May 2006

i love playing with pasta dough. it’s a great pasta machine indeed.

oregano and basil pasta.

(click the image to view close up)

it was serendipity. the pink jeep cherokee and maximum team power duck, they’d got to be united.

i found it at value village in saskatoon. i went there the night before the spencer book photoshoot to look for roller skates for goro chan. i was on my way to the sports section. something incredibly pink caught my eye. it was the pink jeep. it was so beautiful just sitting quietly on the empty shelf. i rushed to the jeep and grabbed it. i had to have it. i knew it was just perfect for the maximum team power duck.

i really enjoyed taking these scenes with the duck and the jeep. they just look perfect together. it was already late at night after taking photos all day long for the book. i was exhausted. but hey, to be able to capture the secret life of the useless toys, it was definitely worth it. i had so much fun carrying this jeep around in the city and the parking lot. even though i’m actually too big to get in, i felt like i just got my ride pimped up!

(click the image to view close up)

this is where you’ve been hiding.
love is sometime hiding in a tricky place.

yay! finally i can add my drawing to ‘art recipe‘ group on flickr. the giraffe drawing that i started last night finally completed this afternoon. i must say that i really enjoyed drawing this giraffe. this is my first time to draw giraffe in any form. this grotesque giraffe hits my laughing spot. the key point was to think myself as a giraffe while i was drawing. this way, i was able to colour the giraffe as if i were putting makeup on my face. it felt good.

i’ll take part in an event called “broadway art encounter” on june 2nd and june 3rd. this is an event presented by broadway business improvement district in saskatoon. This two day art walk takes art out of the gallery and features it in the everday. the stores on broadway avenue will become galleries. my works will be shown at Broadway Shoe Repair, 636 Broadway Avenue. (the owner, al is a super nice man and he carries fantastic Birkenstock sandals and Blundstone Boots from Australia.)

i’ll be showing some of my new works including this giraffe one. so come on down to broadway avenue. enjoy art and shopping for summer!

i moved my desk by the window. i like it this way.

UPDATE: i’ve made prints of this drawing, and postcards, available in my SHOP.

giraffe in process.
colour pencils on paper.

when i want to draw animals, i usually get some photo books from the library. but today, i got a sudden impulse to draw the image popped out in my mind. the image was featuring giraffe. i needed to draw it right away so i searched giraffe photos on google. i found one photo of giraffe that i thought attractive. i looked at the photo for a while. now i was ready to draw from my memory. i looked at the photo once a while to check colours and details.
luckily, i’ve never paid any attentions to giraffe before. so i didn’t have any bias or memories about them. i found it much easier to draw giraffe than paul’s face.

this giraffe is rather ugly + pretty = perfect combinations. i ended up making my giraffe more grotesque than the one on the photo.
my kind of giraffe.

i’ll show you the final drawing tomorrow.

update: there you are!

why me? it’s only mid-may and i’ve already got a mosquito bite, on my palm, right in the centre. it’s itchy. and it makes me shiver to think that this is just the first bite, with thousands more yet to come. you see, i’m doomed — mosquitoes simply adore me.

no matter where i go, the mosquitoes find me. i’ve been bitten literally 50 times in a single evening, even though i had the full protection of a long-sleeve shirt and an entire bottle of mosquito repellant. they bit through my shirt and socks. one time, i got bitten on my eyelid while i was awake, with my eyes open. how they got in there is a mystery. mosquitoes love me so much that they ignore anyone else in the area. paul says he never has to wear mosquito repellant when i’m around, since they’re all going to be biting me anyway.

when i was little, my parents would leave the windows open at night during the summer. we preferred to sleep with a fresh breeze, not an air conditioner. the problem was, of course, mosquitoes. they had easy access to my bedroom. they hung around my ears a lot, buzzing. i did my best to hit them hard, but in vain. i’d light some mosquito repellant incense, but it never helped. i couldn’t sleep. i’d stay up until dawn looking at the dark mountains and the empty streets, the smell of the incense mixing with the cool night air. this could have been romantic, but the mosquitoes would. not. stop. bothering. me. i hate them all.

when i moved to canada, i spent a year in winnipeg. i’d already been informed that winnipeg is a mosquito town. perfect. as expected, i got bitten all over with no mercy. my reaction to the bites was worse than it was in japan. the canadian mosquitoes are fierce.

so why do mosquitoes love me so much? one theory is that i am very tasty. some japanese scientists claim that mosquitoes choose their meals based on blood type, preferring O > B > AB > A. i’m a B-blood-type person. so are my mom and my brother, but they don’t attract mosquitoes like i do. so my tastiness must be more individual. it’s my bad luck to be delicious.
summer is coming. i don’t want to be an ‘all-you-can-eat asian buffet’ for canadian mosquitoes again this year. i need to find better protection!

sing-along! (lyrics from here):

Bzzzzzzzz !
Ne tuez plus les moustiques avec des claques sur vos joues (AYE),
des claques sur vos cuisses (OUILLE OUILLE OUILLE),
des claques sur vos bras (AYE).

SUPER TIMOR EST LA!

Super timor est encore plus fort avec sa nouvelle formule “Super Timor”
Le temps de sentir l’odeur Super Timor, les insectes son déjà mort “Super Timor”.
Super Timor avec sa nouvelle formule, Vraiment vraiment plus fort.

Super timor, le Numero un

en anglais (translated by paul):

don’t kill mosquitoes with slaps on your cheeks, slaps on your thigh, slaps on your arms
Super Timor is here!
Super Timor is even stronger, with its new formula (Super Timor)
When they smell the odor of Super Timor, the insects are already dead (Super Timor)
Super Timor, with its new formula. Really, really stronger!
Super Timor, Super Timor!
Number one!

download the video (windows media).

mineral water, lemon, lemon juice, kaffir lime leaves, fennel, cardamon, mint