Art that Makes Me Wanna Write a Book!

Hello again, here is this weekend's installment of 'art that makes me wanna write a book', even though I didn't get it posted on Saturday.... (houseguests. you know how that goes.)

Anyway, today's art is by one of my favorite Japanese artists, Shohei. I've posted his work before, and talked about his famous animator father, and his colorblindness, and I'm still blown away by the fact that he uses only ball-point pen to draw....

Yah. It's sort of shocking to see someone draw like that with a ball-point pen....

Which leads me to one of my favorite pieces by him: "Ping-Pong Geisha"


I love the movement, the playfulness, the details... She's so modern and so traditional all at the same time. I want to know why she wears sunglasses and who put a lock around her waist. I want to know why she plays ping-pong instead of practicing shamisen or dance. I want to know who the person on the other side of the table is. Maybe she is being controlled by a gangster... maybe she is sick of being a geisha and is breaking free.... So many possibilities and story ideas come to mind!

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

And the Winner Is....

Christine Danek!

congrats Christine, the monster is yours! :-)

just email me at annfoxlee(at)gmail(dot)com and let me know your address. I'll get it out in the mail to you next week!

Recovering from Olympic Fever/ Saturday Art

Sorry I've been away from my blog for a couple of weeks here... I've been suffering from Olympic fever, and have been rabidly following Johnny Weir's great performances (oh, the politics of judged sports! He was robbed....)
Anywho, now that I'm back, it is time for a contest!! The details will be later in this post :-)

Also, starting with this, I'm only going to be posting one art piece. On a rare occasion I may put up more than one, but I've got to be a bit more measured in posting the art, or I might run out!


This piece is an interesting one for several reasons. First, it is a collaborative piece. Naoshi (an artist from Japan) did her work first, and then Martin Ontiveros (a Portland Artist) finished with his painting of the monster. Second, while Martin's part is painted, all the rest of the piece-- the cake-head girl, the background-- is done in colored sand. YEP! Colored sand. It is an old Japanese technique called Suna-e, and if you go to Naoshi's website, she has drawn out a tutorial on how it is done. It makes it seem easy, but really, all those perfect little lines...hard!!!
I love that the piece, being made of sand, is so sparkly that you kind of want to eat it. And I am amazed that Martin could paint his monster so perfectly over the sand, and somehow keep it sparkly too.
Each time I look at the poor cake-headed girl being tickled under the chin by that colorful monster, It seems like the middle of a children's book to me. Kind of like the spot where Red Riding Hood realizes that the wolf is in grandma's clothes.
It is a dangerous scene, where she just might be eaten!

So now, on to the contest!
CONTEST RULES:

1. contest begins now and ends 8AM Pacific, next Saturday.

2. to enter, you have to add a comment on this post.
3. adding a comment on this post= 1 entry
4. being or becoming one of my followers= 2 more entries
5. mentioning and posting a link to this contest on your blog= 3 more entries
6.getting someone else to comment that they followed your link here= 4 more entries for you, 2 more for them

After the contest is closed, I will use the Randomizer thingy online, pick a winner, and post it by 9AM!

Good Luck to all!

A Tale of Two Sisters

Some of you already know that my sister lives in Japan, but despite that distance, we are as close as two sisters could possibly be. We are the best of best friends, and to my memory, have been ever since I was in 6th grade and she was in 9th. Amy stuck up for me when one of her school friends was being a bit mean (I don't even remember what happened-- just that she pretty much told her friend to shove it.), and we've never had a cross word since.

We're also constantly discovering that we share secret obsessions (see my posts and our comments on Johnny Weir and Particle Physics for proof of random things we obsess about).

So if you've ever wondered what life in the Land of the Rising Sun is like (don't miss the bust-a-gut mangled English!), how to get started with origami anyone can do, or even how they get kids to eat spinach in Japan, pop on over and see her new blog: YokohamaMama !
I also have a link to it in my sidebar.

And don't forget to scroll down for pictures of 4-year-olds dressed up with sushi hats, singing a sushi song... it's seriously cute overload.
But I think my sister's three kids are cute overload too :-)

Lazy Sunday

I know... I didn't get a chance to put up a Saturday Art post this week, but I promise to make up for it by having another art contest next week!

Until then, I am trying to stop cruising the internet and get some actual writing done today.

As you may have read, I am easily distracted by the internet.

What distractions get to you when you're trying to write? Are they legitimate distractions, or like me is it just a way to procrastinate when you're at a tough spot in the writing?