Friday ! Last but not least... Meet Le Uyen Pham & Alex Puvilland , Artist Duo.

Le Uyen and Alex is an amazing talented, creative, and powerhouse artist couple living in San Francisco. They are both wonderful people and artists who inspire me everyday.
Check out the interviews with them today on Rose la Biche!

Thursday Artist: Jay Shuster !

Jay Shuster is another amazing artist I've ever met, he has in depth involved in design of Wall-E, as well as many other films.
definitely check out the interview on Rose la Biche today, and his blog, you'll see more of his beautiful works, and learn more interesting stories of his. ^_^

Wednesday: Meeting Paul Madonna

Today is an interview with Paul Madonna on Rose la Biche blog.

Fun Reading Monday & Tuesday

My guest-blogger-posts are now up this week on Rose la Biche blog! Starting from Monday post about a bit of my own work and ideas; then from Tuesday to Friday, each day will be interviews I made of local artists I like and am inspired from in the S.F. Bay Area.

Today, Tuesday, it'll be featuring Evah Fan and Brendan Monroe.
They are a lovely creative artists couple from Berkeley.

Here are 2 of their recent piece for their next group show "Panorama Project 3" in NYC this month.

Left - Bredan, "Wind and Current" ; Right - Evah, "Ping Pong Buff".


Thanks Evah and Brendan ! and Merci Beaucoup, Lucy, for inviting me on your blog !

Fun Reading..

Lucy is a fashion designer from France and now living in San Francisco. She has an on line shop selling all her beautiful hand made women's tees and hoodies.. Also, she has a blog, called, Rose la Biche, about trend, design and travel journal. From August 18th to September 10th, she has invited 4 different artists, journalist, and dancer/choreographer from different cities to be her guest bloggers. Each person will write 5 posts about their works and artists they like and their city.
Honorably, I was invited to write on the 2nd week of September ( 6th~10th)!
at the moment I"m busy preparing the posts, and interviewing cool and inspiring artists living in the Bay area! so stay tune, I'll follow up another post soon before the posts are up.
But at the meantime, here is the link to some fun reading of the first two people - Sarah, a stop motion animator in Portland; and Delphine, a journalist in Paris.
Rose la Biche

Afterworks 3 !

Finally, I've finished putting together my little short story for Afterworks 3 !
here is a sneak peak of the cover page.
and see Afterworks blog for more great preview and progress of other great stories !

the Sacred Tree 2

Hoo~ another wave of busyness ! I really need to catch up with the posts ! >_<

Thanks for every wonderful message on the Totoro piece !
Thought I'd give you a little bit of the background of the piece,
if you haven't read the description on the Totoro Forest Project site already..

"the piece was made in memory of the big Cypress tree forest in Ali mountain in Taiwan. Before 1900s, the mountain was full of thousand -year-old Cypress trees. During the 50 years of Japanese colonization if Taiwan, the forest was found, and a railway was built. The majority of the forest was logged and exported. Ali mountain became a big logging source until 1970s. Today, there are only a few big frees left in the area.
The biggest tree found in the mountain was a 3,000 years old Cypress, standing 55 meters high with a circular length of 23 meters, named as the "Sacred Tree". Sadly, It was struck by lightening in the 50s, and was cut down for safety. But it still remains as the god and guardian of the forest today.
I hope this piece could remind people of the history and to not make the same mistake again, and also how precious for the rare nature left on earth today."

the figure of the big sacred tree resembles the spirit of Totoro for me - a guardian of the forest. This piece is also dedicated to people who grew up and lived through the big transition era of Taiwan history in Ali mountain. Especially to my parents who lived through the post WW2 time, and to my mom who lived in one of the major station town on the Ali mountain railway. From her, I heard many stories of Ali mountain.

To learn more about Ali mountain, click . here

For the development of the piece, I also did two character studies that are now in the Paris show.

Some Time Before ...


Some Time After ...

Totoro Forest Project !

This week Totoro Forest Project is officially announced!
It is an international fund raising exhibition/auction dedicated to raise funds to save Sayama Forest, also known as Totoro Forest, in Tokyo, from urban development. It is to support the non-profit organization, " Totoro No Furusato National Fund ", established by Hayao Miyazaki himself, to preserve the forest where it inspired his film, " My Neighbor Totoro".

More than 200 internationally acclaimed artists in illustration, animation and comics fields from all over the world, donating their amazing original artwork for this benefit auction! It'll be held at Pixar Animation Studios on September 6th, 2008. Tickets will be distributed soon on the Totoro Forest Project website, and a catalog/book will also be available at the auction event!

Also, a selection of the artwork will be exhibited at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, running from September 20th to December 7th, 2008.

Check out the official "Totoro Forest Project " website to learn more about the event,
and all artwork can be preview on the website!


Wherever you are in the world, hope you can make it to the event or participate it over Internet ! ~ it'll be a great opportunity to collect great artwork from great artists! it's for a great good cause after all...! *_*

The subject given for the artists was - " What is your Totoro?"
Here is my piece for the event, it's about the Sacred Tree in Ali mountain in Taiwan.

Wall-E !

Here a couple sketch from my little 10 years old cousin, Michael. I gave him a sketchbook while he was visiting S.F. a few months ago. Within a few days, he filled up his sketchbook with so many wonderful drawings and stories. I was so amazed by his imagination at his age! very inspiring ...!

and yes ! "Wall-E" is coming out in theater this Friday, June 27th, in U.S.! This is the first film I've ever worked on for 2.5 years...it was surely an unforgettable great learning experience...I hope you'll enjoy it *_* .

Check out Jay Shu's blog for more cute "fan mail and folk art " and amazing sketches!

Lunch box from Mom

This is apiece inspired by my own experience when I was in elementary school...XP I was a loose minded kid who often forgot to bring her lunch box to school. My mom was busy with her work and school that time, but always managed to delivered a lunch box for me to the school security front desk. The security would loudly page my name and class number through the PA system in the whole campus, that everyone would know that I forgot my lunch box again... but then, sometimes, I'd receive the lunch box wrapped in pretty wrapping papers; and especially one time, I received the lunch box wrapped like a candy, and filled with my mom's drawings - little chimney house, flying birds, smiling sun and hearts...I was really proud of it that day *_*

Je T'aime, Mon Arbre.

Another piece for the show, and also a sneak peak of the new short story for Afterworks 3.

Helmet Day

Here is another painting for the June show.
It's about a news clip I read in paper when I was in Taiwan few years ago. I remember it was written that, a couple of grandpa and grandma from Taiwan countryside got stopped by the police while riding scooter, because of their " funny " looking "helmets" - rice cooker pots!
They thought that the pots should be hard enough to be helmets! .. I thought it was very innocently cute and " practical"... XP

A Group Show in Paris !

I'm very excited that I'm participating a group show atGalerie Arludikin Paris with Bill Pressing, Scott Morse, and Enrico Casarosa in June!
The show will open on June 24th and will be up through the summer till September. Though unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to the opening this time,but if you're in town, please stop by the show ! and let me know what you think ^_^

Tea Time

It's been a while again since my last post...shame on me...(>-<)
the past few months I've been busy working on a few personal projects, including a new short story for the "Afterworks 3", and a group show in June !... Though I don't have the exact info of the show yet, here is a sneak peak of a painting that will be in it..
and yah.. it's a series of cats painting... (=*.*=)m



I'll be posting more paintings that I've been working for the next couple weeks. cheers!

Early Bird Painters Art Show !

It's been 6 months since I've gone out painting with other " Early Birds"!
and we're having a group show starting this week at the Studio Gallery!

the theme is center in our personal plein air paintings and sketches that are mostly done in the our early painting session- the 2 hr time between sunrise and 9am work to go paint around bay area. There will also be a few pieces of illustrations that are inspired by them.
Participating artists include Sharon Calahan, Jennifer Chang, Bill Cone, Mike Dutton, Jimmy Gutierrez, Noah Klocek, Robert Kondo, Ernesto Nemesio, Nick Sung, Enrico Casarosa, and Daisuke Tsutsumi.

Below is the info for the gallery and time. Studio Gallery is a petit boutique/gallery in the Polk st. neighborhood. If you're in town or around Polk st. for dinner on Sat., please stop by the reception, or the show will be up for 2 weeks *_*

Early Birds
plein air paintings & drawings
February 20th - March 9th, 2007
reception: Saturday, February 23rd, 4-8 pm


Studio Gallery
1718A Polk St. (between Washington and Clay)
San Francisco, CA 94109
415-931-3130 www.STUDIOGallerySF.com
Gallery hours: Wed-Fri 11-8, Sat-Sun 11-6, Mon-Tue by appt.


cheers!

Happy Lunar New Year !

Happy Rat Year !
this is also a belayed greeting for 2008!
I've been too swamped with stuff since December to post a greeting for everyone... XP
and now, the Christmas & New Year holidays have past, and it's time for the Lunar New Year ! (- Feb 7th).

the image above is the cover of a holiday card i made this year for family and friends. Now here it is for everyone ! For the 'theme' of the card this year is about having a warm relaxing holiday, I've made some bath salt tea bags to go with the cards. It was a fun process to make them, testing the bath salts myself has surely been the best part *_* .. I hope everyone had a great holiday, and having a great one !



Growing up in Taiwan, Lunar New Year ( literary translation: Spring celebration ) has always been an important holiday for me and my family. it's like celebrating Christmas and New Year for us, and it's also an once of year time for all family get together. During this time, we have a lot of good food and lots of oranges; post up poetry phrases on the front door and all over the house hold, that are written our greetings and hopes for the new year; elder generations give red envelopes, which contains new bills, to younger generations; we pray to Buddha and our ancestors to thank them for their blessing in the past, and the coming year ... the celebration usually lasts about a week. here is a wiki link that may describe more about the holiday.

Happy New Year !