One pattern a week challenge: Week 4

Managed to survive a month of this challenge!!

For some reason I have a hard time drawing cats.  I think their fur pattern is difficult in this style or something... so I just went for a gray cat.  It's a munchkin cat!

I always think of bells when I think of cats so I went for bells in the background

One pattern a week challenge: Week 3

 This challenge has been such a good idea.  It's really forcing myself to get more work done!

      So for this week I saw that spoonflower was having a contest.  The theme was whales but with a restricted color palette.  The palette so happened to be pastel shades and I absolutely loved the colors so I had to give it a shot! (and I've been wanting to draw whales!!)

     

     I challenged myself even more and decided to play with more than two "pieces".  I usually only use two pieces -- Like my corgi or bird and cage patterns.  They're really simple.  I struggled with this one mostly cause of the fishes.  Every time I placed them somewhere, they looked weird when I repeated them. 

I think the end result came out alright! :)

One pattern a week challenge: Week 2

It's been another long week. How do the other artists work full time and produce art on their free time!? It's tough! (and I'm technically not full time!)

This week's pattern I really felt a strong urge to draw candy.  I went to Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's concert last saturday so I'm pretty sure she had something to do with it.. I've been putting this song on repeat basically. ♪


I also went for a different color palette than usual. I usually keep everything in a muted pastel with a few bright colors... I went a different route from my original design in my head so I think that's why I'm surprised on how this turned out.

But I'm quite happy with it.  I can always go back and change the colors to see what it looks like in a light pastel color palette too :9

I'm wondering what surface this might look neat in.  Maybe a backpack? Hmm.

One pattern a week challenge: Week 1

      So on my last post I mentioned I wanted to start this challenge to force myself to draw so atleast I can keep expanding on my portfolio!

        February was by far the worst art slump I've ever had.  So I need to get out of it!

       Actually, I've been doing a lot of research on wholesale greeting cards vs. licensing so I'm learning a lot. Kate Harper's Blog has been helping me SO much! It's wonderful to see all the information fellow artists give out. :)


So this week's pattern:

         I cheated a little and used this cage from the previous pattern I made. Although, I personally think that's the beauty of pattern design. you can make so many new pattern with existing images. So I've been saving all my .ai files so I can reuse them! Even the dot pattern is from another pattern I made previously!  And I just drew the bird and put it together!

Package mock up stuff!

      I've been wanting to do actual mock ups with my pattern design forever-- and now that I have my printer I can! This was for a birthday gift. I used one of the corgi watercolor illustration I did in the past and made a vector paw print and made a pattern with them.
      I actually printed out another sheet with just paw prints to put on the inside part so the brown kraft paper doesn't show but I guess I forgot to take the picture;; oops

        This was a birthday gift bag I made (for a different friend). I hand lettered happy birthday and added some cute polkdadot or bubbles~
       I used inkpress matte 60 so the paper was nice and heavy enough to hold (the gift itself was super light though) and thank goodness I had pink tissue paper to match the ribbon!

(Those dinosaurs are my bed sheets haha.)




        February was SUCH a slow month for me.  I couldn't get myself to work on anything! I would doodle everyday but I couldn't get myself to work on anything else... so I came up with a challenge for myself: One pattern a week!
      I have a really bad habit of not being able to work on anything until something is finished and I basically didn't want to work on any current projects -- which is why I ended up doing nothing most of February.  So I'm going to try to break that bad habit and make myself work!
   So starting March I should be updating this blog once a week! Yay!

Etsy shop!

I set up my etsy shop January 2013... Finally one year later I started to list items!

I've been looking into it a lot actually-- how to promote, what I should do to get more views, sales, etc.
It's actually a lot of work. But it's been keeping me busy so I'm hoping to keep this to motivate myself to create even more.

Valentine's Day is coming up so I put up all my Valentine's Day cards!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/HarukaIllustration

check it!

I also updated my twitter and blogspot.  Finally refreshing things since the new year and feeling really good!

How do you motivate yourself?

Seeing people work so hard to achieve their dream is really inspirational.. but it's so difficult to force myself to do something. Not everyone can wake themselves in the morning and work on art at home.

I know it sounds pathetic because I am trying to freelance yet I'm too lazy to do so. So maybe freelancing isn't my "thing"?

But I want it to be.

I have some friends who went to art school and is failing to get themselves in a career based on art (or basically do what they really want to do) and I think we all go to art school thinking we're going to love our jobs in the future. Thats why we pay so much money to go.. yet why is it so hard to motivate ourselves?

I'm still struggling with this. I noticed when my schedule is tight I'm motivated to do so much but I have no time.. but when I have like 3 days off in a row I'm too lazy to do anything.
But if I have a deadline I'll make myself work. So if it's deadlines that makes me work, how do I make myself believe everything has a deadline?

This is pattern design I rushed when I saw that spoonflower was giving out free swatches..
I always think "Well if I had more time..." "If I didn't rush it.." "If I started earlier..."

A little more melancholic of a post but... I guess I'm tired of feeling frustrated... yet I still can't figure out what to do so... 

How do you motivate yourself?

Corgi box!

      I really enjoy the idea of handmade gifts.  I love getting them and I definitely enjoy making them!

      My friend told me about a site called spoonflower that prints fabrics, stickers, giftwrap, etc with your designs so I had this idea to print a fabric and make a box out of it. (I originally wanted to make a bag but plans fell through and it became a box instead haha)

     My friend reaaaaally likes Welsh Corgis so I made a pattern based on corgis:

After I received the fabric I made this!

It printed very accurately! I was so happy with it.  :) (also quite proud of my level up on my craftsmanship!)

Farewell 2013, Welcome 2014!

2013 has been SOME year. 

       I finally figured out my own "style" and figured out what direction I really want to go with art wise.  Life is still kinda taking detours but I think I'm figuring it out slowly but surely.
I graduated PCA&D in May.  Successfully had my senior show and displayed my 16 greeting cards that I worked so hard on.
     Moved back home with my parents and slowly learning how to motivate myself to do art without school forcing me to.  (I'm still working on that!)

        For tax purposes, I was looking at all the stuff I bought for Haruka Illustration and it's been an expensive year.  But I feel like I finally laid the foundation to really begin as a freelance illustrator.

       I'm going to start 2014 with a fresh start.  I'm going to really make my move as a freelancer and make money doing art.

       2014 is the year of the horse (and I was born as the year of the horse!) so I feel good luck/vibes coming! I'm really excited to make something great happen.

I want to consume myself with positive spirit and be inspired as well as be inspiration to others!

Welcome 2014!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! 

Since school ended, I'm back home so I was able to spend Christmas with my family again.  We basically just eat all day long and do nothing. 

I did decide to bake cookies today.. and had a LOT of fun.

(sometimes I wonder if I should start a food blog)

I never got to do stuff like this as a kid because my mom hates baking.  And since I had an entire day off, I thought why not.  I was feeling extra festive. :)

Hope everyone is enjoying their holidays! :)

Happy Halloween!

A year passed since I started blogging!  It only seemed like a few days ago...

This year I decided to challenge myself on making a full pattern since I've never done that.  I always get discouraged because I never knew how to go about it.
So I forced myself to go through it this time and I struggled but I had a lot of fun!

I started with traditional media for this one:

Inked on coldpress watercolor paper and water colored in each character.

I actually didn't have a specific pattern in mind when I drew these characters.  I just thought of anything Halloween and just drew them out.

Then I took a photo and erased each background for every character in photoshop

Then the hard part: arranging them on a canvas so they flow nicely as a pattern.  I'm glad I finally made myself do it because it was kinda fun and I'm so happy with the outcome.  I'm sure if I practice enough, I'll get better at it!

A few variations:

I made this one for fun earlier:

This is what I really enjoy about patterns -- That you can take each character and make a whole new pattern with it. :)

Overall, I'm pretty sure I'm going to make an entire portfolio with patterns.  This will be addicting.


I also started a spoonflower account! http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/2537972

Pet cards!

Here's more drawings of dogs! I can't get enough of them.

I've been forcing myself to draw my friend's pets so I'll actually get myself to practice.

 This is Julius's dog Leon, the miniature Aussie

This is Lynne with her dog Yeou, the super skinny Shiba Inu

It's National Dog Day!

I was cleaning my studio space some more and I logged onto twitter for a quick break -- and found out it was national dog day!!

I HAD to draw a dog to celebrate!

Maybe I should make it a goal to adopt a dog on next year's national dog day :)  

So here's mister Black Labrador Retriever: 

red cheeked cordon bleu lovebirds

It's been about 2 months since I moved back home and I've been slooooowly but surely cleaning my room.  I finally got it to the point where all my art supplies are in my room and my desk is clean! I was ready to do some watercolor paintings but as I was looking through my computer I found the red cheeked cordon bleu I wanted to finish.. so I ended up finishing this digital illustration instead!

p.s. the red cheeked are the males. They're so cute :)

It's been 4 years...

I recently did a pet portrait of a friend's dog and I realized I haven't even drawn my own dog yet!

And this August is the 4th year since she passed away and it brought back feelings as I looked up some old photos.
I absolutely love dogs and not only that-- she was like a sister to me.

I'm saving up money so I can adopt a dog in the near future. 

But for now, I hope my baby's happy in doggie heaven. <3

(Yume means dream in Japanese)

Thank you everyone; I'll miss everyone in Lancaster!

A lot happened since my last post.  Senior show, graduation, moving back home... I'm still living in boxes right now.  I wanna unpack asap and work on art already!!

But I did want to make a post thanking everyone in Lancaster and my family for helping me with the move and all the time I spent with my friends in Lancaster.  Everyone grew to me like family after the 3 years and I felt so blessed.

I think my body feels wrong or something cause I've been having trouble sleeping lately. haha.

But enjoy this Thank you card I made for my senior show! It's done all digitally.  (I'm going to make an etsy shop soon with the cards, I promise!) 

First published children's book: The Magical Starberry

I'm super excited that my first children's book is up on amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/The-Magical-Starberry-Haruka-Takahashi/dp/1484194683/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366939947&sr=8-1&keywords=the+magical+starberry


This entire book has been experimented on so just getting it together has been super difficult but I think it was well worth it.  I ordered a bunch of these to sell at senior show too so get your signed copy then!
More information on PCAD's Senior Show: check it out!

A few posters!

Since I'm an officer for SOI (Society of Illustrators) student chapter at my school I've been making a bunch of posters so I thought why not share them.  I actually spend a little too much time on some of these. haha

Cut paper process

So I recently picked up this method so it's been lots and lots of experimenting this semester!


I make everything at half size of original.  I make a tight drawing, flip it, trace it on colored cardstock paper, and then cut it out.  Then glue whatever pieces together and draw in the small details!  This is always the fun part for me.

Then onto photographing.

For this page, I decided to give it a digital background instead of cutting out all the trees.  (because of time! Or else I would've cut those trees out!)

I also added a 'canvas' texture to this one.

This one's still a work in progress so the colors will be changing.


And who knows if I come up with a different process again!  I'm always experimenting.