January2012 Designs

Hey! :) So I've decided that I'm going to share some of my fashion illustrations/designs here that I draw on my moleskine. It's one of those 3.5inches wide by 5.5inches tall black ones with the leather-y covers. I do love it a lot, but I don't put it to use very often. I really should illustrate more in them.

So for this "series" I guess I could call it, I'm going to split the designs by month. This post will be about the designs I drew in January. I know, way back, but as always, better late than never! :)

This is the first design that I drew in my little notebook. It was drawn on the 24th of January. Wow that's a long time ago. Well, my inspiration for it was a Christmas tree. The yellow part is kind of like the star on top while the green is the actual tree. The red is just for symbolizing Christmas. I was actually pretty proud of this one afterwards. :)

Now this one, was for celebrating the year of the dragon in the Chinese Zodiac. I have no idea what the mark on the mark is and I can't get it off! But anyways, she's wearing gold and red, the two lucky colors in Chinese culture and I was hoping some of the structure of the dress symbolized a dragon -- the back representing the tail. I feel like it's a little bit on the plain side and I should have added more detail. It was drawn on the 28th of January.

For me, this one was a little bit difficult to draw. Her legs seemed a little awkward and the hood was a little hard to get right. Well the color of the coat/cape is a light tan that is like the hide of the polar bear and there's white fur lining on the edges of it. The inside shirt and skirt represent that the underside of a polar bear's fur is black. I thought it turned out successful enough and I like it :) This one was drawn on January 29th.

Well I hope you liked them... feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think. Give me something to improve on! :)

Thanks,
- CindyC.

Blooms on Lace

Hey! I am finally uploading the card I made for Mother's Day!

I know, I know. It's really pretty late considering that Mother's Day was exactly two whole weeks ago, but I just hadn't had a chance to take the picture and write the post so here it (finally) is :) Besides, it's never too late to appreciate mom <3

This time, unlike last time, I didn't really follow a template. I just combined different ideas seen on the internet and went with it. I'm actually pretty proud of this card. It'd be nice to play around with stamps some time though.

So since my mom bakes, I just stole one of her doilies and cut two quarters of the doily out. I think the effect it has against the light pink paper is pretty cute and soft. That became a sort of a background for the bright flowers. I hand cut them so they looked a little rough and casual and I crinkled the edges of each, well, petal I guess you could say. I really like the color scheme. I thought everything matched really well. The browns enhanced the brighter colors and make it pop. The grass I also hand-cut and the "Mother" part I wrote myself as well. Overall, I'm happy with it.

Keep crafting,
- CindyC.

The World Around Us

Hey hey. So for my journalism class, we had to take some pictures with specific criteria like leading lines, up-close, sports photos, etc. I thought this was such a fun assignment! I loved taking photos of everything around us that we don't really look for in our day to day life. It's so refreshing :)

I actually found it pretty peaceful to take these photos and it was also relaxing and calming. I just loved it. This is actually one of the first times I've used a legit camera to take photos with. Other times, I've just used my iTouch or one of my family member's iPhone. I used the Kodak EasyShare V610.

So... I've picked out a few out of my many (around 95) photos, and I thought I would share them with you. These are my favorites, and I thought they had something interesting about them or I just plain liked the way they were taken. Enjoy!

I thought the shadow was kinda cool, it sort of jumps down every step of the bleachers. This angle made the legs look really long and kind of distorted. It's not of the best shot ones, but I like it. :)

 I really thought this photo was pretty cool. I didn't know about the camera's macro function so I didn't use it at the time, but I still thought it turned out pretty well. The flower fills up a lot of the screen while the leaves are in the background and a little blurrier. I love the colors of the flower against it's white petals, too!

This photo is so cute! We were walking back to class when I spotted some little mushroom growing in the grass we were walking on. It reminds me of some kind of magical forest like in fairytales. 

I also really liked this photo because I thought it was a really nice framing photo. The cement wall acts as a great foreground frame and my friend in the center is so cute there. Love this photo!

Well, I hope you liked them.. and I'm sure to improve the more I take! This was such a fun assignment and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Thanks for reading.

- CindyC.

Columns of Blue

Hey! So I made a card on Saturday inspired by the 35th sketch at http://freshlymadesketches.blogspot.com/
Here is the sketch :)

I love how beautifully clean it is and how it's so easy to add your own personal touches. Thanks for the inspiration. :)

I have never entered a challenge before.. but there's a first for everything.

 

It was more for inspiration more than anything. This was actually a card that I made for my friend who moved to Japan a couple years ago, but we like to keep in touch. I used a color palette of cream and light blues because, to be completely honest, he has a bit of a feminine side to him. I really liked making this card because of the prints and the awesome sketch.

I hope you like it!
- CindyC.

Something New

Hey, I'm Cindy and this is the beginning of a new journey :).

"Design the Arts" is going to be a blog of my work that includes all things related to the arts. This means fashion design in my moleskine, photography, illustrations, crafts, and cards. Even though I don't have a load of time in my hands due to schoolwork and extracurriculars, I hope to be able to relax and do things that make me happy. I also only have the simplest of equipment to use but it's enough for me. Sometimes the best things come from the basics.

So I hope this will be successful and I'll be able to post regularly enough.

Wish me luck!
-CindyC.