30 Day Drawing Challenge | The Rose of the Orient

For the 30 Day Drawing Challenge I've decided to stop taking the themes so literally and instead use them as a jumping off point to see where my imagination takes me. It's so much more enjoyable this way and I think the illustrations come out much more pleasing and more to my style. For Day 17: Favourite Plant, I thought flowers and then remembered this beautiful photograph I saw of Anna May Wong on Pinterest. I did the sketch on paper with Chinese ink (how fitting.) and then coloured it on Photoshop.

Anna May Wong is such inspiration both style and career wise. Did you know The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong made U.S. television history as the first show to feature an Asian-American lead, Anna played the titular role as a art dealing detective (total babe!). Sadly, the show is presumed to be lost so we will probably never see her wielding a magnifying glass, but in the meantime feast her eyes on these beautiful old portraits of the star.

That last video there is such a gem! Her voice is classic. Here is a longer version of that Chinese Costume Party video in it's full 1930's racist technicolour (dis)glory.
So who is your favourite old Hollywood screen siren? 

30 Day Drawing Challenge | Inspiration

It's been eight months and I'm back on that 30 Day Illustration grind but with a scanner this time! It's Day 16 and the theme is Inspiration, which I've been finding plenty in books:

• It's Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be. It's got some good advice and it's easy to read. It got it for free during the Forever & Again clothing swap, it was my first one and I got waaaaay too excited and brought home way too much crap.
• A short fast read is nice since I've been snail reading Patti Smith's autobiography Just Kids since I bought it in Taipei back in June. The book feels magical and I want to read it slow and savour it.
• Lastly, I just picked up Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office from the library the other day, the title is terribly cheesy but I skimmed it and it seems like a interesting read. Did you know the book was actually made into pilot that never aired?

You can see my previous entries for the challenge on my old blog.