Hello Kitty hits Forever 21

 

Ohhh goodbye contents of my pocketbook! The new hello kitty line has hit Forever21 stores!~ And there is some adorable stuff! The line includes everything from clothing to housewares……even umbrellas!

how cute!

Last night in the magical land of LA Hello Kitty and her friends threw a huuge launch party that included sneak peeks and the new line, goodie bags and Hello Kitty style manicures!

 

 

Doesn’t that sound like fun?! Going to a huuuge party thrown by Hello Kitty is one of my silly (but oh-so-very serious) dreams!

Ahhh, Black Friday is going to be great fun this year…..I know exactly where I am going! Anyone with me? XD

 

Plein air painting and Evgeni Gordiets

I recently stumbled across an artist that has really inspired me Evgeni Gordiets.

His work is beautiful, isn’t it?

I really like this quote from him, that I found on his website; “Today, for me, life and painting are one. I have no desire to follow fashion; it has no value to me. In my art, the sea, the sky, woman and child are subjects of importance, eternity. I have no passion for politics. I often use in my work, stone carved forms and water– these are symbols of eternity. I love sculpture, and I try to unite it with painting. Women, the symbol of love, mother-hood and eternity, have great importance in my art. In life, there are some things that last forever; in my work, I communicate this with the sky, water and stones.”

His paintings feel relevant to where I stand right now. I normally stick to drawing and painting cute things, portraits and more cute things but lately I have been experiencing one of those oh-so-wonderful artist’s blocks. In other words, all my cute drawings look like poo. >_>

However, one of my class assignments has been to go out to the local lake…thing (it is a fake “lake” because this IS the desert) and paint plein air (or outdoors onsite.) I’ve never really bothered with buildings or landscapes before so this was a new challenge….and it turned out surprisingly well! In fact, I am thrilled with it…..which doesn’t happen to often, ahah!

Here is the first day:

 and a few days later:

And finished!

I think this is one of my best pieces of late, and after discovering Evgeni Gordiets work and seeing how landscapes and cityscapes can have just as much  magic to them as fairies, I started wondering if I shouldn’t try painting something besides cute people.

So, I guess, stay tuned for more paintings of buildings?

I’M EXPANDING MY HORIZONS.

and until then……here is a picture of my newest USB drive (I collect cute ones XD) His name is Ozzie

Autumn Nostalgia Smells of Kinmokusei

Ahhhh cool autumn weather has finally hit Phoenix, and with it blows in that ever elusive feeling of nostalgia. My fall nostalgia is always accompanied by a sweet whiff of Kinmokusei.

When I was living in Kagoshima I had the privilege to attend several large Rotary conferences  one of which was located in Nobeoka. (Nobeoka is one of my favorite places in the world, it’s a lovely, lovely town!)

The conference took place in a prestigious hotel and was attended by a great number of people and was very busy and crowded. I, being that I am very uncomfortable in large crowds, was somewhat worse for the wear by the end of the first night.  Someone, I’m not sure who  (being confused is 91% of being an exchange student)  took pity on me and the other two exchange students and arranged to have a family with several kids whisk us off into the country side to stay with a friend of theirs for the night. (it seemed very random at the time, mind you, after an exhausting day I was stuffed in a car with strangers and driven out of the city. Luckily, I am well adapted at being happily confused)

The man whose house we were graciously put up in was named Yamamoto, and he lived unusually close to the mountains in a big, beautiful traditional Japanese home.One room housed a giant loom that encompassed the entire room from wall to wall, I was told that Mr. Yamamoto wove kimono on it.

The family, myself and Sebastian and Sunni, the other two exchange students slept there that night (on nice soft futons oooohh :D). We woke up early the next morning to hike into the forest, so we could drink the sweetest water in Kyushu (or at least that is what I derived from Mr. Yamamoto) I wasn’t not prepared for hiking since I had expected to be sitting and bored with a polite expression on my face in the conferences, so I had to borrow a pair of one of the little girl’s shoes (good thing I am child sized, even in Asia XD).

Japanese forests are some of the most beautiful that I have ever seen…and the water from a pool at the end of the trail was indeed the sweetest I have ever tasted.

We returned to Mr. Yamamoto’s home and packed to leave and during the chaos of cramming kids and suitcases into tiny, Japanese, tupperware-cars Mr. Yamamoto pulled me aside and broke a twig off a bush and handed it to me “This is what autumn in Japan smells like, we, Japanese, always wait for it” he said.

Now, whenever autumn decides to show up, I always return to the sweet smell of Kinmokusei and the sweet memories I have of Mr. Yamamoto and the kind family that took us to him.

(could this photo be any more chaotic? I love it!)

Now in case this post doesn’t seem sufficiently random, I thought to include this (it was for the parking lot of the fancy, conference hotel. )

Happy Finally-a-Nice-Day-In-Arizona Day, Everybody!

Gatherings of Creative People

Who doesn’t love faires and conventions? I’ve been to a few fabulous ones myself. A few years ago I had the pleasure of working in a face painting booth at the Phoenix Fairy Festival, which is a small intimate. but wonderfully magical little faire and I really enjoyed working it!

I’ve also had the opportunity to model for a few fashion shows in comic-related conventions around the Phoenix valley, as well as attend the BIG comic convention in L.A. this last summer (it was very very big O_O).

And of course I love the Renaissance Festival and attend it every year! But the convention I REAAAAALLLLY want to attend is the Faerie Con.

It looks like so much fun! It takes place every November (next week, in fact.) in beautiful Maryland. And get this, one of the artist guests is Kinuko Y. Craft *squee* (if I you have not yet had to listen to me rave about her check out my Favorite Modern Artists post ;D )

In the program this year they are offering everything from live bands to panels about fairy tales in the media to lectures on mythical characters like Morgana Le Fey.

Now that I know about this, perhaps I will be able to make plans to attend it in 2013 *3*

Do any of those conventions/faires catch your eye? Have you attended any of them, are there any other related events you would like to attend? I am curious to know! 😀

Voting Day!

It is November sixth, time to hit the polls, folks! I just got back from there me-self!

I won’t bore with the details, but I think I was able to make some well informed decisions! I always feel good after voting 😀

On the subject of the presidential election…check this out:

Isn’t this adorable? (friendship party  bwaaaa) I was irrationally excited when I saw the Hello Kitty Prez campaign.

I was even more excited when I saw all of this stuff:

Adorable right? But seriously (actually not at all seriously XD) Hello Kitty, makes about 5 billion dollars a year in merchandise sales, runs a successful international company, rules Asia and due to the fact that she doesn’t seem to have a mouth, the debates would have been much more pleasant. She’d make a bad ass president if you ask me.

Aaaaaannnnnd this is her chillin in the Buddha’s lap XD (I really wish I had purchased one when I had the chance…so hilarious!)

Anywaysh, the polls close at seven, so I hope all of you Americans run out and put your two cents in! ❤

Punkin Carvin.

Just so you know, there is NO where you can buy pumpkins on Halloween.

And I am a horrible procrastinator…I actually did not decorate til this morning. I used random things I found in my house/attic because I hadn’t time to go to the store but, I think it turned out pretty good!

 

How’d I do? 😀

I also procrastinating on buying my carving pumpkin so by the time I got to the stores this evening all of the pumpkin bins were very, very empty. But, no matter, I just bought a squash instead! (I was detirmined to carve a Jack-o-Lantern this year D<)

and I carved it into a Jack-o-Lantern Kitty! (Which is pretty silly, really XD)

 

Yaaay!

Now, with the addition of my squash-kitty-lantern my house is super spooky~! (little kids are afraid to come up the walk, no joke ahah. )

 

I hope everyone has a safe and happy All Hallows Eve!! (and eats lots of caaaaandy)