Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas everyone! 

Holiday season never gets easier while working retail... It was so brutal.  It's over now and Im enjoying my day off. 

It was nice to see a white Christmas for once too.  Its been a while. 

 A few cards in the making.  I was so busy I didn't get to hand them out before Christmas though! :(

 I didn't get to go home for Christmas so I made myself dinner (veggie saute in tomato sauce and herbs with sausage) and gingersnap cookies!

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and stay warm!
 

Restart!

So for whoever was following Harustrations, I changed my name and started all over.

I imported everything so the look is all the same, just my name and email changed. 

My username on twitter is now @HaruIllustrates now!

I struggled through Harustrations a lot.  I really liked it but there was a lot of people saying it's difficult to pronounce so.. I had to let it go.

So, Welcome to Haruka Illustration!
I'll make a new banner soon.
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A little update:
My semester ended last friday and I've already been practically working full time at my retail job.  The holidays really gets the shoppers shopping!

Meanwhile, I finished reading "Start Something That Matters" by Blake Mycoskie. 
 It's an excellent read.  I seriously recommend it.  Maybe it'll change your life like it changed mine.

I suddenly have new dreams now and I'm really excited about it.  My ideas and goals keep changing throughout the year so we'll see how things go after graduation I guess. 

 

Shoutout to Neenah Paper!

So I'm putting together a self promotion packet that I can send out to clients/companies in the future and this is one a calendar. (that folds up like an accordion fold out that fits into a CD case)

I was researching some papers (in the future I'll probably try samples for other paper companies) but I ordered some Neenah paper samples as well as proofs of this illustration on their paper.

and I must say I'm CRAZY impressed.  They even sent me a discount code -- and guess what.  I'm definitely buying some of their paper. (I also have a gross obsession with paper so that doesn't help haha)

I'm going to take a picture of the finished packet in the near future! :)

Miss Bubblegum

  

After I saw Kurt's blogpost about designing his own Sugar Rush character I wanted to do one too.

Then I remembered I had a sketch of this girl from last year!  (Actually I have a bunch of others.  This one was my fav!)  I was designing clothes based off of a candy and I started designing characters as well.  Then I took that sketch and sorta drew it in the Sugar Rush style.

Unfortunately I couldn't up with a clever name haha.

I wanna finish up the other 3 girls I sketched out soon! (and MAYBE their cars too... hmmm

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Hope everyone is having a safe holiday

I couldn't go home for break this week so Liz Cleaves invited me over for Thanksgiving dinner. :)  I had a fantastic meal with Liz's amazing pie!

In Her Dreams, It's Always Raining

I love adding symbolism into my piece so much.

This one's about a nine tailed fox, who's known be a rain spirit.  Rain makes things grow, like trees.  Trees also symbolize growth.  And I just wanted her hair to react to the rain as well so it's turning  rainbow.

Ive been wanting to try cut paper for the LONGEST time and this is one step towards it.  I still want to try doing some detailed cut paper pieces... but for this project I wanted it to be more illustration heavy and just hints of cut paper.  The clouds are bleeding onto the borders to make it pop out more.

I think next time I want to try layering even more to make whatever in the foreground pop up (literally).

I'm so excited for thanksgiving break.  I have way too many project ideas!

Buddhist Triptych

 This was done around April 2012.  It was for my type as art class and for this assignment it had to be a triptych and include whatever type you want in there.

I was also taking non western art history at the time and I just learned about the original Buddhism, founded by Siddartha.

I personally hate how religion needs to be split up into billions of different sects when it's all the same thing.  Just be a good person, learn to love yourself and others, etc.  Also, I'm Christian but I believe in some Buddhist "philosophies" (I guess that comes from my Japanese background).  

I wanted to fuse these concepts together so I used Buddhist icons of the mudras (which is the hand gestures in each section) on a Christian gold triptych.  I decided to watercolor the pieces to make it look like traditional Indian art.  It also folds up like a book because these watercolor styles were known to be in books.  

 The teaching gesture

"Fear Not" Gesture.  The sanskrit on the hand says Siddhartha Gautama.

Gesture of Charity

How the 'book' looks closed.

Dino set

This is a dinosaur magnet I did.

and this is the place mat.  This and the magnet goes together as a set so I tried to keep the colors relatively similar.
I just can't get enough of drawing cute dinosaurs.

Happy Halloween!

The weather's been crazy the past 2 Halloweens!  How odd.  I think earth's seasons are shifting or something...

But for the trick or treaters and the crazy kids/adults who's celebrating Halloween, have a good one.  Stay safe !

Stay Dry!

Hurricane Sandy is hitting the east coast right now and it's just rain rain rain.  Everything is closed so apparently it's going to be huge.  It hasn't hit my area yet.  Hopefully nothing too serious will happen. 



Stay dry or else you'll be unamused like this guy:

Be safe everyone!

Welcome!

Hi!  It's nice to meet you!

I'm Haruka Takahashi.  People call me Haru or Haruka.

I'm a senior at Pennsylvania College of Art and Design and I'm studying illustration.  I really want to get into the picture book or greeting card industry.  I can't get enough of drawing cute little animals!
 I'm also interested in package design and fine arts too.  I was also interested in culinary school and concentrate on baking or go to barista school and opening up a cafe.  I love learning all kinds of things.

I'll definitely post my artworks and interests so stay tuned!



Edit: (12/17/12)
--I changed my blog name from Harustrations to Haruka Illustration!  Sorry if this confused any of you at all!