I Fell From A Plane

Hooray, new store!

An update! Today I opened a store on Society6, so you can go see and buy prints of some of my recent work! Check it out, share the link with your friends, and please don't forget to click "promote," so I can be featured on their main sales pages! society6.com/anajkim

Thanks :)

some more red

some new fun pieces

some cute shtuff

chugging along. can't give up before getting a good start, they say...

I don't think people like the below painting that much, but it's one of my personal favorites, haha. 

everyone, let's keep our chins up.

Charcoal

*brief self-promo plug* follow me on Tumblr or Instagram~

moving on~

Recently I've taken to charcoal. I've always loved it, but I don't think I ever gave myself a chance to play with it in my own time. I'm still getting the hang of it, like do's and don'ts, but I love materials that I can push around and lift and add back on. I will say, though....paper quality matters. So hard. Sigh.

some are more successful than others....some are just fun doodles. None are quite on the money, but doing my best, yeah? HAHA. but I've been trying to push myself to make a new SOMEthing every day. I often finish a piece during the day and then doodle or plan for the next piece at night. Apparently you're supposed to be most fresh and active in the morning, but let me tell you. NOT ALL PEOPLE ARE THE SAME. I need the morning to relax, and then I can work continually until late at night, haha.

art-wise, I think things are going in a good direction. Still looks a bit jumbled and stylistically unclear, but it's becoming more focused. Slowly. 

In other news, I ordered promo cards! To promote myself as an illustrator! I think I have a handful of pieces now that I can show to people, so. I can't stall any longer, can I. 

Now if only someone would pay me. Looking where I can T__T

spring at last

Uwah, haven't updated in quite some time. I was busy finishing my internship, and here I am in April, unceremoniously unemployed again ^^

But in the past few weeks I have been busy trying to make my own work, and I've updated my website, for anyone who has not seen yet. www.anajkim.com
This piece below I have only put on my Instagram because it's a gift for a friend, and I didn't want her to see on Tumblr, haha. But it was inspired by a poem she wrote, and I finally followed through with it. The following two pieces I probably will not put on my portfolio site, so I thought it would be nice to show them here.

Since most of my new work is on my portfolio site, I will not post them here. I want to say though that it's been really fun, despite this heavy cloud over my head thinking about how there are no jobs, lol. Working and drawing every day is also making me realize how little I know and how much there is to learn, but it's good. It's a good motivator.

I also didn't realize I get bored easily. It's been about 2-3 weeks since I've been working in this particular manner, with pastels and acrylics, but I'm already searching for something new. Thinking about charcoal next. I most enjoy medium that I can physically manipulate with my hands. Acrylics are fun but it's not easy to be suggestive with it.

I just don't know how all or any of this can translate into money. Bleh.

The past few weeks have been a good first step, I think. But I know I can do better.

Oh, and below are some of the better figure drawings I've done in the past month and a half. I usually go every other week. I skipped two weeks this time...oops.

A verbose post on a Sunday evening

Some of you may know, and some of you may not know, but I was heavily inspired by Le Petit Prince by St. Exupéry for my last film in school. Heavily. I might even say that I wanted to emulate the beauty and depth of the novel so much that I screwed up my priorities in the process. But, haha.

I kind of grew up with a vague appreciation for it because my mother was a big fan of the drawings, and I even made up a green alien character who lived alone on a blue planet when I was 12 years old. (I should dig it up...probably in my childhood home basement somewhere) At the time I'm not so sure I had read the book. Read it again in highschool for my french class, but probably didn't understand too much of it, and then during college I read it through in English. I wonder if I connect to it because I can understand the weird yearning and wistfulness of the narrator, the titular character, and understand that they're all just the author, talking about himself. Maybe he knew that it was only in this way that he could connect to people.

Anyways, so currently at the Morgan Library in Manhattan, there is a small but beautiful exhibit about the beginnings of Le Petit Prince story. It was actually written in New York, and first published in the U.S. Original penciled drafts, really wonderful captions and descriptions, and of course, initial story sketches. The author St. Exupéry wasn't a trained artist, but I think that's what makes the drawings more beautiful. He labored over the writing, and labored over the drawings, paring everything down to the most important pieces. An artwork in the purest form for the most purest of intentions.

It's because works like these exist that I have never wanted to do anything else but make other people feel something, too. I think most of my life I thought I couldn't dare to think I could try, and then suddenly I did, but thinking you can't do something and really really wanting something are two completely different things. 

I'm going to go see it again, hopefully on a less crowded Friday. It will be there until April 27.

I started going to an open figure drawing class last week, and I absolutely loved it. I'm really rusty, but I'm not as behind as I feared I was. I'll upload the best one from each session per week. I have to work on getting the entire form on paper. I tend to leave the head and arms last...and when I try to start with the head, I get preoccupied with the face. Gesture no-no, lol.

oh, and this is a doodle I did on the train a few weeks ago. For some reason I feel it's really important. I think they might belong in the same world as the traveling bald boy character I've been thinking about for a while....

frankly, I think they are all genderless, but they look more male than female, I suppose.

I've started the hunt for the next job, since my internship is fast approaching the end of the 3-month mark.

*hides*

Hope everyone is having a great February so far.

I've posted some of these on Tumblr and Instagram, but I like to update this blog regularly, too. Maybe more for my own journaling purposes. 

ink doodle on top of an old palette

 pastel on cardboard

 started drawing on bristol recently.

been surprising myself, actually. i can actually draw sometimes, HAHA.

quick pastel color doodle

and lastly an edited photo I took today to put on my business cards. I sculpted these guys out of super sculpey over the past couple months. haven't baked them yet.

my work is all over the place, lol.

it stressed me out a lot...what to put on my business card. because I don't know what I am? not really an illustrator, not really an animator, and not really a fabricator, either. so it's blank, for now.

here's to hoping that when the first round of cards are done, i'll be able to put something on the next batch, haha.

Refresh

About a year and a half ago, I was worried yet excited, full of anticipation about my senior film...and I made a blog post about artistic inspirations. I think it's time to refresh the list, new year and all. I want to be more accurate, though, and say that these are stylistic inspirations. Visuals and the approach. We can be inspired by anything, really...watching a baby concentrate on a task, seeing a half-dead worm trying to make it to the grass, etc. etc. But style inspirations are less of what makes you want to create and more of a......what makes you feel in your gut that you have found an artistic kindred spirit. Artists and works that make you feel like they're helping your work find a home...that you think might have existed (or still exist!) for the same reason you are hoping that you and your work exist.
Literature is an art, so. I count that, too ^^

Ah, this is hard to explain. But I think you can understand ^^ My old list is here. 

In no particular order:

contemporary artist Joe Sorren
(image of his painting "The Dance of All Hallow's Eve" taken from his site)

Spanish surrealist artist Joan Miro. I have been obsessed with his "Blue" triptych since I was 20.

Studio Ghibli films "Tonari no Tottoro," "Ponyo," and "Spirited Away." I basically worship this studio and love all of their films, but these films in particular I've listed for stylistic reasons. The direction, the art, the characters...are like home.
(gif from here)

(gif from here)

(gif from here)

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Read it a year ago for a contemporary English class. Haven't been this taken by a work of fiction since my Harry Potter days.

films by director Wong Kar Wai. "In the Mood for Love," in particular. I have been obsessed with this one for a few years now, too...

I'm trying to start the year as clear-headed as possible and thought it would be good for me to sort out what is in my brain. A goal for me is to try as hard as I can to forget my ego and forget that I get stressed when I think too much. I suppose that means I need to think less and feel more. Maybe then my good work will rely less on chance and more on intention HAHA.

:)