#SoAwesome

Newb(ab)ies - It's a SITE for sore eyes!

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Sat, 17 May 2014 07:19:00 +0000

OH HELLO,

After many ~~months~~ years of life keeping me hostage and spending lots of time traveling, reading books, fighting swamp monsters, trying out hot yoga and learning how to empty the coffee grinds at my company for the first time in the 2 years I was there, I decided it's time to settle down and have babies.

Just popped out some fraternal twins and currently I am sore from all of the work, mainly on my rump, but it's okay because the rewards are bountiful :)

I don't have names for them because they are that special that they don't get tied down to simple things like names. But for the modern world of understanding purposes we shall call them

BABY 1 and BABY 2

Of course with new babies comes new responsibilities so I am obviously going to focus more on them for a little bit (especially the second baby - he's a little one, he needs to age).

I will still post some artwork when I have time in between their naps but if anyone knows babies, they are stubborn and very selfish. They also get jealous like a super ex so it is going to be tough.

But once they are mostly settled and can stand on their own two feet, I shall have more options.

No real promises though, they might take me in a million other unexpected directions with my life so I'll keep this on the back burner (that I just cleaned) and park my life updates here for now. There is a high possibility of moving camp in the near future but that is also up in the air!

In the meanwhile, see how the tots are doing every so often! They might get new clothes, accessories, updates to their faces, etc.

C.O.A.C

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 04:26:00 +0000

For the record - this is the easiest post I ever had to upload - handwritten stuff can be faster sometimes! (Or maybe everyone can agree to disagree with me)

Note: This last typed part took like ages to compose and compile.

Snacks in the box

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 22:15:00 +0000

It was either snacks or snurnips - snail+jack, snail+turnips (I feel like they should resemble turnips).

I generally like snacks, plus I'd rather be scared by a bouquet of snacks, real snacks and not this snail infused one, than a bouquet of turnips...it's like ew...vegetables? I've never tasted a turnip.

Also, I think it's safe to say that I will always be entertained and amazed by photo filters. My favorite is the pixelated one.

Side note: Snacks (the doodle) was sitting in my sketchbook months ago...it's literally the first page of my sketchbook and I bought this new one ages ago so I don't know how but Snacks totally time traveled right now and gained its overdue fame on the interwebs.

GERD series - 02 - Flash in the pain!

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 02:45:00 +0000

Out of my cool comfort realm and in a surreal nocturnal state of reality where I am dealing with the constant simmering heats and terminology likes of acid/alkaline, pH levels, low acid, LES and probiotics trying to chill with my regular vocabulary crew (they are not very welcoming but reluctantly accepting for the time being).

Materials: Orbit chewing gum - spearmint, lollipop pen, assorted crystal beads

Other credits: Photoshop

GERD series - 01 - Les experiments

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 17:19:00 +0000

I've recently got myself involved in some acidic situations so in light of such lame and becoming source of stress phases in my bundle of joy called life, I got inspired to do an art series! (a.k.a I-was-chewing-gum-and-waiting-till-I-felt-my-dinner-was-fully-digested-before-sleeping doodles)

Probably will involve a lot of chewing gum here and there because gum is apparently one of those natural remedies to soothe and regulate pH levels in the stomach (and not a placebo like my brother insists -it's scientifically proven!)

Materials: Orbit chewing gum, lollipop pen (it's a regular ballpoint pen but it looks like those gigantic lollipop sticks you get at disney world - it's not from disney world though)

Other Credits besides the obvious: Photoshop

So, owls...

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Sat, 12 May 2012 22:39:00 +0000

are sketchy!

Spider love

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 05:14:00 +0000

Quick little doodle I did during one of my many bus commutes back home.

Basic miscommunication of love in this picture.

Bruce (left spider) is expressing his love for Cindy (right spider), who apparently thinks he is expressing it to the potted plant leaf hanging on the ceiling (don't ask me why it's hanging all the way up there within spider's reach...it's just the way this drawing came to me on the go!)

That's why Cindy has the little thought bubble depicting "a leaf equals love?" symbol

I put the desk on the bottom to bring a bit more rough perspective to the scenery.

I think the story makes this picture humorous and less confusing.

Wild and personal spaces.

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 03:56:00 +0000

Yes, this actually DID take me as long as it looks like it took!

I think I took longer on this than my first ONE of these extensive so-collages (a.k.a. sollages) - smart, right? I decided to call my series of art collages under this little nickname since I realized I actually LOVE creating these and would like to make a project out of it to make more.

I called my first one a "nicolepiece" after masterpiece, but I think a sollage/SOllage is a good little go to name for now.

Even though I roughly sketch out collage/freestyle doodles like these all the time, I consider this a definite SOllage.

SOllage- a collage artwork created by me (nicole SO) that usually takes a series of different days/moods to complete. Procrastination can be a team player, but not a star.

So, this one is definitely more character based and significantly more of a clean-cut/digital art feel type of finish. It's a pretty solid piece compared to my first one, which was more raw, sketchy misc. flower/plants theme with the idea of it being like a variety map of different fragments of personalities all in one page. That was more of a self expression piece than this one.

I absolutely love how this turned out and I think it definitely shows I had a lot of fun with it.

Behind the SOllage:

It really started out with a fairly simple idea/impulse to do something with simple but solid shapes and characters of some sort. Then, shortly after, the idea of kids cleaning up their room on the outside but really stuffing everything and anything messy inside their closet came about.
Then I thought about it mutating into this wild jungle of miscellaneous crap that's both crazy awesome and beautiful at the same time.

Then somewhere along the line of me coloring in Photoshop and adding additional things here and there, I realized this could also be interpreted in the "coming out of the closet" ideas. The wild and flamboyant self wanting to break free into the (hopeful) acceptance of society - this, from the bottled heart of an insecure boy/girl.

This could really be a nice self expressive art piece if I was secretly gay (not). I think the only gay I could qualify for is the kind where you love colorful rainbows and flowers and cheesy romantic comedies :)

Anyways, going back to the simplicity ideas of where it all began.

The drawing started out real simple too (as did my first one). Then, like the drawing had a mind of it's own, just piled on with ideas periodically. It took a series of different days and phases to complete. Procrastination played a good role here as well as creativity juice flows. I honestly think if I had finished this in one day I would have a different image above and more like the image below.

What it originally started out as:

Lots of minimal changes happened with the overall idea during the clean-up stage, but BIG changes happened when it came to the coloring stage because at least 60-75 percent of it wasn't how I saw the color go down in my head at all. 50 percent of the creativity was improvised in Photoshop on the spot, with the brush tool (this also happened during the coloring stage).

I think, in conclusion, color inspires more rambunctious ideas for me and makes my work process pretty spontaneous, which is, I think, the most exciting part of this piece that I can confidently confirm/believe. It can also make me look at my art in a totally different perspective like the gay factor I mentioned above.

Kind of funny how that I saw that after 95 percent of the coloring stage was complete!

Piece of cake.

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 20:05:00 +0000

Inspired by many difficult moments in my life solved with cake. I was going to do a tribute to my all time favorite mood lifter - ms. strawberry ice cream, but I think I compensated with the fact that this illustration is all strawberry flavored.

So why is it murder of cake? Simple. Because every time I order a strawberry anything cake it looks like it's been doused in its own syrupy blood. AND they aren't shy about it either because it literally IS drowning in saccharine plating settings. This can be both a good and a bad thing.

I don't think I've had a good piece of cake in a while. I've had many good scoops of strawberry ice creams though.

All about SNAILS.

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 00:04:00 +0000

Snails and slugs.

A doodle I did a while ago.

Snail Trapeze.

Snails are very nimble creatures.

They can also travel on the sharpest plains (like a blade or a sword) and come out unscathed.

I think that's where this little doodle stems from. The idea that snails and slugs alike could very well be invincible in a human-less world.

Also that they're both terrified and confused at the same time but ignorantly so. Though in this picture kind of looks like it's insinuating that sea slugs are kind of a bit more dense than regular snails. I have no idea if this is true.
I just always imagine snails carry all that knowledge in their mysterious shells whereas slugs are kind of on their own.

*************

I was going to make a snail comic at one point. I think the general concept/ idea wasn't solid enough from what I remember. Though, now I kind of want to make a snail comic after seeing this again.

****************

I often do these kind of free sketch trips. I would start out with a simple but interesting shape that I would like to work with (depending on my mood of that particular day) and work my way across the page. In this trip, I started on the near the far left side, the swirly snail shell with the shish kebab looking like picks sprouting out of it (on top of that miniature tree branch).

I personally give my favorite eye glances over to the bow tie snail near the bottom right and the bunny rabbit blob piece looking unsatisfied with it's accordion belly on the top right. And of course the shish kebab shell plant (which I stemmed out from) and a bonus glance over to the rather large snail donning a lovely bonnet (you go girl/guy -you rock that bee bonnet!)

COLOR ROAR

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 23:21:00 +0000

I think this blog's been barren enough hm?

So this appropriate doodle I did above should be a nice and refreshing change of beat in this corner of drought I have so done a great job at harvesting!

This art was brought to you by colorful nail polishes and a black micron.

UPDATE: Took this picture in my car. It's surprisingly better quality in some ways. A bit less saturated but yeah, real time, real life photos taken by your iPhone are the way to go sometimes!

My statement as an artist.

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 23:34:00 +0000

Awesome.

Hiatus is not over but here's a picture to describe the state of my blog!

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 03:23:00 +0000

Super powers of imagination.

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:36:00 +0000

Chilling up in the clouds with books and Demetri Martin. We mastered the hover flying technique.

A quickie.

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 01:48:00 +0000

I think this flower was the chosen one.

Firecracker Popsicle Joyride & Carnival Explosion

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 03:43:00 +0000

Submitted this to Eat Sleep Draw about a while back. Don't think it was published because I'd assume they send you an email or a notification of some sort that it was approved and published, none of which that I received back then or as of recently.

I made this piece when I was a bit disoriented in my life. This was during my intern/retail days when my life kind of had no real substance except the post grad types, which is essentially stress on top of nothing on top of stress (a stress sandwich, yay!)

Also, I only had a limited amount of color pencils and felt pens with me at the time of this creation since I think I was outside or somewhere that wasn't near my desk full of color supplies.

Lots of stuff going on in this picture.

I made a list of titles for this picture at one point, just purely on what I saw or felt when seeing it.

1) Carnival Explosion
2) Clown Organs (in a musical)
3) Fourth of July Massacre
4) Mating Season
5) Circulatory Matters
6) Veinful Venture
7) Firecracker Popsicle Joyride

That's a good range of topics there. Some of them are appropriate for the picture but some of them are just no.
But it's a wide variety of ideas that led me to the title above. It was down to the first and last one of the list (obviously it's still down to the two). Though the fifth one was a close runner up as well.
Originally, I had chose Carnival Explosion as the original title but, up until recently, I had decided to label it as both a Firecracker Popsicle Joyride and a Carnival Explosion because I loved how appropriately FPJ sounded for the picture and thought it was a shame to let it go to waste, though CE really captured the essence of the piece as well. So I threw both in to the mix.

Fun Fact: FPJ was actually inspired by the actual firecracker popsicle, that you buy in those mobile ice cream stands as a kid (or now too, still cool). I never once chose to buy that over the ice cream sandwich though, but I guess I thought it was kind of cool looking at one point in my childhood since it's reminiscent of it here in this art piece.

Sandwich dude

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 06:37:00 +0000

I think I was hungry when I drew this.

This sketch doodle is about a few months old. Back when I was a cashier for a Japanese Marketplace, I would be super bored during those really slow weekdays, when people are less likely to shop for massive loads of Japanese food, so I would doodle random things on paper bags from time to time with my cashier pen (a regular pen that sits on my register) and my counterfeit detector marker (obviously enough, the paper bag was REAL because it didn't turn black like fake stuff would). Their receipt paper was fake, I'll tell you that much. No real receipt paper over there. I swear, the counterfeit marker knows all.

So, resulting from this boredom, came this picture:

1) I'm pretty sure I was hungry, hence the 'sandwich' part of sandwich dude.

2) I wanted to live the life on a luxurious beach somewhere.

3) Tropical drinks are always present in these scenarios.

4) To make this even more picture perfect, I made it have a sunset.

5) I thought of Spongebob's squiggly arms when he dances, and then his spongy body which made me think of cheese... (Yeah, I was definitely hungry). I didn't want him to seem weird and out of place with random squiggly arms so I placed him on the edge of the drink, so he's dancing and balancing at the face of danger.

6) I wanted a buoy. So I made one balancing a cheesy pun.

As you can see, it's a pretty rough sketch, since I wasn't technically on break when I drew this (that's right, in secret, behind my receipt printer! SHHHH!)

The more I think about it, the more I assume I must've been pretty damn hungry and out of my mind to have thought of something like 'living the life on the edge' with a sandwich dude on a lemon slice on top of an iced drink floating in the sunset beach water.

Also, excuse the bad tangents in this drawing because remember, I did it in a furtive manner.

Since we are on the multi-media crafts theme...

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 02:49:00 +0000

Woah, it's a two-pager!

That's right, because it wasn't enough to contain so much awesome in to one dinky little page.

Real elements here. The flower petals were from a nearby park, I believe. Instead of taping it down like I normally do with double-sided tape, I figured it was much more efficient to glue stick it down, preserving the natural creases and easily manipulating the shape/position as well (since I can never decide where to put where on the first stick. I usually have to glide the thing around a bit and then settle on a position).

Also, like every other artwork that I do, I accompany my crafty/ multi-media theme with my some of my primary mediums, which are generally color pencils, color felt-tip pens, markers, ball-point pens, microns (of every size, depending on the type of piece that I do), and the occasional watercolors.

For this piece, I used color pencils and crayons.

I like how youthful this turned out. Gives it that 7-13 age range to it. I also noticed something I haven't noticed while I was creating this piece, the two different themes for each page. The earthy, pasture with red flowers theme on the right and the airy, carefree movements theme on the left.

Turned out pretty cool, brought out the child in me while making this fun little artwork.

A sea adventure!

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:06:00 +0000

It's not super neat, but it's my attempt at being creative in a raw, multi-media fashion.

A while ago, I had bought a roll of mini pearl links from an antique store by the sewing section and absolutely loved the color and the mood of it. The rest of the materials were bought from Walgreens, I believe. I wanted to put them to use in my sketchbook since I felt I wouldn't use them for anything else other than creatively.

So I ended up making a boat with ribbon strips branching out from the inside, acting as colorful sails and a pearl trail to travel on (that was originally supposed to be an anchor). I definitely love how the striped ribbon composition turned out and the addition of a pearl balloon (which was a challenge to tie and tape down). I don't know why but I always liked the idea of balloons and boats together.

Not sure why I decided to tape that sparkly ribbon across the page, but I like it. I think the diamond shapes, that I cut out, within the ribbon strip adds to the theme going on here.

The purple plaid bit is actually from a new roll of scotch tape. The little starter pieces that are attached to the very tip of the tape, before you begin using it. But I didn't use regular tape for this, I used the double sided tapes, which was super convenient for this kind of art piece.

It was definitely a fun crafty project, and hope to do it again soon.

Octopus tree and garden

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 04:03:00 +0000

So,

I was going for tidal waves with gusts of wind and then turned in to this ice-wintry flower , which turned out to be a tree that looked like it slept around with an octopus.

The flower garden seems to either approve of this reunion by rejoicing and in a sing-song disney-esque mood, or in complete conflict with the outcome and creating drama.

Usually, my drawings would be eye catching, but in that wow, what in the world is going on here tantalizing sort of way. It's true though, most of my art can't be comprehended, visually alone. And then sometimes it can't be comprehended at all even with the story behind it.

Art like this looks odd because it is created by an odd-minded person.

Life in a day of life.

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 05:31:00 +0000

Crazy how life escalates from an infinitely simple balance into a one to twelve roundtrip polluted spontaneity.

Snail Mail!

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 08:27:00 +0000

Click on the title above for more awesome snails!

With love,

Nicole

Cool stuff, good times.

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 05:34:00 +0000

Don't think I've ever posted this up here officially.

This is an old color doodle but amazingly it's just as gorgeous to me now as it was the day I created this. I remember I had a lot of fun making this as well. Don't know how I seemed even more patient back then than I am now just from the looks of this art piece.

I was probably either procrastinating from writing an english paper or stressed from something because I noticed I only make these kinds of detail-oriented things when I'm under a deadline or feel I need to take a breather from whatever strenuous thing I was currently doing.

Guess my active mind portrays itself through my drawings. At least it's beautifully chaotic down on paper, though it probably wasn't all that 'beautiful' in my mind, as I'm going through the chaotic mess of thoughts.

I haven't made one these elaborate color

pieces in a while. I think I transitioned back to writing my feelings out like I originally used to do before SVA, instead of drawing it out.

I still love Snapple.

I think I was trying to go for that nature's tea leaves engulfing the bottle look (because that's what it seems to be doing).

I don't know about anyone else but I have a habit of taking drink labels off when I find myself holding it for a good period of time. Especially paper ones like Snapple.

I also do this with beer bottles. I figure because they've been chilling in a bucket of ice, or the refrigerator, the clamminess of the bottle and the warmth from your hands creates this kind of a label peeling slippage. It works even if it wasn't chilled, though it's not as fun because it's not willing to have fun with you.

I think I had the original flavor for this sketch. My favorite is the Raspberry.

Yeah. I liked cheese doodles. The puffy kind. It's scary how much of those I can eat.

Things sure have changed...

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:49:00 +0000

Woah!

Procrastination to the max here. I'm not entirely sure where the 2 years went on this blog but it's gone, and never coming back, as depressing as it sounds. I haven't accomplished much of anything in the last two years except experience the horrors of retail employment for a little over a year and deal with the excruciating pain of the waiting game in the job hunt business. The latter is driving me up a wall and literally acting as a silent killer for this current start of the year.

I've also started two other blogs as of recently (side bar on right). It's definitely missing a lot of awesomeness that's here in this blog since neither of them are art blogs but literary ones. I'm trying to be a serious blogger now (let's see how long that lasts ) and hope it brings me out of a rut in my life and maybe spark some motivation to be more productive, not just with my art life but with everything in general. After all, without motivation and happiness, where would your will to live be at?

Here is an art piece :

This was supposed to be a sketch of a canvas in front of a window with a lovely view of the ocean. But it turned out like this.
After the canvas turned out to be a log pile, I started thinking about the ocean views from hotel windows or anywhere inside (preferably the higher floors) that overlooks the ocean, and how much it looks like there's a tidal wave coming towards us (since the view of the ocean fills up 80 percent of the window).

My mom originally gave me this idea, which manifested her fears of the ocean into my weird little mind over time. I'm not afraid of the ocean or any kind settings of deep pools of water, but just think my mom's reasons for justifying her fear of the ocean is understandable, scarily enough. It's definitely not a silly thing to be afraid of at all, as her reasons for having a phobia from such things are:

1) You can't fathom or comprehend just how deep the ocean is, therefore not really knowing where rock bottom is (sort of like a never ending pool of liquid)

2) Because of the first reason, you don't know everything that's residing in the ocean. You don't know with what living creature you're sharing it's domain with.

3) It's hard to be comfortable in something that has a comparably stronger mass than you that can create things like rip tides, tidal waves, hurricanes, monsoons and any natural disasters of the massive floods kind (she can't even walk along the shore because she claims it makes her light-headed when she sees the tidal waves crashing and then reeling itself in)

She's also had a traumatic experience back when she was around my age on top of these opinions she's had already about the ocean (I'm pretty sure she didn't just develop these reasons even before her childhood trauma). She was basically walking in the water and stepped into an unexpected deep pool of water that made her fall ,reeling her in to the deeper parts of the ocean because she couldn't recover from the fall. She was rescued of course by my dad (thank god for him! )

So as you can see, from my drawing, the ocean view is now getting friendly with the inside of the window room, literally presenting itself the way that it appears to look from inside a typical room (depending on how far up you are, floor wise) and ensuing chaos from whoever resides inside that room (hopefully not my mom).

Old things unforgotten- A Post Graduation Chapter

noreply@blogger.com (soawesome) — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:43:00 +0000

So while I was preparing to move on (getting everything and anything not final quicktime of thesis out of sight and in storage) and unpack from all things SVA (as I just moved back to my hometown) I found some dated but notable thesis stuff...and even though they were all thrown in the chopping block at some point and one upped by other great contenders, I thought it'd be nice to share of what could've been had it not been for those many other great background choices.

note: image then below comments

HAND-MADE DRAWINGS---- distant lane of memory

COFFEE AND MORNINGS- watercolors (I painted this in the evening too)

SPLASH- watercolor with fan brush (I thought of 4th of July while I painted this)

COLOR WITH SCRIBBLES- crayola all the way

(I LOVE this by the way. This is essentially me right here..the other visually...plus the best part of this piece is that I started this out as a spontaneous scratch pad until I decided to have fun halfway and create this.)

LEAFY- brush pen (fun fact-I ended up using real leaves instead with the kid)

POLLEN ATTACK (1 and 2)- watercolor markers, ink.

(Of course this would've been the worst thing in the world for me..as the pollen hates me and I hate pollen...literally a living hell to live in these two drawings)

** All these drawings above didn't make it to the final product because my focus tended to stroll off to the real customized portions of the film and I basically just let my natural instincts take auto pilot halfway through because I wanted my film to turn out the way it wanted to turn out and let out any creative impulses that wanted out in my brain and on to visibility.

I really just had way too much fun in the gathering process (pre-production related) and had an excess of both drawings and real elements for background materials.

REAL ELEMENTS---- recent lane of memory

STICK-Y GUM CHECKERS- 2 sticks of trident gum on repeat

(which I chewed A LOT of during crunch time)

***reason for the chopping block --somehow something didn't quite work out during the zoom out process so I had to use pink parchment instead (in the beginning with the green clovers)

SPITBALL MACHINE- red bendy straws, crumpled newsprint paper and those wrapping papers you get with new shoes inside the shoeboxes

***reason for the chopping block --never was a contender...I created this because I was under a lot of thesis stress and who doesn't want a spitball machine to kill time with..

ASSORTMENT OF TINY JEWELS and MISC- pale green bg, different sets of :3 starlets, 6 ringlets, 2 buttons, 1 bead

***reason for the chopping block --too much was going on for a bg scene I had in mind.

MINTY BG- started out with the classic green and red ones (with and without wrappers)

***reason for the chopping block --it was this or take out the pinwheel scene.

GUMMY WORMS- scanned whole and in half

***reason for the chopping block --none...it was hidden in one of my folders.. if it wasn't I would've used it for a transition scene

THE POST PART -----

Now to get professional and somehow squeeze in with the real world crowd since thesis memory lane and college cushion of student status is almost over (almost because...I'm not fully unpacked from the college dorm life yet and I have piles and piles of boxes to go through so I think I'm going to say that it's a liable reason right now)

For some reason I don't have that same drive I had the past few summers with finding work. I just feel like waking up late...eating..and then facebooking all day until I fall asleep --- me being real. Usually I'm very diligent and eager to scavenge for work and engage myself in something, even more so in the summer. I blame the economy and the year long thesis process that just made my brain flip the off switch for a while along with my determination for anything. Hopefully by next week I'll be myself again.

Oh and shorter posts...keeping it sweeter.