Christmas Cards

It's been long, close to 2 months since I last posted. I am sorry, I've been busy.
Mainly because I moved to a new place in Mississippi along with my new job here. I still work in a power plant, but my role is very different. It's almost like starting a new life here, trying to furnish the apartment, buying 'toys' and getting distracted all the time, and of course 10hours of work a day. But that's okay, I think I am getting used to the schedule now, and I should have time for art from now onwards(except for Christmas and New Year Holiday ^^)

I received 2 Christmas cards from my co-workers the other day, and I felt a very warm welcome sent together with the cards, which I just have to reply. So here are 2 cards I drew and made for Jim and Sandra.

 Jim is always out working in the cold. So I thought he'd appreciate a friend to keep him company(although we don't have snow here in Mississippi yet)

Sandra has a cool car. My wife and I sat in her car once, it's very nice! =)

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who's been looking at my blog, and leaving comments. I miss Oni, I can't forget him, and I know he'll always be in my heart. I appreciate your kindness and concern, but I am moving on. I won't get another cat just yet, but someday I will.

Bitter Sweet

I haven't been doing a lot of sketches lately as I've been busy packing and getting ready to move to Mississippi while celebrating my 32nd birthday last weekend and my father-in-law's 3 days later. While I've also been putting one of my projects on hold waiting for my client to provide further information and instructions, browsing through my drawing board, this one which I did months ago stuck me pretty hard.

I realized that Oni's been gone for 22 days. I know that life has to move on, my heart stays and still waiting for him, just like the teddy bear waiting for its master, time just stops. Although we've picked a new cat for adoption in the shelter, and about to bring him home next week, I know that I will love this one as much as Oni, but it will never be the same.

That aside, something wonderfully dropped in my mailbox yesterday and it came all the way from the UK.

It's a beautiful package from Lesley Purcell. And she's such a sweet person, giving us a super early Christmas card(the polar bear) which I just love! I can't see anything that I don't like about her art work, and if you haven't visited her site yet, I suggest you do HERE. Thank you Lesley!

Waiting

It's been 13 days, Oni is still not back, I miss him badly.
It was a busy week last week. I had to go to Mississippi to do a little house hunting for my new job. We found some potentials and will be working on those from now onwards.
My wife and I suffered from food poisoning on Saturday evening, the entire Sunday was ruined because of that.
I accepted 2 new illustration assignments, nothing is firm yet but I agreed to start with rough sketches. One of the pages has something to do with grandparents waiting and it goes like this:-

It reflects a lot on how I feel at the moment for my cat. Thank you all for commenting and for your wishes. I really appreciate them.

Lost

I let our cat Oni out last night at 11pm because he wanted to, he never came back. It's been 24 hours now, and all I could think about is if he's okay, has he got water and food? Chances of him going deep into the woods is pretty high, and I don't think his survival rate is that high since he's been a house cat almost all the time. My wife and I are both very depressed at present time, and we're preparing for the worst, that he's not coming back.
No matter where you are Oni, know that we will always love you, and that you have a home here. You can come home anytime you wish, our hands are always opened for you.

Thank you all for your comments and wishes. I won't be hearing anything from Texas within this couple of weeks although the interview was good, the sad news aside I actually might have a chance to work in Mississippi still. I will keep you guys updated.

Cat's Eye

I am sorry for not posting last week. It had been a hectic week helping out my friend Iceman with his projects and datelines, but it was all fun =) there despite being depressed due to being rejected for the position I applied in Mississippi. I really had a lot of hopes there, but at least I was the top 3 of all candidates applying for the similar position.
I won't have a lot of time this week as well, as I'll be heading to Texas tomorrow for an interview near Waco on Thursday. It'll be an interesting 7+hour scenic drive with my wife, and we'll be back by the end of the week.
So here's a quick one which I did on my Moleskine. I am not sure what I was doing, I just wanted to draw a cat's eye(I'm always looking into my cat's eyes to see if I could find Lord Sauron there ^^) and I think they are pretty, and of course I got carried away with the colors again.

Thank you all for your comments on Hayley. I really appreciate them all, and I'll try to keep my blog theme alive... a drawing a week, and make it at least 54 a year.

Hayley

I was listening to the song "Airplanes" playing on the radio, and I thought it's pretty catchy so I decided to draw some faces(which I hadn't done for a while now). I picked the subject because she's got lots of interesting expression, and her hair colors is just fun to play with =) I only used pen markers over pencil sketches this time round to save some time. The effect is some what a mixture of portrait and illustration which I kinda like ^^

Thank you all for your kind comments on my Soft Pals sketch, and for following my blog. I apologize for the error I made while setting up the blog which didn't show any updates for the longest time. But that's fixed now so I hope it works fine.

Soft Pals

I am sure everyone grew up with one of these. I had a teddy bear my dad bought from Australia when I was 8, it stayed with me until I was 11 ^^. I bought the the Beluga Whale on the left and the Sea Otter on the right for my 2 and half year old niece in Malaysia. The one in the middle is my wife's favorite frog Moko which she's been having for years now. So what is BFF? It means Best Friends Forever =)

 Water color, color pencils and pen markers On 5"x8" Moleskine Sketchpad 

And in the mail yesterday I got a major surprise from Italy! Cathy Holtom(and everyone knows she's an awesome artist, click on her site here) sent me a couple of gorgeous post cards of Sicily, 3 ultra realism work of hers printed in strips(I really like these!) and an original, the one and only hand drawn 12.5cm X 13.5cm sketch of an ancient roman ruins, AUTOGRAPHED! Yay! It seems like it's done with ink pen and color pencils, and I love it! Thank you so much Cathy!