TJ's WIP: Dragons, Dragons, Dragons.

Staring post for you todaaaaaay!

Just like my Floating Rapunzel one, I kept track of how I painted my header on my FB page (hmm I think I need to switch up the one on my blog as well soon!). I painted lots of line-ups during that time and I still have a few planned. I found it a good way for me to pick a subject and experiment with how I would draw e.g. unicorns and create a fun image that could be turned into possible print. There are so many things to be captured on paper that I sometimes don't even know where to start.

A few lined-ups that I created so far are for sale in my Etsy store as well. Sooo get your favorite while you can, because I'm not sure if I'll prints available.

Hmm what else can I tell you? Not much to add I think. I always have the same routine when I create my art. Research - sketching (lots of sketching) - final sketch - inking - painting - final details - scanning - minor editing - done! That's it! However, if you have a specific question, just leave it in your comment ^_^.

 

Not a whole lot of pictures this time I FOUND MORE hidden in a folder ^_^! I really like the dragons and the pictures are scattered on my FB page, so I figured adding it in on post would be easier haha.

Have a lovely day!!

Ciao!

Anyone? No one? Aaah come on! Pleaseeee??

Is the plane already leaving :|....

ZzZzzzZ...(that is one weird plane whahah)

So yeah, the first time I ate ramen was at a Japanese restaurant and it was served with udon noodles. Very tasty, but I found the noodles heavy on the stomach. But there are many dishes I haven’t tried just yet! I went to a Japanese restaurant last Friday with two friends and I tried...squid. I was proud of myself because I was quite afraid (yeah yeah I know...who would be afraid of fish that is already dead...well yeah I was...please no weird comments okay -_-'). But you know the thing with me is, I love to see food (a neat presentation *oeh pretty!*…but not toooo neat that you are afraid to eat it, because you will ruin the way it looks, but enough to work up an appetite!) and to eat it of course…but I have to be careful with some products, like pork, my stomach can get upset quite easily. Which annoys me a lot. I have tried a few dishes one time and afterward I felt a bit sick -_-‘’…but I try out new stuff anyway haha. I think I just have to get used to it. But I’m not a big fan of pork though and some sea fish ( I can't come up the names now hehe...it's kind of late here...). I usually eat shrimps only when my dad makes it; he has this Portuguese way of seasoning which I love! Oh my I sound picky...


But when it comes to food, I love to try out new dishes! When I started cooking I added, Mexican, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese and ehm *thinks*…hmm can’t come up with anything else now…but yeah I added a few new flavors. My mom is from Surinam and usually cooks with rice, vegetables and meat/chicken. My dad is from the Cape Verdian Island and has his special moments when he cooks haha. Like last Sunday both my grandparents came to visit us and my dad made not one, but two dishes and my grandparents arent big eaters haha. But it was very tasty! If you would like to know more about these dishes just let me know! Both my parents are mixed (Italian, Portuguese, Indian, Arabic and Africa are influences that run through my family). Are there any dishes out there that I really have to try? Just let me know!

Always use the secret ingredients...what that is? It's a secret hehe...I know I know...lame -_-'

Till the next blog!!

Anyone wants to go to Japan with me?

Anyone? No one? Please? I'm not scary...I probably will be screaming SUGOOI all the time...hmm perhaps that would be scary...*heey you don’t have to agree with me on this…*

@ Kimee: have you seen the wristlet hehe. I thought it would be perfect to complete my outfit hehe

Hmm perhaps the readers who read my blog, noticed that my drawing style leans towards anime...yeah I’ve had a thing for Japan since I was little. The first time I got exposed (whaha sorry lack of better word here...)…I was about 7, maybe even younger and I always saw him draw things. He is an amazing anime artist and the way he draws is simply…you know, I’m like this all the time o_O. He had a website, but its offline for a while now. I will ask him if it’s okay to place some drawings on my blog. He has an impeccable instinct what to draw in illustrations and the details he puts in it are truly amazing! I wish I be that good someday ^_^! A friend of mine went to Japan last year; don’t know if I told you about this, but she brought me back some nice stuff. I have a red/white hairflower thingy (don’t know how to call it properly though…probably hair accessory or something, I like thingy better).

Yeah that is me -_-'...this won't become a habit though, but here you can see the flower. Sorry didn't have a better picture and I was tired hence the darkness around my eyes...

I love flowers in my hair ^_^! My friend told me that the amount of hair determines how big the flower can be in your hair. Interesting and quite logic I think. You wouldn't want to have a giant flower in your hair when you have a short hairstyle. It's more to accentuate your hair, I guess. Does anybody know about this?

hehe ^_^

Let's see, oh yeah! She also got me a very very cute sushi box with chopsticks, very kawaii ^_^. It even had seasoning, mini chopsticks and a fishnet thingy with...well I think they are lemons, not sure though. But it is very cute!

@ Hevn: Tadaaa here are the pictures! Isn't it cute ^_^!

Well everything Japan-related is placed in my little bro’s room, since he also is a huge fan of. Although he always look like this -_-‘’, because I’m always talking quite fast and cheering hehe. If you watch anime, which series do you follow? Right now, I’m watching Naruto Shippuuden, Bleach and Full Metal Alchemist. Oeh! Studio Ghibli!!! I love, Love LOVEE their anime! Simply love them. The story lines, the graphic designs...do I need to go on? A couple of my faves are; Howls Moving Castle, Spirited Away & Princess Mononoke. If you know a good place to get the full SG collection with normal shipping costs, please let me know! I need…neeed the collector’s box! I do know that Ponyo is their latest release…so I guess there won’t be a box available with that already in it. Oh did I already told you how much I love them! If you are a Studio Ghibli lover cheer with me *woohooo* okay I will act normal...yeah so what is your favorite Studio Ghibli anime?

For food, well you can give me sushi (not all kinds though…I’m not an expert on eating sushi just yet) and ramen. Yeah I know quite standard. I usually make the pre-packed stuff and there are some good brands out there, but freshly made broth with noodles and vegetables is much better. Since I love to try out new recipes, I looked up some recipes and I saw you really need to prepare a lot! If you know a good, easy and quick recipe to make ramen, let me know too!

…why do I get the feeling that this post is a cry for help…

The Ice Cream Disaster....

No really this isn't right -_-'...I think you would do the same thing!

*sighs*

Lost in the World of Communication...

Hello Hello!!!

Finally a blog again! It took me a while though, I wanted to post this yesterday, but I had to make a few pictures, but the lightning sucked in the evening, so I'm doing it today *yeeey*
Okay yesterday was a typical 'what was I doing again?' day. Every time I started something my mind drifted away and I realized that I was doing something totally different. The ones who read my profile a bit more careful, know that I'm working on my thesis *tries to hold back the fear to run away...* You see! There it almost happened again!

But yeah, I wanted to organize my folders, because while I search for information I always save other articles, publications for future use. So when I was working on the key elements of my thesis, I saved a lot of other stuff while I was searching through databases, the web...really you had to see all the files...and yes I cleaned it all up. I'm quite proud at myself, because when I clean things up from my PC I always have this vague voice at the back of my mind in a high pitched singy voice *Perhaps you can use it...who knows...*. I also have this when I try to clean my room and I have lots of school papers. I know that I have everything on CD as backup, but still too throw all that paper away...I find that very hard to do -_-'

Decisions, decisions...

But yeah, there I was cleaning up my files, ignoring that tiny voice and only kept the information I needed. That should have taken me less than an hour to do so....it took me more than 3 hours o_O. I mean like, I'm not kidding here...it took me three hours to clean up my files. You want to know what I did? Well actually, I don't really want to say it....okay please don't laugh or anything...*looks around if nobody else is listening*...okay ehm...I was on Facebook, Twitter and MSN...all at the same time *ashamed*...

I didn't even had a Twitter account...but I was too curious and too bored, so I made one. And you don't have to do a thing! People are following you out of nowhere. Really the strangest thing haha. yeah...seriously you can sleep and people will follow...

So yeah Twitter....for me it really feels like a big chatroom. Everyone is yelling, whispering, screaming something and if you reply...chances are very high you won't get something back. I thought it was a way to communicate with each other and not a place where you just spill your thoughts or URL's and not really caring if someone says something back. Perhaps its more a tool to follow 'celebrities' and stay up to date. But I missed the interaction with others on that site. This doesn't go for the ones who did say something back though! Very nice to have had a few conversations via Twitter. (You don't know, if they read this hehe). But this is just my perspective ^_^. How about you? You have a twitter account? Or even considered making one?

But I shall continue my story. Where was I? Oh yeah! I also reacted on status updates on Facebook, something I never do. I mean I like Facebook, but till a certain level. I have a lot of friends abroad, so it's easy to stay in touch. I got to know that a fellow student was also familiar with doing non-school related things and was stalking Facebook, just like me ^_^ (he also had to work on his thesis). And the worst part was after a large conversation by exchanging comments (One reaction on a status update, can lead to many other reactions...), I wanted to work further and he asked me a serious question! I mean I was like: Wow! A serious question! How can I not answer that, serious questions can't be ignored, so I wrote him an email ^_^. Oh yeah and I stalked people on MSN, something I usually do actually hehe, nothing new there. But today it seemed worse than ever...*sighs*


So slowly I found my way out again, but man! it was quite strange and the day flew by. I did managed to work on a few pieces of my thesis though, so I didn't waste my time entirely...

Oh yeah yesterday, my cousin and niece stopped by and later a neighbour came by and we were all drawing. Well, I was more like the teacher and helped them if they needed help. But it was quite difficult to give them all attention, especially if they all asked a question...at the same time.

Aah who to help first??

Who to help first?! I was running around..trying to help them as good as I can...and I have a problem explaining how to draw something, since I just draw and don't really think about it haha. Somewhere in between my mom decided to tell a story about *thinks* Omg I can't even remember what...*the shame*....please don't tell my mom about that okay...

But it was a lot of fun *getting a creative vibe again*. My cousin even decided to make a blog ^_^. (blogging is contagious!!). His name is Shaquille and also likes to draw. So if you would pay him a visit and perhaps leave a comment, I (and he also ofcourse ^_^) would be very happy.

But yeah I was lost in the world of communication...too much communication means tends to mess up my brains I guess...who is familiar with this? Please tell me I'm not the only one....pretty please...

Hmm perhaps the ones who read my blog, noticed that my style leans towards anime....I will tell in my next blog more about this ^_^! For now, I think I will make a few more sketches again haha.

Till next time!!

Note: Please bear with me...the sketches above were made very very quickly...but I wanted to capture a few moments, so hope you still like them ^_^.

PC fights, flying papers & lost pencils

So yeah, the last few weeks...

Where did I put it?!

Yes this sentence seemed to be the slogan of the last few weeks. I had major problems with my laptop and besides that....I also had some trouble with my drawing material...more specific, my pencils. I seemed to misplace each and everyone of them! I think I ran around the house dozens of times, because once again, I misplaced stuff. You might start to wonder, why I didn't grab another one...well the thing is that I have a few favorite pencils and I have a pencil case where I keep them, so if I lose the pencil case...I lose them all =_=''...

There are a few pencils that simply work great every time you use them or at least in my mind my drawings come out more fluently (oh the limits I place upon myself....). I have several made of Chinese newspaper, no specific brand and these work simply perfect. I think everyone has their own favorite brand/type off pencils. But I misplaced mine...aah the horror! I turned everything upside down. I ran up and down the stairs, I even searched in the garden, even though I knew for sure that I didn't went there, but I just had too look and to stripe 'the garden' from my mental 'where to look' list. It was a typical ‘tear the place apart’ scene, flying papers, feathers, pillows, you know the works. And then finally, I find it in a place that simply placed question marks above my head. I mean, how can it end up between the couch? I mean I work in my room at my desk or at the diner table...not the couch! Honestly, how does it come that when you lose something you find it in the strangest of places?! You have no memory of it whatsoever…it really feels like I have a blank spot in my mind…if this is the case then my mind is full of gapes…because I tend to misplace quite a lot these days ^_^’.

But back to my favorite brand. That is Sakura. I have the Pigma Sensei set for drawing Manga.

you see...my enemy...my laptop...

I love these!!! They are really great! Slide easily over the paper and doesn’t stop when you use it over pencil lines and more importantly it doesn’t fade when you erase the pencil lines (do you guys hear a commercial tune?). I also have two Pigma Micron fine liners, size 02 & 08. Also very good and great for details. These are the pens/fine liners I use at the moment. What are the brands you guys use?

But about drawing I have made several sketches again as you can see. I’m really in a sketching phase right now, because I need to divide my time between lots of things now, so I don’t have a lot of time to work it all out. But I do need to get all these images out of my head haha and I will work them out eventually though, don’t worry! So my drawings will consist mostly of pencils or fine liners, perhaps a touch of color here and there as reference.
You know what's fun to draw? Chibi Geisha's. Have a look at a few sketches below, they are so cute ^_^!

I'm thinking of giving her an umbrella...

I love cherry blossoms. The soft pink/white colors of the petals are beautiful!

I like the first one ^_^

I think, I will turn these geisha's into cards. They would look great for invitations if you have a themed (birthday) party!

Well that's it for now. Stay tuned for more updates!

Talk to you guys later!

One Wedding card...coming up!

Hey guys!

Aarghh...I thought that I already posted this blog...turns out that something went horrible, horrible wrong...I forgot to plug in my adapter for my laptop hehe....sooo suddenly all I saw was darkness and I could almost hear a sad tune on the background....byebyee nicely made blog...

@ Hevn: very sorry! The idea was to upload this new blog when I replied all comments, soo then you would have seen the final result. Haha I bet my comment didn't make much sense did it? *Hmm where's TJ's blog then? I was supposed to see the final result -_-'...* To all other readers, who don't know her blog...please check it out! She writes really cool!

How are you all doing? Sorry it has been a while since my last post…had big fights with my PC and my thesis took up a lot of time. And usually at the end of the day I was too exhausted to do anything else. Very annoying and the thing is that these fights or sudden workloads usually happen when I want to do a lot of other things...fun things....Don’t you guys hate it when that happens? Anyway, everything seems to be fine now (little bro fixed it ^_^) and I placed on my wishing list to buy a new PC/laptop. Yeah…that can take a while though...

So what’s new? Well, besides troubles with my PC (I’m giving it a stern look right now, can’t do anything more though…what if it gets offended and stops working again!?) I finished my card!! Woohoo! It’s finished and given away!! Yes the wedding was last Friday and I made a small picture show for you guys so you can see how it eventually turned out. But first a bit about the wedding day itself. It really was a beautiful, they both looked very handsome in their suits and I have to say...it was like a normal wedding, only instead of a bride and a groom, you had two grooms hehe. And it was a day filled with happiness and love from everyone who came. I was really happy for them! And funny thing! I already saw the suit of one groom, because I met them a week before the wedding and they just bought his suit. It was dark grey, so I decided to give him in the illustration a dark grey suit, it only make sense right?! Well, I didn't know the color of the other suit and I couldn't come up with a reason why I it would be nessecary for me to know the color of his suit...I would only make him suspicios. So to avoid all of that, I gave him a dark blue suit. And you know what! He wore a dark blue suit and his hair in the same way I drew him!! I felt so in touch with my psychic abilities haha ;) *floats on a cloud*

But lets have a look at the pictures! First I made the card with a wedding cake, two glasses champagne and a champagne bottle. But still I didn’t get the right vibe from the drawing. Wanna see?

Well, yeah, not sure if you can see what I mean, but something wasn't right. I made several sketches and in the end I decided to leave the cake out of the drawing. I think it was just a bit too much. So I was left with the couple, champagne glasses and a champagne bottle and finally I was happy with the final sketch, so I drew the lines with a waterproof marker and gave the first watercolor wash.
Then I gave the drawing a second wash. Just to intensify the colors a bit. You know I always have the idea that a drawing looks childish or...I don't know...not quite right when I color them. Perhaps it's because I like rough sketching more than colored pieces, at least not colored by myself...there are many other illustartors/artists who are magicians with coloring. But okay, I was quite happy with the watercolor, I just wanted to give a touch of color. When it all dried up, I gave it a touch of gold here and there and then I assembeld the card. See the final result *drums*....

Tadaaaa! Well? What do you think? I have these really cool gellyroll pens 'Gold Shadow' from Sakura. I used this to give it a subtle touch. The inside of the card I wrote an inscription for them and not a whole story with how happy I was for them...I wrote that in a seperate letter hehe. But the inside looked like this:

The two rings you see as a watermark is from the back. There I drew two intertwining rings and colored it in with a gellyroll pen. These pens ink very fluent and the end result was pretty cool! Around the rings I wrote their names and the date of their wedding. The back looked like this:
















Soo do you like it so far? here you can see the card in its full glory.....


After this I wrote a separate letter, inserted some goodies for them and placed it all in a fancy envelope and tied a ribbon around it...and yeah I forgot to make a picture of the final FINAL result....please forgive me ^_^"....

I hope you like it. I will tell you about my other projects in my next blog, which will be posted tomorrow, I hope...

Write you later!

Part 1: A little bit about me: Drawing

Let me tell you a little bit about…drawing! I love to draw!

I will only tell a few things, because I can go on and on and on… Not too long ago, I just drew what I wanted, made cards for friends for birthdays and so on. Lots of people love handmade cards and my friends were really happy when they got one, but I have to say that when I see the cards back (I make a picture of each one, just to remember what I drew, don’t want send out double cards hehe), I got annoyed by the technical mistakes. (Really, I was like looking around to see if my friends weren't in the room, so that I can snatch the card and throw it out of the window....okay, I've never done that before, but I would do it, if I could, but I can't -_-'. But I guess, it's like that for most people who draw and see old drawings and are like "Did I really drew that and gave it away :|" The horror....

So the last months, I’m reading up drawing books and learning about techniques and so on. I try to make a few sketches each day, just to stay in the drawing mood and practice is the best way to learn drawing. The first time I seriously drew something, was Bambi ^_^, I was like 7 or 8 years old. I remember sitting in front of the TV and stopping the videotape and a pretty image ofcourse, I had a lot of paper and a pencil and I started to draw (and got annoyed every time the image unfroze). I eventually become pretty good and I could draw Bambi from the mind and it became my first real drawing. My friends always asked “Hey Tahira, can you draw Bambi for me?”. So during lunch break I was usually drawing. The strangest thing is, even though I’ve drawn Bambi so many times, I can’t find a single drawing from that time! It would be cool to see how I drew Bambi and if it really looked like the Disney Bambi (because everyone said so...).
Ah well, the years that followed I developed an interest in anime/manga drawing. I have an uncle who draws soo cool and effortlessly! I will post a few drawings of him soon!

But okay, the last few years I’ve started to drawn more and more and I love to create small stories with cute images and make cards for friends and family. My main goal is to get very good at this, so that I can draw up many images effortlessly and that when I have ideas that I can put them ‘normal’ on a piece of paper and not with vague lines haha. And also that I can edit the drawings on the PC and that I can use them for future cards. But what I really love to do most, is making pencil sketches, rough sketches. But okay, enough talking, let’s go to the pictures! I think, you guys do want to see what I’m talking about instead of reading words all the time...I think...I hope…. Well, hope you like it! If you do (or don’t also possible ofcourse), please leave a comment with feedback/tips.





















Perhaps you guys recognize the images...perhaps not...even so...I love Kei Acedera! She is part of the Imaginism Studios (The link you can find somewhere on the left) and she is so good! I often use her drawings as a reference. Her drawings are very cute and with so much detail! Another person I also like is Bobby Chiu, also from Imaginism. they are one of my favorite illustrators/designers. A few of my own card designs are here below. I usually use watercolors, to add a touch colors, but it's a another goal of mine to get better haha.

This is a card for a good friend of mine, I transformed my friends and myself in chibis ^_^.

This was for another friend. A birthday card. Okay I will leave it at this, I have a lot of pictures of drawings, but I think that my blog will get toooo long. Ow yeah I also have a DeviantArt, with a few old sketches (link is on the left somewhere too), so if you are interested you can have a look at them. I'm in the process of updating everything, so I will add new stuff very soon!

Hope you enjoyed reading this! Till next time!

Cyaa Xoxo

Excuse me, I'm bizzy blogging here

*thinks* How to start? How to start?

Hi there, Welcome on my blog page!

I guess this is an appropriate way to start my very first blog...you are wondering why I decided to start blogging? I honestly don’t know. I just woke up, did a couple of things and suddenly I found myself making an account on Blogger Buzz. I guess today is one of those days for me, where I do things randomly and afterwards I think “Why did I do that?”

Well, in this case, I rather quickly started to wonder why I made this account, because I was asked to write a blog. A blog? A blog, you say! For a person like me who likes to daydream (a lot…like constantly), it should be done in a few minutes…but putting random thoughts in a normal and fun to read blog…well not so easily done.

Since this is my first blog; I’ll start with a short bio of myself (haha I try to be short...). I don’t want you guys to think that I’m strange or weird, doing all kind of random things in my life ;). First my real name is Tahira Lativa Lubrano, but known as TJ. I live in Rotterdam and I like to be creative. I fill most of my time with drawing (sketch, paint, all those things), watching anime series with my little brother (I love Studio Ghibli!), to cook (cookies anyone?), to read (silence, I’m in another world right now), to write (Don’t disturb, I’m working on my bestseller here…) and well much more. Usually I use one of the above as an excuse not to be bothered and now I can add another excuse here and that is…Excuse me, I’m bizzy blogging here ^_^. Ow yeah, I’m a master student Sociology and I’m currently working on my thesis, but as you can see I like to find other non-school related things to do ^_^. I will tell about my hobbies in other blogs (another reason to come back here!)

While I’m typing this, I'm wondering how many of you started a blog just to share random things/thoughts? I will check back as often as I can to share the strangeness of my world and I hope you’ll enjoy reading it. I’m looking forward to read other blogs and to get to know other bloggers. Haha it feels like I’m entering a whole new world. The world of blogging!

So I hope to see you all again (and again and again...). That you will share information with me (even though I'm a complete stranger...I like getting to know more and making new friends. So if there are already things you want to know about me…go ahead and feel free to ask me questions. Thanks for reading so far and happy blogging!

XOXO TJ