TuaEe

Tua Ee (大姨) is my mother's oldest sister. She took care of me and my siblings when we were little like her own. I had always enjoyed visiting her when I had the chance during school holidays, and talking to her over the phone was always a joy. I had lots of fun taking worry-free naps in her house, and fixing broken things around her house with just my Swiss army knife. I was often rewarded with a big smile, endless of compliments, and a full stomach.
She always cooked the best meals, baked the best cookies, and I was never complaining about have to finish up so that she didn't have to worry about leftovers.
I called her every year during Chinese New Year, and wished her that she'd be blessed with good health and happiness, and often times, we would be giggling over the phone.
This coming Chinese New Year however, I will no longer be hearing her voice, nor will I be able to make her laugh. She had left us in her sleep, peacefully and quietly. I am sad that I was not able to be at her funeral to tell her goodbye for the last time, and that she has a strong and permanent place in my heart, right next to my cousin Ping See, which I will always revisit.

(Pencil on Moleskine Sketchbook 5.5x3.5")

Sorry I had not been drawing or posting. I will not promise anything, and I appreciate the thoughts and your time to read.

Hollie

I can't believe it's been a year since my last post. At first it was just moving into this new house and trying to get settled in, and then there were many other things, gaming, work, family, friends, travels... it was just hectic. I thought of it as a year of vacation from drawing anything on my Moleskine, but I do occasionally doodle here and there.

(Update: I misspelled her name, it's actually Hollie and not Holly)

Anyway, here's a quick sketch of my co-worker's granddaughter, Hollie. I thought she has the most serene smile, and she's an angel(because she absolutely loves cats), eventhough I've never met her. 

(Pencil on Moleskine Sketchbook 5.5x3.5")

Wishing everyone a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Carol

In February 2009, when this art blog was still dormant, and when I was still active in a joint-blog called Rainbowbox (which is now dormant), I sketched a new friend I had made named Carol. During that time, I was not into portraits yet, and most of my drawings were rather manga style. And then in March 2009, I started experimenting with portraits and drawing faces a little more seriously. I sketched my Carol again, and it was the 3rd time I drew portraits, and they were all in larger sizes (bigger than 8 x 5").

Now in 2013, I thought it'd be fun drawing drawing her again but in miniature sizes with different expressions :)

Pencil and marker on Moleskine Sketchbook (5.5x3.5")

And I just realized that I've been doing portraits for more than 4½ years now. 

Happy New Year!

Brilee

A quick sketch of my wife's friend's baby daughter, Brilee. She just turned 2 not too long ago. I haven't got the chance to meet her yet, but from all the pictures her mom has shared, I can easily tell that she's super adorable and fun to play with ^^

(Pencil on Moleskine Sketchbook 5.5x3.5")

Thank you for visiting and taking time to leave a comment. I really appreciate it!
I hope everyone's had a fantastic Christmas and spent a lot of quality time with loved ones...next up, HAPPY NEW YEAR :)

Ann

A friend of mine asked me to do a sketch of her niece. I held it back for a while now because so much had happened I couldn't find the time to do it. But I finally did it yesterday, and it took me about 90 minutes total(not too many details).

I don't really know much about her, except that her name is Ann, and the picture my friend gave me was taken when Ann was just 4, she's 7 years old now. I did however drew her older on purpose, but I am not too sure if it worked. I guess we'll see.

Pencil on Moleskine Sketchbook (5.5 x 3.5")

Thank you all for your comments, your kind thoughts, and your compassion. It'd be my cousin's 45th birthday today, so I'm wishing my cousin an awesome birthday in heaven :)

Update : Here's the latest photo of Ann taken by my friend(unfortunately she's not smiling). I think I was pretty close, what do you think?

Ghost

I saw a very cool profile picture on DeviantArt, and then it reminded me of the promo poster for the up and coming Call of Duty:Ghost game which would be released on the next gen consoles(which I probably will be taking a long break from).

Anyway, here's a quick sketch of that picture with a minor twist, and here's the link to the original image.

Pencil on Moleskine Sketchbook (5.5x3.5")

Thanks again for visiting and leaving comments.

IAH-West Palm Beach FL-Conference

I was in West Palm Beach, FL last week for a conference. No I didn't get to go to the beach(I am not exactly a salt water and sun person), but it was a great conference, with abundance of delicious food.
I had hours in the IAH(Houston International Airport) to spare, while listening to songs on my iPhone, and after watching several episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" on Netflix, I thought to myself "Hey.... I think I brought my sketchbook with me!" which I did. So here are the results.    

I also did a few doodles during the conference(yeah, I pay good attention to the speakers ^^)

I hope you enjoy these, thank you all for visiting and your comments. =)

Karambit

Taking a break from drawing faces :)

Pencil on Moleskine sketchbook (5.5 x 3.5")

The karambit or kerambit is a small hand-held, curved blade from Indonesia. Called karambit in the Philippines, it is known as a kerambit in both Indonesia and Malaysia. It is found recently that the karambit to be useful for self-defense. Most of those produced in the West for use as weapons are based on the small Filipino variety, which features a short blade and index finger ring.

Thank you all for your comments and appreciate your time ^^

Kay

Doodling is fun :) I think my last post said a lot even though I didn't realize it. But I do like to draw faces, especially cute ones. So I browsed around Facebook, looking at my friends' profile pictures. (And we all know people love taking pictures of their kids and use them as their profile pictures, the kids of course haven't the slightest clue what's really going on)

This is Kay. She's one of my friends' baby girl. I haven't met her before but I am sure she's super adorable. I've also decided to show the process(plus the time I took for each process) and hopefully it'll be useful or interesting for those who are wondering how I did this. Total time : 2 hours.

(Pencil on Moleskine Sketchbook 5.5 x 3.5")

Final product. Background and details on clothing. (30 mins)

Initial drafting with light strokes, working on the right proportion. (15 mins)

Worked on her eyes. Shading from left to right (because I am right-handed). This to me is probably the most delicate step as it determined how the light falls on her. (50 mins)

Worked on her hair. (25 mins)

I hope you guys enjoyed the process. It's definitely fun for me to draw her, and perhaps I'll be lucky enough to meet this adorable girl in person when I return home to visit my family later this year. I'd like to thanks her parents for allowing me to draw her, and everyone else for dropping by and leaving comments.

Yuna

It's the 7th day of Chinese New Year(Lunar New Year) and I haven't drawn anything that has anything to do with snake....yet(it's the year of the Snake).
Anyway, I had asked my friend's permission to draw her little daughter a while ago, and she said okay. So I did! :)

(Pencil on Moleskine Sketchbook 5.5x3.5")

Her name is Yuna, and she's half Japanese half Chinese. She looks super adorable in pictures(her eyes are so big and pretty!), and I like drawing adorables ^^ I hope her mom approves of this one.

Sorry again for not been able to post things online. It's not that I haven't been drawing, I actually have been doing a lot of drawing on DrawSomething, and doodling on my work log :). Work's been crazy, and too much video gaming. A lot of be planned for this year including moving wife and Meela to Houston, travelling to Malaysia, and house-hunting in Houston.

Thanks you all for reading and for your comments.

KaRyn's smile

A lot had happened since my last post, Thanksgiving, reuniting with my wife after 5 months, stomach virus, new video games, Christmas, playing with Meela, catching up with Netflix, survived Mayan's prediction of end of the world, visiting Oxford enduring sub-freezing temperatures etc. And now, New Year's eve which is pretty cool because it means that we're getting closer to my wife getting her Masters(5 months), moving her and Meela out of Oxford and to Baytown so that we won't be away from each other again, visiting my family in Malaysia, and hopefully by the end of the year, finding a perfect home in Texas for us. Yes I've already had pretty much all the main activities for 2013 planned out in my head, although we do not know what will happen the next hour or so.
Last year(2011) around November I did a couple of sketches of my baby niece KaRyn. I have not met her yet, and she's picking up words pretty fast as I heard her saying them over the phone. It's funny how you can miss a family whom you've not met or seen before, but that's how I feel right now. I miss all my family members, but because I never got the chance to even hold her close, it feels more like I am missing out. Anyway, here's another quick sketch(took me about 2 hours), perhaps this is my way of "getting to know" her, through every stroke of the pencil, and maybe this way she will be less of a stranger to me.

Pencil on Moleskine Sketchbook (5.5x3.5")

Thank you all for your comments and your time to browse my work. I really appreciate it a lot and I wish you all a fantastic year ahead and may all your hopes and dreams become reality :)

Self Portrait

After thinking for a while, I finally decided to do this. It's not easy but I thought it'd be a good exercise.
I looked surprised, because that's the expression I had when my bestfriend decided to do a Google Hangout with me, with his newborn baby girl, and they are 10,000 miles away. It was the first time I felt so connected to his family and home again. I can't wait to go back next year and play with this little girl.He snapped a picture of me and his girl, and it quickly became our little 'thing' :) I may looked surprised, but that warm fuzzy feeling which I felt inside the whole time, can still be felt every time I think about it.

(Pencil+Marker on Moleskine Sketchbook 5.5x3.5")

Here I'd like to congratulate my bestfriend, his wife, and the little baby girl. I am so happy for you guys words can't describe.

Thank you all for visiting and for your comments.

Max

This is the 3rd and final sketch of my 3-part series of Jan's grandchildren. I am still thinking about what to do next, and I could do something with a little more colors, something fun, or the same old portrait thing. I guess it depends on what I feel like doing at that time then.
Enough said, this is Max! Boy oh boy, this 3 year old is a mess. He couldn't sit still, and always looking for an adventure. It was hard for me to snap anything out of him, and the only time I got one, he gave me this crinkled nose smile :) I didn't spend too much time on this one, more or less an hour, then again, it's an easy one to draw too ^^

Pencil on Moleskine Sketchbook (5.5x3.5")

Thanks again for all your comments, and for visiting. It's really cool now that you're able to see the statistics on the traffic and view counts each day, re-routed from which search engine, which browser, and from which part of the world.

Emma

Jan and Kristina have gone back to Sweden, so hopefully I will see them again next year. :)
Continuing on to the 2nd sketch of a 3 part series, this is Emma. She is 6 and she is also a cheerleader and extremely sweet. I must admit that I had spent a bit more time on this one working on her hair, but later just to realize that the proportion is a little off. Since it's just a sketch on my sketchbook, I don't feel like making the correction.

(Pencil on Moleskine Sketchbook 3.5x5.5")

Thanks you everyone for your comments and for your time visiting the site. It really helps to motivate to sketch more of these type of portrait. After the series perhaps I will try to do something 'fun' instead, just to shift gear a little bit. =)

Brooke

I had a great Friday with my friend Jan from Sweden. We knew each other since 2005 at work(back in Malaysia), and he found a job for me later which brought me to Germany. We have not seen each other since he left Germany in 2008, and then I left Germany in 2009 and came here. And now we've just met again, in Houston. He is what I would call, a friend of 3 continents, and I think that's pretty awesome.
He invited me to go meet at his son's house who now resides here with a family and we spent a great Friday catching up and just relaxing. In the process, I met his beautiful family, his grandchildren.
So here's a quick sketch of one of the children on my long neglected Moleskine sketchbook. Brooke is 9 and she's a cheerleader and very athletic and smart. I will try to continue the series and draw the rest of the kids :)

(Pencil on Moleskine Sketchbook 3.5 x 5.5")

And here's me had a great dinner at Olive Garden with Jan and Kristina. Hope we get to do this at least once every year.

Thank you all again for your comments and for your time. Hopefully I'll be able to keep this blog alive again.

KaQin Turning 4

I had been sketching KaRyn, my baby niece who's turning 1 soon, and I almost forgot that I have not been doing the same for my older niece KaQin.
She's turning 4 in a month time, and I could totally see how much she grew since the last time I drew her 2.5 years ago. This is how she looks now:-

(Moleskine Sketchbook 3.5x5.5")

And these are the sketches of her I did of her 2.5 years ago. Time sure flies and kids grow so fast!

Thank you everyone for your time and comments. I do not have time to reply all comments, but when I do find the time, I'll get back to them.