My most creative moments in life

….are during times I need not be working on such projects. I avoid homework by drawing and wandering on twitter and illustrator websites, I doodle during class, I suddenly begin editing portfolio content for website at work, etc. Am I the only artist who can never actually get my creative juice flowing when I have an endless supply of free time? (which is extremely rare, yet such time does exist for me…lately it’s been Saturdays. Therefore, I have not gone out for some consecutive weekends. Pfft.)

Anyways, here’s to poor time management! I often think about doing things and make a million to-do lists, but it’s hard for me to execute those floating ideas. Somebody save me!

*click for larger image on my flickr!*

Also, this is the quickest route to win my heart ;D

in other news,

oh you know, just another day of photoshoots and such, nothing too big.

you know, just kind of toured around threadless and got incredible advice, free shirts, and got to meet my idol Mig Reyes. that’s all. just another wednesday.

alas, i was flipping my shit over excitement. thank you students in design for major opportunities!

INTAGLIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FAIL.

bah. i am not good at printmaking at all. AT ALL. (btw that’s not a scanning mistake, i actually printed my plate like that, and that is the actual paper.)

Yes, my tuition covers a class on cartooning.

Well what do you expect? I do go to a private art college after all (mind you, is AWESOME and I have way more pros then cons to ever share about the good ol’ hipster central university that is Columbia College Chicago) and if I’m gonna take an elective, I might as well take something I’d truly enjoy!

As a cartooning student of the grand master flash that is Ivan Brunetti, I had to compose three single-framed cartoons based on a real life experience/observation, one political/social/cultural-themed, and one I had the freedom to do whatever with. I really enjoy his class, and all the terrible, dark jokes that come with critiques. Click on the image for larger view linked to my flickr!

I hope you all take the time to notice the details on the herringbone pattern rendering, the text on the iPhone, and my extremely poor rendition of President Obama:

DO NOT BE AFRAID

i will be back. soon. yes. i know i have been neglecting this blog for about..hmm, 6 months? but i will be bringing it back with full throttle, and i will incorporate not only doodles but photos and things that catch my eye…making it my all around outlet for creative expression and encounters. do i sound cliche yet?

for now, please enjoy a doodle collection from the first month of my relationship with the Danimal and my valentine’s day gift for him comprised of burnt brownies complete with frosted caricatures. unfortunately, i resemble Ronald McDonald more then myself. ciao!

ps. i personally enjoy oddish + pottish that i conjured up. pps. can you guess which drawings my boyfriend drew and which drawings i drew? yes? good, lol.

chicago at a glance…through Kiyomi’s hands

Last semester I took a History of Chicago class which is supposedly the hardest class to get into at Columbia College (I had seniority privilege so I got to register pretty early)…but once you get in the class, you will realize that it’s the most chillaxed class EVER. The instructor is super nice and laid-back and knowledgeable (aka you don’t have to do much), but I didn’t do anything at all after our first group project which was a citywide scavenger hunt. The instructor called for a creative presentation format of all the answers to our intensive hunt, and my fabulous group decided to make a board game! We’re effin’ geniuses!

It was deemed “CHICAGO LAND” following the cheesy format of “CANDY LAND,” and my groupmate and friend Reggie even bought the real Candy Land game so we can just cover over the original with our creation. It looked pretty friggin fierce but I didn’t realize how awesome it was until the presentation date arrived, because our instructor was just so completely smitten and blown away by our production that she decided to give us all As for the entire semester. (Mind you at this point we’re only on week 4 out of 15) On top of it all, we didn’t have to write any papers or do any homeworks, and I’m pretty sure I missed the last 1-2 classes but I still got an A. It was an insane and a jovial time I spent in that class, but I’m sure our classmates hated us for the remainder of the semester. The board game was also displayed inside the Columbia College Library for a while, but there was no explanation provided for the work so I think it just confused everyone.

I have no idea where the game is today, perhaps somewhere amongst Columbia artifacts because I doubt my instructor went to retrieve it.

If you are signing up for History of Chicago at Columbia College, make sure you take it with Diane Adams!

And these are my share of the board game; illustrations for pop-up famous Chicago landmark pieces:

a lop-sided water tower…

and finally, my favorite, the chicago theatre!

my infamous t-shirt design

I still firmly believe that I made THE best Northside College Prep High School Asian Club shirt desgin in the entire history of the club’s existence. No doubt. I’ve seen all designs preceding and succeeding mine. They’re all WEAK SAUCES I tell you! My 10 characters represented all Asian-American (or Asian-Native) ethnic backgrounds that existed at my high school in my graduating year. Fyi, Japan is the Ninja, just incase you were wondering.

ZING!

Since I am always on the internet anyways, why not start a doodle blog like all my fellow artist friends? Let’s see how long this will last..

To start off this diary on the right foot, I decided to introduce you all to the wonderful creation that is:

A GAT DAMN PEEP PIE, that’s right. Created about 5-6 years ago by my lovely friends. A bit sadistic, but that is part of the fun!

And also, I used to tag:

Can you make out what it says? I used to do a lot of things during high school, I wonder what happened…? Alas, I will get myself back into faux-graffiti…eventually.