I’ve been steadily making a bunch of new patterns over this year. I took a hiatus when we went on vacation in August, but I’m finally posting some designs now at the end of year! This collection is a bold, colourful pattern with rainbow roller skates, walkman, headphones and cassette tapes. I very vaguely remember going to The Terrace, a roller skating rink in downtown Toronto with my uncle. It must’ve been some time in the early to mid 80s as I looked up that the Terrace closed its doors in 1989. The building was converted to a curling and roller skating rink in 1962. Previously, it was a skating rink called The Arena where the Leafs (Toronto’s NHL hockey team) used to play. It’s kind of neat that I went to a piece of Toronto history! In the 90s, I had a trusty walkman and lots of mixed tapes that me or friends carefully put together. Although everyone moved on to CDs, but I remember I still took this small walkman (that our dad’s friend bought for us from Hong Kong) to university and always listened to music while I was in the art studio. What a long ago analogue world that was…

Here’s a the roller skate pattern in olive green, purple and turquoise:

And here are some secondary and blender patterns to go with the roller skate pattern. All patterns can be found on my Spoonflower shop in this collection.

I’m honoured to be in Uppercase magazine’s 5th Surface Pattern Design guide. This issue of Uppercase is gorgeous and completely overflowing with juicy patterns and colour. Janine VanGool is the publisher, editor AND designer of the magazine – she basically does it all! There were 997 entries, and 100 designers were selected to be included in the 2023 surface pattern design guide. I remember seeing the first edition of the guide back in 2014. I poured over all the artists that were featured and looked at their work in depth. At the time, I would never have imagined being in it myself. I was so far from this 9 years ago!

Very slowly, in the last year or two, I started dabbling with taking drawings that I created and turning them into repeat patterns. I picked up the guide in 2021 and made it a goal to apply next time there was a call for entries. When the magazine was delivered in the first week of AprilI, I was actually sick with COVID. I didn’t even have energy to open it until a day later! Still pinching myself now, I’m published!

I drew these elements for Spoonflower and East Fork pottery’s design challenge to create a pattern for table linens. (My first time entering a Spoonflower design challenge and it was pretty exciting being more engaged with the Spoonflower community!) I managed to place just under 200th out of of 2000+ entries. The challenge is to use East Fork’s newest glaze colours, Butter (a light yellow), and Piglet (a soft pale pink) in the pattern design. A perfect airy spring palette. We were also asked to use no more than four colours (plus black and white) and to stick with neutral tones.

The bowls and mugs are simple, rustic and on the traditional side. Contrastingly, I like how East Fork styled the photographs of the ceramics on the website with pop tarts, fruit loops and mini pastel marshmallows. It gives it a fun, quirky vibe!

I made a collection of bright, cheery patterns from the mural design that I created for my church last spring. I went back and refined the individual elements, and also added a bumblebee as the original design was part of our church pollinator garden project. There were a few shipping issues with the holiday rush, but I finally got my sample fabrics at the end of January and I’m able to make my patterns for sale on my Spoonflower shop – have a look here! Happy to bring a dose of colour to the world in the middle of winter. (Here in Toronto, Canada, it was -17 C yesterday but felt like -26 C! Our coldest day of the season)

I’m also imagining my patterns on products. It’s fun to think about where my patterns can be applied. Note to self: when designing new patterns, always think about what the end product(s) will be. What are you designing for?

It’s December. It’s windy and cold today, but I need to make a post about our summer trip to the East Coast before 2022 ends. (I know, I skipped a whole season) We took a wonderful trip to the East coast. It was our first time getting on a plane since 2019. It was our first time road tripping, and exploring with the kids. (Living out of the trunk of the rental car, and staying in a different place almost every night for just over a week) We landed in Halifax, made our way through New Brunswick to Saint John, and then went eastwards and north to Cape Breton Island, and back to the Halifax area. It was a fun mix of catching up with cousins, meeting little cousins, and exploring new places with just the four of us. Aside from using the phone for navigation and taking photos, it was so needed to be disconnnected – not checking email or social media!

Some drawings of things along the way on our travels. By no means everything. There was so much, and I just can’t capture the water, the open space, the winding roads, the vastness of the ocean.

It’s been a busy few months so I’m playing catch up here. My family all got COVID in April (except for me, I think) so everyone was home for awhile. The kids missed a lot of school. However, by the end of the month, we managed to have a small belated birthday party with friends over (for BK’s 10th birthday). I created this mural concept, a garden scene illustration for my church around that time. (Did not paint the actual mural) The mural helps to show our church’s pollinator garden. I added an encouraging bible verse about growth and renewal which is like the regeneration of the garden and of nature each spring. This is one of my favourite verses, a reminder when the days are long that God is faithful to renew and strengthen–

Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:30-31

Coincidentally, I went into a really busy season of work right after, and now we are almost half-way into August. Maybe I will letter this verse. It’s a great one.

I’ve been taking the MATs bootcamp courses for years now. (MATs is what kickstarted me into filling up my sketchbooks and experimenting with analog and digital art materials over the last 7 years) This year there’s a different twist. We are making character designs based on an excerpt of a story provided by our instructor and art director Zoe Tucker, and then imagining the characters in a toy concept provided by our other instructor, Riley Wilkinson.

So far, I have gravitated towards working on the characters more. Above is our donut friend Coco Moloko! Worried and scared at first of what’s to come, she nervously lines up with the other donuts. On the other side, she finds herself in a magical land of sprinkles, rainbows and sweet pink icing. These drawings are created with Hobein Acryla Gouache. I water down the paint and use it like watercolour but this brand of paint is quite vibrant still even if it’s watered down. After painting, I go with pencil crayon to add more details. After I scan the drawing into the. computer, clean up the file, and add more details using Procreate and Photoshop.

One more post about TheyDrawTober to show the last batch of fall harvest food illustrations in this series:

I enlarged some of my favourites: the pretzel, spices (liked looking at the varying colours in the spices and loved how the bay leaves turned out), and mushrooms (I learned about edible mushrooms in Ontario!)

I loved drawing this whole series as part of the “TheyDrawTober” prompts from They Draw. My aim was to do these quicker and keep them loose. It did get easier over time, but I still wish I could be quicker and not tense up when doing my final drawing. I really value working in a series and need to come up with some future projects where I make a collection of work under one theme or subject matter.

This isn’t my favourite drawing from TheyDrawTober. I had to really force myself to press on and do this one. (I’ve never even heard of a pumpkin roll before!) But while I was drawing this one, it made me think back to the chocolate or vanilla swiss rolls that my grandmother would bring home from the chinese bakery for afternoon “tea time”. Yes tea time – a product of my family being from British colonial Hong Kong.

Here is the next set from the TheyDrawTober series:

I drew these for #theydrawtober as part of the They draw and cook IG challenge last October. There was an autumn drawing prompt for each day of the month. (That’s 31 prompts in total for the month!) I only did a bunch in October and then kept going after that all the way into the holidays. It was my first time following a series of prompts and I tried to stick with it even if it meant taking much longer and honestly going all the way into the winter season. I obsessively did them in order and satisfyingly checked them off one by one after I finished. I did 25 prompts in total. Not too shabby i think. I like the challenge of doing research on subject matter and drawing new things that I’ve never drawn before – like spicy cocktail. I didn’t know that a Bloody Caesar is like a whole meal!

I’m putting up some larger images of the bike, soda drink, fries and poutine illustrations from my biking in Prince Edward County map. I start my illustrations by using watercolour and pencil crayon on paper, and then digitize the artwork, and continue to refine the drawings on my iPad in Procreate. I used to do the refinements in Photoshop but since I bought a iPad Pro this year, I am trying out Procreate. The map shows the route that we took from Consecon to Jamie Kennedy’s Farm in Hillier. See here for the full illustrated map of Prince Edward County.

I got my 2nd vaccine shot at the beginning of summer. Fully vaxxed! Some kind pharmacists quickly ushered me in for an impromptu shot when I went to the drug store to buy hamburger buns for dinner – heh! Thankful for summer, thankful for the sun and warmth. I also just got an iPad Pro. The above is one of my first sketches on Procreate.