It was The Snowman

There was no progress on my drawing last week.  The entire family was attacked by a nasty stomach flu last weekend, and we went through some painful phases..   Strangely, I was the most affected one.  It took me longer to recover.  Another strange thing is that this flu and its pain left me with some sort of shock. A good shock that is strong enough to change my perspective for myself and life.  It is probably very silly to try to explain this, and I do feel silly about it.  All I can say is that I feel better now and motivated and engaged.  I encountered The Snowman video during this very obscure phase and felt I was brought back to where I was. Where I got lost.  Watching this made me feel that now I am back and starting something once again.  Flu does something good sometimes?
I am ready to have cozy relaxing holidays!

Work in progress: Urban Garden

Still have a long way to go.  I already do not like what I drew and colors I chose.  This always happens to me.  Does that happen to you too?  This time, though, I would like to complete it and see what I can come up with from it.   I am so serious.

I got inspirations from the world famous Tokyo's street gardens.  Many people decorate their sidewalks with plants and flowers year round.   I tried to look for some natural beauties in this dull residential area in Tokyo, and only thing I could find was colorful flowers somebody put in front of their houses.  Some people are such serious gardeners. They replace flowers every few months, so their planters are always fresh and colorful.  I didn't really pay attention to those flowers when I was a kid, but now I really appreciate those strangers' gardens very much.  'Flower' was one of the first words my son learned to say!

Holiday Sky in California.

This is from about 3 years ago.  I miss my family, the weather, the smell of fireplaces!

Pipe Cleaner Crafts: Christmas Ornaments 2013

I remember that I had so much fun making Christmas ornaments out of pipe cleaners.  That was three years ago when I was pregnant and had plenty of free time.  I posted the results on my previous blog, Gazillion Crayons.

I thought it would be fun to make some ornaments with my baby this year.  It turned out that my son was not really ready for it yet, but I had great time wandering into the world of imagination.  Something about the process of bending and twisting the pipe cleaners....it is addictive and therapeutic. 

These are the ones I made in 2010,

 

 

 I took pictures of my new work with some old ones.

 

 

 

I made so many of these. Now the question is where to put them? :-)

Nature collage

 The whole family went back to nature this weekend and lost ourselves in colors.  We spent beautiful time on a beautiful day. 

By the way, I have been using vsco grid for sharing some of my pictures.  I like the simplicity so far, and I enjoy the filters they offer on the app.   You can see more images on my vsco grid page.
http://yukamila.vsco.co/

Thank you for stopping by.
I hope you will have a great week!

Autumn fun

Long awaited sunny crispy autumn day arrived, so I got out and enjoyed it as much as I could.  I have to say it was a perfect day at the park.  I don't usually give perfect points to anything, so you can tell it was special:-) 

I have not been using my SLR camera for a long time, especially since my son started to walk.  The phone camera is more suitable to quickly capture the precious moments in every day life.  Since he started to understand that 'cheese' I say with camera is not the one for eating, maybe I will be able to work with my SLR again. 

Miracle time with my lotus.

Our watercolor accomplishments for the day!

I managed to have time to draw some flowers this week. In the day time!  That is a miracle to me considering how I spend my day now.  It was just about for 20-30 minutes in the afternoon, but Winnie The Pooh gave me time to paint with watercolor without interruptions from my very curious son.  Of course, he later joined me and experienced watercolor drawing for the first time.  

One thing I learned from being a mother: Make the most out of your precious day.  It was tiny tiny progress, but it was a big satisfaction for me.  I'll get somewhere someday if I keep working, right?:-)

Have a good week!

Redwoods: Place I would love to visit.

Growing is Forever from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

Redwoods by Jason Chin is one of the books my husband brought back home for my boy.  It's a bit too long for a two year-old boy, but it turned out to be such fascinating read for me!  I lived in California for about ten years, and I have never visited Redwoods. 
It's been three years since I took off from the beach side apartment in California, and I think I have been craving for nature.  I would like to sit under one of those huge tree trunks and listen to my son talks about trees.  Well..not so easy to make that happen soon, so I watched this video with him today.

Some ideas with little birdies..

These are pictures of cute little birdies I brought back from a 100 yen store. (I did pay:-))
Placing them on my doodles turn out to be kind of nice instagram shots.

Night Night

Doodle I did this week.  Those were precious 10 minutes of my week:-)  I have been having an idea to draw something for bedroom.  Maybe my desire for more sleep is making me think about night time, moon light, relaxing aroma, nice breeze from an attractive window... 

Hitting a jumping jack

I have been actively working out these days.  I am not familiar with popular workout programs, so I didn't know where to start.  Some online research led me to DVDs of Jillian Michaels and Tracy Anderson.  I never expected it, but my son loves to work out with Jillian Michaels. Alone. Big surprise for me was the fact that he actually follows her instruction.  Look at his glorious jumping jack moment! :-)

MEOW PARTY - Collaborative drawing with a two-year-old

 

These are cats I drew for one of the exercises I did from the book, Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists by Carla Sonheim.  My son loves to join whatever I am doing these days, especially drawing, so this is a collaborative work with him. The original looks like this:

 

Then, I added some graphics using Studio and Rhonna Designs.  I don't have time to sit with my computer and work on designing and editing, but these apps allow me to easily work on some quick graphic design exercises on my smartphone.  It's another way to feel that I've worked on something creative:-) 

One At A Time

About 5 months ago, I created this ME ME ME notebook to dedicate some time of a day just for myself hoping that I will fill this with my project plans, some journals, some wish lists, etc.  It hasn't been so successful.  I have managed to make some lists and even cross out some items from them, but it has been very difficult to keep pushing.  I stayed up late to make some time for my creative projects, but I ended up getting sick so often and realized that I have to maintain my health in order to succeed in having a balanced life.  Balance, balance, balance.  I cannot push too hard, but I should not completely surrender to my busyness.  Taking my husband's suggesting, I decided to blog once a week.  That way, I can feel that I am doing something to enrich my creativity even if I don't have time to work on my drawings and other projects.

My life is all about him now.

It's totally worth it. Yes, it's the cutest time, also the toughest time. Mr. No Man who cannot fall asleep without mommy now.  I love you. 

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My precious.

My precious turned two.  I was mostly feeling so busy taking care of him and keeping him alive during the first year.  Now he shows me beautiful moon, tells me he loves me, asks me to read books and play elephant. I love this little man, and he is my precious, mine mine mine..:-) I know someday he'll take off to explore the world. Until then, I would like to have fun time with him as much as possible.  I love my life now.

Thank You.

 

Hello! Hello! I hope everybody is managing the end of summer blues:-)  Japan is still hot. In fact, it's been hotter than South East Asia.  No matter what some people believe, I think the globe is warming up.  I am experiencing it every day!

ANYWAY.  

Society6 is running a worldwide free shipping promotion thru this Sunday, August 25th. 

You will receive a FREE SHIPPING to anywhere in the world. 

I hope you will enjoy this offer for some of my works or any other great artists' on Society6.

Thank you so much for your support, and have a cool weekend!!!