For New Year’s Eve, me and my friends went out to a Masquerade event.
There was no way I was NOT making my own mask.
I kinda ran out of time – I was pretty much hot gluing as I ran out the door -
but it turned out pretty decent, I think.
Just ignore the not-so-clean edges and the wrinkles in the chipboard,
which is just what happens when you curve that stuff  :P

Wire mesh was molded to my face, cut to shape,
and then covered in paper mache.
Then chipboard was applied with mostly hot glue.
Screwheads were made of Sculpey.

Maybe next time I’ll try that craft foam stuff, which should bend more cleanly.

For Christmas, me and my cousins do a Secret Santa
and my cousin Alex wanted clothes and coasters…
so, since the bulk of his gift was a gift card,
I felt like I needed to give him some super special personalized coasters.
These are some of the most important men in his life!! ahaha
and I was obviously inspired by Anne Taintor~

Not sure how well they’ll hold up, but they do look super spiffy!

Oh yes. and then there was his request:

“Dear Santa,
All I want for Christmas is a Megan Fox.
Thanks.”
I saw that about 2 hours before we were leaving. Eek!
and I wasn’t anywhere near ready
and hadn’t wrapped anything. Double Eek!
But it HAD to be done.
ahahahaha

The colors aren’t *quite* right,
but it printed up pretty well.

I joined the Craftster community in an effort to get back to my crafting roots.
Good to spend *some* time away from the computer.
And considering my love for Doctor Who,
I thought participating in a Doctor Who Craft Swap was the perfect way to jump right in!
What is a craft swap, you ask?
Well, the basic concept is that you are paired up with a partner
by your craft swap moderator person,
and then you create items for your partner within a certain theme
and mail it to em by a specific date.
Super fun!

Anyhow! These are what I created for my partner.
A lot of them were crafts I hadn’t done before.

I have always kinda sucked at figure drawing, so I decided to focus on something that has always given me issues: feet. This is in-progress. And that gorgeous orange-ish paper? Non-existent. The manual setting on my camera made it that way and I like it too much to change it. I’m kinda wishing I had done it on that color paper in the first place. Alas!

“Don’t feel ashamed of the mistakes. Live with them a while and they will liberate you.”

- Bryce Wymer talking about sketchbooks in
An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers

I didn’t get to finish this entire book before I had to return it to the library gods, but what I did read, I enjoyed. It’s great to hear about how different artists approach their sketchbooks and it made me want to get out and try some new things

I’ve been a bit obsessed with Doctor Who. We started watching Season 5 with Matt Smith, and once we got into it, we had to go and Netflix all the previous seasons since the revamp of 2005. We did try watching the very first season of Doctor Who from the 60s, but it was kinda painful. ANYHOW! When it came time for figuring out what to make for my Halloween costume this year, I wanted to do something from Doctor Who. I thought perhaps a TARDIS, but in the end, I decided upon being one of the Weeping Angels.

I mostly documented my work on the wings, since I thought they may be the most time intensive and such. In the end, I think my dress took even more time since I wasn’t working off of a sewing pattern and had to paint the fabric to try to look like stone. The wings were made mostly out of foam core left over from my architecture presentations of yore, and I attached them to a cheap backpack. I x-acto’d up a storm and my fingers have the band-aids to prove it Hot glue was also my best friend. Who knew it works so well with foam core?! SO, here is the fruit of my labor. Woohooo!

On October 17th, I was lucky enough to see Jónsi in concert at The Wiltern in Los Angeles. I think it may have been the best concert I have ever attended. Why? Hmph. Well, his music is AMAZING. The venue was really small and we were probably about 20-30 feet away from him with an unobstructed view. The animation on the backdrop was beautiful and did I mention his music is AMAZING?! ahahah Anyhow, I couldn’t help but be inspired by him.

You can stream his whole album from his website:
www.jonsi.com
I HIGHLY suggest checking it out

He’s in other parts of the country now, but to get a sense of what his show is all about, someone’s recently posted a timelapse video. NPR also had the concert on demand to watch, but I don’t think the full concert is available anymore. Not sure…

jónsi: Concert Timelapse at The Wiltern Theatre from Henry Jun Wah Lee on Vimeo.

Late night drawing with charcoal pencil.
Exhausted? Yes.
and no erasing allowed.

My cousin needed help making a flyer
for a West Coast Swing group she’s in.
It’s a little more font crazy than I usually do,
but I had no constraints, so I thought, “Hey, why not?”.

The Space Ship has landed.
Um. I don’t know if I actually like this as much as my original thumbnail, but oh well. I’ll look at it as study in chalk pastels. I’m out of pastel practice