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Saturday, December 31, 2011

This piece for the New York Times book review will be in tomorrow aka New Year's day 's paper! Not a bad way to start the year, eh?

The review is for "How it all began" by Penelope Lively. (Read online here) A retired schoolteacher, Charlotte Rainsford, has been mugged on a London street. Her hip has been broken and her bag stolen by someone who, Penelope Lively briskly informs us in her 20th work of fiction, will disappear from the rest of Charlotte’s story. This casual nastiness sends Charlotte to her daughter’s house while she recuperates, thus disrupting many of the characters’ routines — to trace the relationships among an assortment of relatives, employers, students and illicit lovers.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

This illo is for the NYTimes practical travel page, it's online now and will be in print on X'mas day! The story is about the top picked apps for iphone/ ipad to keep children entertained during long holiday travels.

I have never thought I would draw angry birds or elmo for a job, this is a milestone of my career. Big thanks to AD Corinne Myller, always a pleasure to work with.

Happy Holidays everyone and safe trips if you are travelling! I can't believe 2011 is almost over...

Friday, December 9, 2011

I started this personal quickie series "I speak AN English" a while ago. The project is meant to record the American slangs that I misinterpreted. I didn't think it would take me almost a year to makes the second and third pieces so NOW it's actually a series. But better late than never right?

I present you the "high-rollers" and "on a roll" following on my last "phosho".

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

These illos are for this month's Utne Reader magazine. The title of the story is " The Master and Mike DiMeglio". It's a true story about the Chinese White-Crane kung fu legacy and the master-apprentice relationship between Dr. Yang and his favorite pupil Mike DiMeglio, who betrayed the master and got kicked out of the training.

It was a very fun project as I could fully unleash my Chinese-ness and incorporateSumie in the pieces. The project also got me a little nostalgic that I went so far to dug out this sumie painting I did back in high school. I remember being pretty proud of it but now it's almost embarrassing...still cool to see how my work has evolved though!

Monday, December 5, 2011

This portrait of Guy Laliberte was a fun collaboration project with photographer Steve Benisty for an Art magazine called Whitewall. Guy Laliberte is the president of Cirque du Soleil. Aside from being the creative mind and founder behind all of Cirque's amazing shows, he recently went into space and shot a coffee table book of images of the earth from space. The book is called Gaia and it's truly inspiring. All the money made from the book goes to his 'One drop' foundation, which promotes the importance of water and provides clean water to third world countries .

Steve came to me with this photo he shot and invited me to add some whimsical drawing to the blank space which would capture the ascent of Cirque du Soleil and say something about Guy's space trip and his One Drop foundation. I came up with the idea of Guy supporting the "water goddess" and have different life forms sprouting out from her.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

I did this portrait illustration for the current Foreign Policy "Top 100 Global Thinker" issue. Mizuho Fukushima, the leader of Japan's Social Democratic Party, and her partner, lawyer Yuichi Kaidowere ranked 29th in the magazine for their antinuclear activism.

Special thanks to Yuko Shimizu for recommending me to AD Dennis Brack, who I enjoyed working with very much!

For the show, artists were asked to create their own super villain and provide back stories for them. My super villain is "time". "Time" can't be defeated, just like seasonal changes are inevitable. But lovers can fool time by saying "I love you" to each other everyday to extend their expiration date.

The show is taking in Gallery Rotopol, Friedrich-Ebert-Str. 95, Kassel, Germany from Nov 25, 2011 to Dec 2, 2011. The opening reception is on this Friday Nov25 from 8pm to 12am.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

The story is kind of a blue one - it's about local Hawaiian musician loosing their ways to get their music out because of the closing Borders bookstores , which carried their CDs as well as provided venue for live performances.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

This illo is still warm!! I just finished it yesterday and it's going to be in tomorrow's New York Times paper (Sunday Nov 6). You can read the article here online. This is my first color illustration for the CRAZY PACE letter page and it's a very fun (and no sleep) challenge.

The topic is about the tension and debates between fossil fuel and renewal energies.

I gave up going to Conan O'Brien 's for this...but it's worth it, right?

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

This is a cover I did for the latest UK Diplomat mag Ukraine issue cover.

It's quite an interesting story how I get under the radar of AD Jeannie Saba. I participated in the Pick Me Up show in London earlier this year and Jeannie's boyfriend bought one of my prints for her as a gift. She really liked it and decided to hire me to do a cover! I guess one can never predict how fate unfolds.

The theme of the cover is Ukraine's growth and her blooming agriculture. I want to celebrate Ukraine's fertile black soil which provides for and nourishes everything in the country. To me, growth is energetic and festive, then the idea of integrating the famous Ukrainian ballet came to mind: why not humanize the black soil into ballerinasdancing around the blooming sunflower? I chose sunflower to symbolize Ukraine as it's a very popular flower in the country and it's the flower that always grow upward facing the sun. The large anther of the flower also allows me to be playful and sneak in a few unique Ukrainian architecture there!

The cover went through a few different stages, you can see the evolution here.

I went with the red palette at first because I like its explosive energy.

Jeannie suggested that it would be nice to use Ukraine's national flag colors instead.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

This is a recent piece for the New York Times travel section, it's online now and will be published in this Sunday (Oct 30) paper.

I had tons of fun with this piece but the story isn't necessarily a good news for most people including myself. Major airlines continue to cut flights this holiday season while the number of passengers increase. So traveling will be quite hectic -expensive tickets, packed planes and long lines will be expected.

Many airlines also launched some new policies- basically if you pay more, you can skip the security check line, check in more languages, board the plane before others and even enjoy more legroom....Unless you are one of those who can afford the moneyhorse, this kinda sucks.

Great thanks to AD Corinne and the editors at the Times for letting me run wild with such a practical story.

Art Tails is a charity art-book app for i-Phone/i-Pad by 180(and increasingly more) artists from around the world. All the profit of the project goes to the rebuilding of Tohoku, Japan after the disastrous 311 earthquake. I think the project is a brilliant idea as it promotes arts and enables us "starving artists" to contribute with our pictures! I hope you will like it too, thanks for the support!