Posts Tagged "japanese"

Watercolor “Kilig” Couple Portraits

When I started drawing actively again late last year, I think my unconscious aim was to rediscover the mojo that, as evidenced by this blog post, somewhat fizzled out due to dependence on Photoshop and Illustrator. Now that I got my fill drawing animals, plants and flowers teehee, I’m finding myself being drawn to figure drawing and watercolor. At first I thought colored pencils were going to be my go-to medium (I still love them but they make my hand hurt after a while) but after doing the portraits of the Eraserkids, I felt the urge to keep on painting.

I knew I wanted to paint more people and again I remembered this old artwork that I made in school.

cynthia bauzon arre
“Fence” 1990

I figured that it would be fun to paint couples in “kilig” moments and realized that hey, the anime, J-dramas and J-movies I’ve been watching all these years are full of those. Not only will I get to hone my figure drawing and watercolor painting skills, I’ll also get to draw my favorite characters.  😉

So, if you’ve been keeping an eye on my Instagram feed, you’ve already seen these. But since you’re here, let me tell you the back stories for each of them. I didn’t want to just copy and make illustrated versions of stills and posters so I added a few twists.

bokura ga ita fan art

1. The artwork I made for “Bokura Ga Ita” (on the right) was based on a scene in the anime series’ closing theme (top left) but I tried drawing the characters as they were portrayed in the live action movies which starred Ikuta Toma and Yoshitaka Yuriko.

koizora fan art cynthia bauzon arre

2.  I based my fan art for “Koizora” on the manga poster (top left) but again, I used the live action movie’s actors’ (Gakki and Haruma Miura) likenesses in my drawing. Of course I also took some liberty with their outfits. It’s so warm that I couldn’t bring myself to draw cold weather clothes. 😉

nodame cantabile fan art

3. For my “Nodame Cantabile” fan artwork, I tried to do the opposite — base the pose on the live action poster and draw them as the anime characters. But I love Ueno Juri and Tamaki Hiroshi so much that I ended up drawing them as they were…. except, again, for the winter clothing. 😉

Beck anime fan art

4. My most recent fan art is for the anime series “Beck.” Arnold and I love this series, thanks to the recommendation of my brother Calvin and wife Inches. 🙂 The pose in my fan art isn’t based on anything but the outfits are inspired by what Koyuki and Maho wore in the anime and the faces are again based somewhat on the actors.

(Slight diversion: To be honest, we thought Sato Takeru and Kutsuna Shiori were miscast as Koyuki and Maho respectively. Takeru was perfect as Rurouni Kenshin but as Koyuki? Koike Teppei would’ve been more believable… but that’s just my opinion. As for Maho, I think Chiaki Kuriyama would’ve been a more suitable choice. And my biggest issue with the film — why no singing voice for Koyuki?)

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On another note, I’m excited to use this thing of beauty in my upcoming artworks.

I’ve been using school-grade watercolors since, well, school (not that there’s anything wrong with Prang which has served me well) so I thought it was high time to go a bit more pro. I ordered this Kuretake Gansai Tambi set of traditional Japanese watercolors as an – ahem- advanced birthday gift to myself. It came in a big and elegant green box with the Kanji characters for “Gan-Sai-Tan-Bi” and inside are 36 big pans of creamy, candy-colored goodness. [insert heart-eyed emoji] The 36-color set includes three glittery paints — gold (kin), blue-gold (aokin), and silver (gin) by the way.

I couldn’t wait to try it out so I quickly doodled cupcakes, both in a washy transparent and opaque gouache-like style. It looks thick and creamy at first glance but, depending on how much water your brush is loaded with, it will glide smoothly and as transparent as you want on paper. It appears that I can use these on dark colored surfaces too though I haven’t tried that yet. I’ll show you more work using these soon!

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Tokyo Design Festa November 2014 + Rubber Stamp Carving WIP

What I’m working on right now…

rubber stamp carving progress

… is a continuation of the update I posted on Instagram last night.1 I made these jeepney, tricycle, and pedicab doodles 2  a week ago and thought of printing them on the Gocco… until I realized that I didn’t have enough screens.*headdesk*  But as explained in the previous post, this is what led to my interest in rubberstamping in the first place which just proves that necessity is the mother of inven innovation (and crazy new obssessions).

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On the home front, Arn is happy that I’m spending evenings being artistic — not just vegging out in front of the TV watching J-dramas (Teehee. Now you know. ) So now I’m either carving or doodling while my iTunes blasts out J-pop. Same difference. 🙂 I’ve actually been semi-passively studying Nihongo since 2011 but I’ll reserve that story for another time…

Before I went off-tangent, I was gonna say that Arn and I have been talking about what sparked this sudden desire to create with my hands.After some thought, I had the answer: Design Festa!!!

This cheezy photo below was taken at the Design Festa Gallery in Harajuku, Tokyo in 2006. (Whattapose *cringe*)

(More photos — and cheezy poses — in my old Flickr gallery)

That was the first time I heard of it. Since then I’ve been wanting to attend the actual festival but our timing was always off. When we planned our trip for this year, I made sure to check the schedule. They usually hold it in May and November. We chose to go in the fall because Tokyo would be just as hot as Manila if we went in the summer.

So here I am all giddy, holding our pre-bought tickets which we purchased at the HQ in Harajuku (the same place in the 2006 photo I posted above). We actually arrived at Tokyo Big Sight 30 minutes before it opened.

design festa 2014

This is not even half of the crowd that was there bright and early. See how behaved and properly-queued up everyone was though.

Design Festa 2014

Inside, the place was bursting with kawaii, I didn’t know where to start!

Design Festa 2014

I went bananas over all the cute stuff and even had photos taken with the very friendly and talented artists who were only too happy to indulge our whims.

Design Festa 2014

Design Festa 2014

Arnold, meanwhile, enjoyed taking photos and videos of the kids who were painting on the scene.

Design Festa 2014

Design Festa 2014

Design Festa 2014

We originally planned to stay until around 4pm so that we could go somewhere else afterwards but we ended up leaving at 8pm, closing time, because there was so much to feast our senses on. Indie bands were playing outside. Strange short films were showing upstairs. A diverse selection of food carts dotted the place. At the end of the day my tote was filled with handmade puraban brooches, plushies and some stationery. Arn bought several art cards and  indie comics. Ironically, I didn’t notice any keshigomu hanko (hand-carved erasers) although I’m positive there was a whole section devoted to it…

There are more photos in this Google album.

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Hope you enjoyed this post and hopefully I’ll have finished prints to show in my next post! 🙂

  1. Please pardon the dirty cutting mat… I’ll clean it this weekend![ back]
  2. The jeepney was especially tedious to carve because of all the detail I put! Masochist much?[ back]
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I'm Cynthia Bauzon-Arre, a Filipino watercolor artist & graphic designer. I live in QC with my graphic novelist husband Arnold and our friendly marmalade tabby Abbas. This blog has been chronicling my life, likes, and loves since 2001. [ more ]

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