretty good, but I think they use a little too much batter. It’s really filling but you feel a little icky because of all the grease. Still, it’s tasty and not too expensive. We bought four orders of chicken and four sides and the total came out to be about $42.

"Music" Austin, 2018
Photo info: Motorola Moto G (4), 3.64mm, f/2, 1/25 sec, ISO400
 “Music” Austin, 2018
"Food Court" Austin, 2018
Photo info: Motorola Moto G (4), 3.64mm, f/2, 1/20 sec, ISO400
 “Food Court” Austin, 2018

I hope you had a nice day!

またね～

はるあん!

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"Pork Donburi" Cedar Park, 2018
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/100 sec, ISO640
 “Pork Donburi” Cedar Park, 2018

こんばんは。Tonight Mariko prepared an oishii dinner, which was a donburi of sliced pork and onion, with baby bok choy and onsen tamago. So yummy!

The recipe is based on a recipe is from はるあん’s (Haru-an) YouTube channel. If you don’t know who はるあん is, she’s a super-genki Japanese high school student who loves to cook and creates some great recipes. Mariko is semi-obsessed with her and told me that はるあん is her future daughter-in-law. 😆 I think she’s pretty funny to watch. Really silly and かわいい！!

Anyways, the video is below. Enjoy!

またね～

Sketch Day

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"Desk Setup" Cedar Park, 2018
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO500
 “Desk Setup” Cedar Park, 2018

こんばんは。Today was a sketching day for me as I took inspiration from the Eguchi Hisashi book I bought yesterday. I decided to draw from a photo so I found a pic of one of my favorite actresses, Tao Tsuchiya, and started sketching on paper. When I had the outlines done, I scanned it into the computer and traced it out in Adobe Illustrator.

I learned a bunch of new techniques in Illustrator, including the pencil tool, the smoothing tool, and how to save and reuse variable widths for strokes. That makes things so much easier! It’s pretty quick to create art using the Wacom tablet and the pencil tool, which you can adjust to make super-smooth strokes, and this technique is a lot more fun than using the old pen tool and mouse combination. I guess old dogs (like me) can learn new tricks! 😀

I like how the sketch turned out. Although the drawing started out as Tao-chan, I kind of just adjusted it how I saw fit while looking at the Eguchi book for reference. I really love his art style, especially the simplicity and flat colors. I feel like I want to draw more like that in the future. It’s a lot of fun too!

"Finished Drawing" Cedar Park, 2018
“Finished Drawing” Cedar Park, 2018

To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.

I hope you had a good Sunday!

おやすみ！