For the days when the rain won’t seem to let up, and the sun refuses to shine, I know there are people out there who are waiting for me with an umbrella and a blanket, hands outstretched, and hugs to make it all feel better.

Thank you.

More inspiration here, and in Marisa’s podcasts.

“Hope, is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.”

~ Vavclav Havel

“In the beginning I think I was trying to emulate the lives of other people, by doing what others did, just for a time, while I got my footing. But in the last few years the more I have followed my own path and process the more I am getting to my own voice. My god, it’s an amazing feeling.

To be honest with you, one of the ways that this is happened is by me cutting myself off from what others are doing. I have become isolated in many ways from the culture at large (mass media) and focused on reading works by others who only followed their own path. This transformation into uncovering my own work has been one of the most rewarding things that I have ever experienced.”
~ Keri Smith

“i have become aware that if any real discoveries are to be made i can only find them by entering into this unknown place. otherwise I am just repeating what I have learned in the past, which doesn’t involve any risk. the unknown is not always comfortable.

but it’s not always about comfort.”
~ Keri Smith, Getting Lost

“The closer man gets to the unknown, the more inventive he becomes.”
~Buckminster Fuller

“How do you calculate upon the unforeseen? It seems to be an art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that here are some essential mysteries in the world and thereby a limit to calculation, to plan, to control. To calculate on the unforeseen is perhaps exactly the paradoxical operation that life most requires of us.”
_~ Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost

Now you all know how I’ve not done any illustrations for a while now. I bet you must be thinking — uh oh, she fell off the wagon! I did not, I assure you. :)

My time was spent on doing up a new website called Pikaland. I realised (and I think you do too), that I have been posting up a fair number of links to other wonderful illustrators right here on this blog. Of course, the fact that this blog was supposed to revolve more around craft didn’t help — I was picking up a pen and pencil to draw more than taking out the sewing machine!

It all started innocently enough — I forgot that I loved to draw and doodle, until I joined Illustration Friday. I then went through more and more illustration sites and realized how happy I was to look at other peep’s lovely works. I have a loooong list of illustration sites I want to share, but it didn’t seem right to put it here on this blog.

Coupled with me finally finding a house to call my home (another surprise — but it’s not officially mine yet for another three months!), I wanted to fill it with everything hand-drawn, and live an illustrated life as much as possible without breaking the bank! As I tried to find a site or an online gallery dedicated to all things illustrated that I could buy, I couldn’t find any… so I decided to take matters into my own hands.

And that, in a nutshell, is how Pikaland came about.

Some people must be wondering why should it be an ad-based blog? It’s a natural evolution for me, I guess. I’ve been a magazine editor for a couple of years now, and I’ve decided that it’s time I write about things that are dear to me. I hope that I’ll be able to make this my full time job in the near future (apart from being a freelance illustrator, but that’s a story for another day!)

So, please feel free to spread the word to everyone you know, and I hope you’ll join me over there as well! :)

Pssst, if you’re an illustrator/artist who sells online, you’re invited to to a spot on our Galleria free for the month of February and March. Hurrah!

My lovely and very talented pal Lynn is featured on the Nice to Meet You website! She’s a fantastic designer and it’s her first big mention too, so I’m really chuffed for her. :)

See her blog for photos from her travels to Japan recently — which reminds me, I still haven’t sorted out everything from my trip. Sigh.

I simply had to let you in on Kate Beaton’s work. I was clutching my sides when I read almost ALL of her comics. (via Drawn!)

In a way, it reminds me of Amy. I love, love, love fantastically funny and happy people!

Little Things Mean Everything
Drawn on sketchbook, digitally rendered.

Big things are the sum of little parts, which is why to me they are so important. We give away little pieces of ourselves with every person we meet, and that’s what I was trying to illustrate with this piece.

A slightly bigger pic here.

Thank you for looking! :)

I love this animation by Julia Pott.

Via Book by it’s Cover

Crushes happen, and they still do to many people. I had crushes when I was young too, and my earliest recollection of these events were that I was rejected most of the time. Horrendously, embarrassingly so.

The only crush I have now is of an actor (I’m not going to mention names here…), but it seems weird to ol’ realistic me to have crushes. I used to think that I may never find a person who would love me back. Pickings out there is rather slim and with my type-A personality, I’d have frightened off all the good ones before they came near.

So I stopped trying so hard.

And I just went about being me, happy and contented. And that’s where the magic happens. I realised that all my life, if the big guy up there was trying to tell me something, it’s that I shouldn’t try so hard sometimes. No overthinking. Just go with the flow and just do things that I like. And when I stopped trying so hard, things happen for me. Fun things, great things, everything.

And that’s one thing I’m still trying to learn — how to let go and just throw caution to the wind.

That’s what Penelope Dullaghan said. I believe her.

Sometimes everyone needs a little zing in their coffee, or that extra slice of cheese on their toast to make the day go by easier. Me? I load up on inspirational stories that makes my heart swell and my hopes soar, if even for that one second more that makes me dream about packing up my things and forever leave my smelly office — where I am segregated from my colleagues in a room with even smellier air-conditioning at the far end of the office.

Keri Smith’s how to make a living doing what you love

Penelope Dullaghan’s How I Became an Illustrator

Steve Job’s Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish speech in 2005 at Stanford University

Bill Watterson’s (of Calvin and Hobbes) speech at the Kenyon College, Gambier Ohio, to the 1990 graduating class.

The Chronicles of how Alex Beauchamp Kissed the Cubicle Goodbye is a long read, but it’s something I’d imagine documenting, and am thankful that she did.

“If you don’t think you know what you’re here for, if you have no idea what moves you or stirs you, if you can’t figure out a job that you’ll love, chances are, you just haven’t removed yourself from your current life enough to see it.”
— Alex Beauchamp

Everyone needs a dream, no? All I need is that wee bit of courage to hurl myself over the edge patience.

Time is always not on my side these couple of weeks—and it won’t be letting up anytime soon, as I’ve got another issue of a magazine to wrap up by early December. I’ve got some things to share, and a story at the end of this post if you’re interested. It’s a spooky one. ;)

The apology
And as many may know, I’m quite terrible with keeping track of things. Like Soo Mei’s birthday—which I horribly forgot, which fell on 3rd November. (It’s not you dearie, it’s me—I’m terrible at dates!) I forget almost everyone’s birthdays, because time is a blur to me sometimes.

Bric.A.Brac

And I forgot to mention that Lynn has a new blog! Her new patterns are up too, and my favourites are the robots and the twee sewing men.

Spooky encounter of the highland kind

I also had a spooky encounter when I went up a highland resort last week to review the place. I stayed at this Japanese inn deep in the forest, and it was a double storey villa.

The villa was split into two levels, and the top level was where people usually entered. Now, the main room was usually where guests slept, but because it was also a dining area, we (my photographer and I) chose to sleep at the bottom segment of the villa (so as not to convert the dining area to a bedroom, etc.)

Well, turned out it was a bad idea. When it was late, we went downstairs and watched TV a little more, and then retired to bed.

When I was just about to nod off, I felt one of my shoulder twitch (I sleep on my side, so the shoulder that was not resting on the futon was the one twitching). I thought it was just one of those bedtime ticks that happens when you’re semi-conscious.

And then it happened again. Just when I was about to nod off.

Annoyed, I pulled a sheet over my eyes and tried to sleep again.

And it happened again. The twitch (which now felt more to me like a push).

I wasn’t scared. No siree. I was hopping mad. But only because I was tired and I couldn’t believe my luck at having ticks in the middle of the night (I think I was trying to not be scared).

Super irritated and by this time wide awake, I turned on this light above my head (the one that has a pull-string), and proceeded to read a book. After half an hour (this was at 2.30am), I turned off the light and went to sleep—without much incident.

I woke up the next morning, and what did I see?

The light above my futon, alight.

Turns out my photographer didn’t sleep a wink either. And we didn’t want to scare each other, so we kept quiet. If we both talked about it, I think we would have just hot-footed it out of there in the dead of the night.

And sleeping at the bottom portion of the house? Not a good idea. Sunlight rarely penetrated into the villa there and I was stupid for choosing that place to sleep anyway.

Suffice to say, I’m never going back there again.