Artist: Sashiko Yuen

Yet again I find myself admiring the illustrative qualities and imagination lying behind such works which feature girls with wildly coloured hair as well as neatly penned and sketched bodies. Sashiko Yuen is yet another artist whose style I admire but there's definitely a bit more edge and malice about their work compared to that of Ann Muddy, another artist I have recently discussed on this blog. The main difference in their styles is that Yuen seems to favour portrait shots of cute and colourful girls with an innate darkness about them and there's a softer type of pastel shading and blending between colours in these drawings.

Anything that features a Disneyland souvenir cap in their work or online store wins a lot of acclaim with me, especially at this time of year when in 2011 I had just returned from a twenty day exchange to America and bought my own Mickey Mouse cap. Similarities between Muddy and Yuen is their knack for capturing luscious curves and also their prowess for drawing women with fantastically coloured hair as well as dress sense.

I'm not a large fan of rockabilly style myself, but I do like the curls tinted with pink hues for this girls hair as well as her rose bustier top. A lot of the drawn women feature wild tattoos full of colour that are added for decoration and colour such as the skulls and hearts but I think that without them and keeping the ribbon scripture tattoo would be a little more powerful in terms of design and colour. I love the whimsy of the hair and how unrealistic it is- if you ever did try to create such a look for yourself in real life I think that it would fail abysmally unless you had a runway class hairdresser controlling the colour and style of your hair. That's what's great about drawing and imagination though, you can create unrealistic things and make them beautiful.

I love the control of the lines for the eyebrows as well as the different texture of the hair drawn for Sashiko Yuen's work- it makes me want to fill my 2012 personal diary full of whimsical drawings in a similar manner. Also the oriental style of the eyes makes me want to go out a little more and perfect the use of my new liquid eyeliner, although it will be quite a long time before you catch my using pastel colours for eyeshadow. While I'm still discussing the face, I've always had a personal struggle when drawing noses from the front-on profile but Yuen's really nailed it for this drawing with carefully placed lines that aren't too fussy. I love the eyeball collar of her outfit, I wonder if it was inspired from a real collared shirt...

Artist: Ann Muddy

You wouldn't be able to tell now by my horrible illustrations, but when I was a child I loved nothing more than having time on my hands as well as large stacks of paper and anything to draw with including pencils, textas and crayons. I still have a few pencil cases full of my old tools in my room including those Korean crayons that are much like mechanical pencils. So it's been a while since I've been up to drawing but I wish I could still draw the same way I used to; or in the style of artist Ann Muddy!

 

I came across one of her images and just had to find more and dig up a little bit about her; all the images shown in this post can be found on her Flickr where you can also find the means to contact her should you be interested in presenting her work. While laying about in bed this morning I got to think about what I need to get back doing; i.e. playing guitar, drawing and reading. I read a little bit this morning and yesterday broke the proverbial drought between guitar playing but I feel somewhat intimidated by a blank page. As a perfectionist I thrive on doing something 100% correct and hate mistakes- I know that if I begin to draw I'll hate what I see but without practice, I will never improve!

The technique of this self-portrait of Ann Muddy absolutely took my breath away- I couldn't believe the movement of the small lines contributing to something greater than themselves as well as the tinted texture and shading on the face and hair. Realistically I will never achieve anything this awe-inspiring in art but if I could maybe achieve something equally as great in my chosen field I would feel a little satisfied. This is the type of thing I would love to fill my diary pages with but without formal training, how can I hope to fill an empty page with so much colour as well as spiritual depth?

I know it's morally wrong to imitate someone else's work, presenting something you don't own as your own and the like but I find it hard to find my own voice and expression when it comes to drawing. When I read a book, I absorb some of the words used in the passages with unconscious effort and my style of writing changes too; isn't it normal to try to imitate something you admire? They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery and I wouldn't mind being able to master curvaceous lines like the figure above. Although the hips of the woman above are small, something has to be said about those sizable thighs. I do like the way the face is drawn, those are what I struggle with the most and the lines and design are simple but also feminine.

I mainly stick to using pencils and shading- that's my main squeeze at the moment but I've also been tyring to create movement with lines. I've never worked with proper artistic markers but I would love to see the process undertaken to create this piece. I admire the stick thin and bony figures of the lady above, as well as the red and white polka dot dress reminiscent of Minnie Mouse in contrast with blue hair. I love the way the face is done, the lines around the eyes as well as nose and shading in water colour.

Here we can see Beauty on the left and her sister Envy with adequately coloured green hair breathing in her fume like hair with sunburnt shoulders (something I suffered yesterday). One thing that's great about art and drawing is that you can colour things the way you choose as well as constructing images from your own imagination onto paper and letting other people see your vision. I have a rather large love affair with hair in unnatural shades so that's probably a contributing factor into my love for Ann Muddy's work. Perhaps it's healthier that I love drawing weird coloured hair than turning myself into a girl with extraordinarily coloured hair.

Occasionally you'll see something unlike any of Ann Muddy's other work, like this piece simply named 'Watermelon'. I've drawn with rainbow coloured pencils before and things turned out sick and vomit looking but maybe there's something about Muddy's technique that I have yet to gain an insight into. 

For a shape that in real-life may be labelled as 'unattractive', for some strange reason I find the colour pallet used including the mint green hair as well as nude skin and blossoming pink cheeks to be somehow satisfying. I think it reminds me of gelati and ice-cream and the hot weather is frying my brain a little.

Last, but certainly not least is the drawing that led me to discover this artist! It was a drawing done to express the artist's wishes to own these pieces of clothing and I strongly identified with her style including the heart framed glasses, bone bow tie, alphabet skirt and cat tights. The handbag with the cover 'Lolitta' looks like something from Olympia Le-Tan who I have a mild obsession with so I'm more than happy to see a drawing combining so many trendy things all at once. This is the beginning of yet another brilliant fascination and obsession of mine.

Clutches

Clutches are the kind of bags a Hollywood starlet uses, just enough room to fit the necessities of a phone and credit card as well as having to hold on to them for dear life for worry of losing ones valuables. If you end up using a clutch then of course you're at an invitation event where dinner has already been payed for with entry or there's light refreshments of some kind and it's all a very formal affair. It'd be nice to be able to afford one of these glamorous clutches from either Chanel or Givenchy but with little to see from a social life there is really no point in such a thing for myself... at the moment. Maybe 2012 will be the year that brings great change in my and I'll end up being an active part of my university and join in clubs and attend events in the inner Melbourne for boutique stores. You never know- it could happen.

 

I love the illustrations for these two Givenchy clutches, I have seen the panther motif before on a hand bag and I really do love the Fall collection, I am tempted to whip up a post about it since it's all so good but seeing all the big cat goodness does make me feel rather small, petty and poor despite having spend $100 today. The colour schemes for the two bags as well as their pleasing and traditional clutch shape with rounded edges seems simple and sweet but there's so much more intrigue and mystery held within the fiery eyes of the panther as well as the cute bordering effect around the iris.

Space Head

Around my house there's a mass of books on the Moon as well as other astrological things that my father has collected over the years due to a fascination with all things space. In fact his younger brother, my uncle even worked at the Planetarium in Melbourne. I was thinking about studying about these sort of things at university but it involves far too much mathematics and not enough theory for my liking. It's just interesting to see what happens in the worlds beyond ours in the far reaches of space and to pour my eyes over the pages of the other-worldy; that is the nebulae, the moon as well as the stars.

I haven't seen these spacey Doc Martens on any other site then featured on another blogspot... I know that Solestruck an online store for unique shoes has some velvet Doc Martens but I haven't seen any sluck patent leather patterned combat boots with the northen lights or nebulae on them. They would look amazing when teamed up with some space leggings from Black Milk but maybe I'm just in a bit of a futuristic mood. It'd be great to be assured that these gloriously unique Doc Martens do exist and that they're not just a pipe dream to aspired towards. Other than Solestruck I'm not sure what other online shoe store to check out but there's already a swag of shoes from that website that I can't afford. Besides, the velvet Doc Martens in black may be more versatile with an edgy darkness to them as well.

It may be just a Photoshop effect to layer a spack background speckled with stars over the top of another photograph or it may be the work of a double exposure on a film camera. I really want to learn how to perform a mutliple exposure shot with better results than what I have already tried but to get an effect as intense as this it must be digitally enhanced. Which is a shame, I really dig the floating girl possessed scene mixed in with stars and the cosmos.

At my store we sell a few strings of lanterns with fairy lights inside them but I'd be really impressed if there were a set that were all patterned like the moon full of craters or if there was a solar system string of lucky lanterns. It porbably won't be hapening any time soon but the radiant look of the moon in this shot fills me with hope and whimsy.

Running through the school on my final victory lap of the school (senior year tradition), I spotted a brilliant water colour picture full of space motifs and a floating girl through the cosomos. It was almost as good as this mixture of a skinny and boney girl and a head full of speckled stars. I wish I was able to pull off such a great affect but any time I have tried I always make the paper too wet and it ripples and distorts. It's still nice to be able to observe and admire other people's handiwork regarding water colour as well as art that embodies space.