“Cat and Mouse” Cedar Park, 2018
Frozen computer
Before assuming the worst
Check mouse battery
This post was prompted by The Daily Post from WordPress – Assumption.
Assumption (a haiku)
“Cat and Mouse” Cedar Park, 2018
Tag: postaday
“Cat and Mouse” Cedar Park, 2018
Disappear (a haiku)
“Work Snacks” Austin, 2018
Yummy あられ
In front of the computer
Soon will be eaten
This post was prompted by The Daily Post from WordPress – Disappear.
はるあん!
“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
“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!
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！
New Kinokuniya and Eguchi Hisashi Step
“Notebooks” Austin, 2018
こんばんは。How’s it going?
I’m really excited because the Japanese bookseller Kinokuniya finally opened their store here in Austin! It’s soft opening week so the shelves are not fully stocked, but there was plenty to look at and buy. I was hoping they would have a good selection of stationery there, and I was not disappointed. In fact, the selection of notebooks and paper exceeded my expectations by a huge margin! 😁
“Traveler’s Notebooks” Austin, 2018
Right at the entrance to the store is a display with Traveler’s Notebooks, refill paper, and accessories. I was like, whoa, did not expect this! In fact, it was my first time to see Traveler’s Co. goods in a physical store. Next, it was time to check out the pens, of which they also have a nice selection. They are fully stocked with Pilot Kakunos, of all colors and nib sizes! Of course, they have a great selection of notebooks too, and loose writing papers and envelopes. It’s so awesome! Austin really needed a good stationery store… it’s been long overdue.
“Eguchi Hisashi Step” Austin, 2018
While the store doesn’t have their full stock of magazines on the shelves yet, they do have a big variety of art and illustration books. I saw a book by one of my favorite artists, Ilya Kuvshinov, but I opted for Step by Eguchi Hisashi. It’s so awesome! I was not familiar with his work, but just flipping through the book in the store, I knew I had to have it. He is a master of the kind of style I want to create. I mean, just check out these fantastic illustrations for Honda:
“Supercub!” Austin, 2018
I found an excellent video about Eguchi Hisashi on YouTube… check it out if you have a few minutes. It’s really inspiring to me, and interesting because Eguchi talks about some Tokyo neighborhoods that I am familiar with. It also fascinates me that he draws females in the style NOT of women he finds attractive, but in the style of how he sees himself if he were born female. I’m still trying to understand what that means, but I feel like maybe I also want to draw like that.
I hope you had a great day!
またね～
