Fashion Week Sketches / Meadham Kirchoff Boy

More terrifying than good, this boy/man/model looks kind of like Chucky. It was child's play!
A quick sketch. Inspired by the Meadham Kirchoff Menswear SS 2014 show. 

Recent Work / Burberry Duffles for Bagaholic Boy Illustration Process

Happy Friday guys! Just a quick little post on my new illustration I did for BagahohlicBoy.com this week of Burberry's Duffel bags and small pouches from their Men's S/S 2014 runway show. They come in 12 delicious candy colours and were very yummy to illustrate. 

Here's a little peek into the process, the approval sketches on the left and a process shot on the right. I painted these in gouache and outlined with a bit of pencil. I just love using gouache now, the even flat slightly opaque washes of colour you get using it thinned with water.

Who would have guessed I would grow to love gouache so much, we were forced to use it every week back in first year university in our Colour and Design class and we all pined for streak free acrylic then. I didn't use gouache for a really long time mainly out of resentment, but I'm so happy to have rediscovered it this year. And actually, I kind of hate acrylics now, it looks a little plasticy and I think clean up is annoying with it since it dries so quickly on the palette. I don't like having to squeeze it fresh out of the tube every time.

What's your favourite mediums to paint with? I've been wanting to get these Caran d'Ache NeoColor Watersoluble Wax Pastels after I saw this Urban Sketchers Berlin post.

Read the BagaholicBoy post on the Burberry Prorsum Duffel bags here. And thank you so much to Alvin for the commission, always a pleasure working with you!

#ZigWisdom / Direction Literally Creates Time

Direction Literally Creates Time. #25

It's time for another ZigWisdom collaboration with Brianne Garcia! This one is more vague than our previous, sometimes Brianne chooses the quote and sometimes I choose it. This was her week and I loved what she had to say about it.

"If we approach our lives with the attitude of “time is money”, this could end badly, with us treating life’s precious moments like something we must quantify. However, when it comes to our life’s work,  I do believe we should treat our time like we would our $, and spend it wisely."

Go read the rest of Brianne's super awesome (as always) blog post on this week's ZigWisdom about having singular vision, focus and digging for those uncomfortable pockets of time secretly available to us.

Here's a WIP shot, I was inspired by this picture I found on YMFY.com.

See the rest of the ZigWisdom series here.

Inspiration from the Art Supply Store / Girls in Calligraphy Pen

Some new sketches I did last night. I've been thinking a lot lately (even more than always) about developing more of a personal style. I've been working on my new portfolio site with my amazing graphic designer friend Belinda Love Lee. Launching in 2 weeks (fingers crossed!)!

I feel like I draw things everyday but when I look at it all together I just feel like it's not as good as I want it to be and lately I've just been making things that are really pretty and cute and rather safe, things that just don't really excite me. That's okay too, but when I saw it all together I just realized that's not who I want to be.

Last night I went to the stationery store near my place and bought a few new pens and I always feel so inspired after I get new materials. I spent a few hours before bed making these in my sketchbook, I'm excited about, I feel like they're more me. Kind of back to basics as I used to be only like drawing with markers when I was in university. I made these using a new calligraphy pen I just bought and then added colour with gouache.

If you're interested, these prints are all available for sale on my Society 6 Shop.

How to Sleep Like a Baby / Amenpapa Playbook Exhibition

Last week I stopped by the AMENPAPA Playbook exhibition that was happening at their Silvercord TST store.

First of all, what is a playbook? I found out about the project when Ambassadors of Design contacted me, since I did a piece for them during last year's DETOUR. AMENPAPA is a HK fashion label and  they wanted to get together some artists, designers and other creative people in the city to decorate and play with their lookbook to raise awareness for mental illness, thus a playbook exhibition.

There were lots of stylish people there, hipsters wearing bright neons and loud patterns and they had a live performance with a lovely singer and acoustic guitar accompaniment.

Here I am with my playbook! I decorated mine mostly by painting anxious girls and anxious phrases inside with messy inks and gouache. My inner Tracey Emin came out to play. More photos of my drawings at the end of the post. 

A playbook decorated to resemble a pillow complete with pom pom trim, perfect with the exhibition's theme "How to Sleep Like a Baby".

The brand's founder Salina in a bright peach coloured dress and the table displaying the playbooks on the right.

Doing a little doodle the audience during a speech, I wish all parties were as fully stocked with art supplies, there were jars of markers and pencil crayons on the big table in the middle of the store, I was in heaven.

I wore some wacky washed silk walking shorts I bought the day before from a deadstock junk shop in Mong Kok near the flower market, I also got these really awesome porcelain spoons from there as well. Wearing it with an Martin + Osa button up, vintage crochet bag and Mark & Spencer ballet flats.

Click to see photos from my playbook I created for the AMENPAPA Sleep Like a Baby Exhibition after the jump.

Recent Work / Anya Hindmarch portrait process for Bagaholicboy

Last week I was really excited when Alvin aka BagaholicBoy, a super popular luxury handbag blog based in Singapore emailed me after seeing my Art | Basel streetstyle sketches on TheWanderlister+ asking to work together. He had done an interview with UK handbag designer extraordinaire Anya Hindmarch and wanted to commission a portrait to give the post an unique edge. I really admire  people like Alvin who puts such attention to detail to what they do, a blog post with a custom illustration, that's dedication, you can see why his site is so well read.

After researching reference images of Anya, I started by doing a round of sketches, I've been doing all my roughs lately with this water brush. It's so handy for quick sketches, since it's always filled with water I don't even have to go into the kitchen to get a water cup, I just grab it from my pen holder and go.

For this particular illustration I used gouache thinned down with water to a watercolour consistency. I find using gouache this way scans better than watercolour but has a similar look, so I've been using it more for works that will be seen digitally only.

Some other variations we tried with Anya, without a background and different styles of colouring in the shirts. I like to call this one 2 Anyas, like you know, Andy Warhol.

For the wording on the final image I used a Conte lever-action dip pen from a set that I picked up on a whim at an art supply store in Mong Kok. I've been obsessed with hand lettering lately, as you might have noticed from the ZigWisdom drawings I've been doing.

Hope you like it! And thank you so much to Alvin for contacting me for this fun job! We'll hopefully be doing a series of these so keep your fingers crossed for us. You can read the interview here on BagaholicBoy.com.

And as always if you dig this post, share it on Facebook, tweet it or +1 us on Google, I'm always so grateful when readers take the time to share my posts so more people can see them. Thanks! xx

This Month I've Been: All Art Everything Month of May Edition

Can you believe it's already June? It's even more ridiculous when you think how 2013 is halfway over.

Maybe it's because I'm 25 but this year just feels pivotal. I feel like I've done a lot these last few months, or at least more than I have other years. But at the same time I also feel like I've done nothing at all, maybe because I've been sick and recovering at home without going out much it feels like my life has been put on hold. Or maybe because for the first time in a long time I'm enjoying my job so time is just gliding by.

Well anyway, here's what I've been up to this month.

This was a really exciting month, as you might have heard Art | Basel was in town for the first time ever. And the lovely couple Paola and Ignacio of Tangram studio were organizing a pop-up shop during Basel and invited me to send over a few drawings to sell. These were the drawings I sent them. If you're ever interested in buying some originals of the drawings I make, email me! They're really reasonably priced artworks that will make your home extra lovely, promise.

Speaking of Basel I went to the Vernissage night with my mom, thank you so much to my friend Venus for the ticket. Basel was really huge and international and felt very glamourous. How exciting to have such a world class art event in our fair port city. Wearing a secondhand DVF dress and my comfy new Sseko sandals.

I also made some sketches from the streetstyle looks I saw during Art | Basel Vernissage night which were published by TheWanderlister+.

My current favourite art supply store is CN Square which is a 4 floor stationery Mecca on Nathan Rd., with one whole floor dedicated to art supplies. That trip I got some Chinese ink paper, watercolour, acrylic and other bits and bobs. Made this sketch when I got home, I think it looks rather like my idea of Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby book.

Finally set up a Society 6 store, I'll be updating the store each week with new ZigWisdom sketches as I make them. If you would like any iPhone cases, cards or prints please get them here, I would be ever grateful for your support.

Making birthday portraits, a few of my really good friends have birthday in May so I made them little portraits as gifts.

Here's another birthday portrait I did of my very wonderful friend Kaitlyn, she is much more beautiful in real life than my drawing here.

Getting back into yogurt making, we have a really simple machine where you sprinkle in starter culture into your milk carton and then leave overnight. Here I'm having it with some blueberries and honey, nectar of the gods.

Another wonderful art event going on this month, the M+ Inflation Sculpture Garden is ridiculously good. If you don't go you are missing out on some joyous, gigantic, international inflatable artworks. On until June 9, 2013, run!

Picked up this Louise Fili book on British Modern graphic design and type. I'm such a huge fan of her work and of the Hong Kong Public Library. They actually bought in two books I suggested and then emailed me to tell me, Bad Girls Go Everywhere and The Best of Everything, but someone took them both out before I had a chance to, rude.

Worked on a few new commissions this month! Super excited to share them with you in some new posts to come in the pipeline.

Eating onigiri, this delicious specimen was filled with salmon and made me feel like an anime character while I ate it.

Wearing hippie clothes, my new Sseko sandals and deadstock crochet bag while waiting to get my passport and then to the newly renovated Kubrick Bookshop and Cafe. Beautifully curated books on art, literature, design all with the best book covers. Lots of amazing Hong Kong published books there as well.

Who says Hong Kong isn't creative! Thank you for a wonderful month of May universe. Happy half 2013 everyone!

Follow me on Instagram for more updates @kittynwong.