Finally at Katz's Deli!

location drawing @ Katz's Delicatessen

I have never felt any urge to go visit famous restaurants in NYC, but I did want to go to this Katz's Deli for quite awhile, maybe for about three years since I saw THE movie When Harry Met Sally. After all these years, I finally went. Friday morning, 11am, it was right before a crowd came for pastrami sandwiches.  The store was still quite crowded with merchants buying meat and people who came for late breakfast/ early lunch.

2013: Happy New Year

from sketchbook

There was a time I felt time had entirely stopped. Whatever I had felt, time diligently flew by and the new year has come. I love the fact the new year has begun. Everyone greets "Happy New Year!" with some amount of excitement in it and whenever I hear, I truly appreciate it. Then I reply, with all my heart, "Happy New Year."

@ AMNH, pt.2

Birds of the World.

Hilariously Cute..

Friday drawing class at American Museum of Natural History. It had been more than 4 years since I went there. Drew this hilariously cute manatee. I love manatees. Unbelievably cute, gentle creatures.

Moving On

Click the image!

On Hold

Always unexpected.

Sleeping through the Storm

As if heavy rain does not interfere her peace, or rather, tough weather out there makes her even sleepier, Horang showed off her ability of sleeping literally all day, not caring a bit of tornado that hit New York on Saturday. What a blessed little soul.

With her sleeping habit not forgotten yet from hot, sticky summer days,
Horang slept with her two front feet firmly pressing against the cold wall.

Peacefulness of way back home when it's still light out

Simplicity of her drawing, warmth and softness of her colors, quietly cheerful mood of her happy way back home were just so...perfect and I had to stare at it for a long time. Everything was so harmonious including the beautiful flow of Korea words.

For the first time, I put my jealousy behind towards a girl who is my age and who is already published and who is drawing and writing as a recognized level. 

Winter is back!!

Just like a term Indiansummer, for a temporarily hot period of time during early autumn, there is a term called 'flower-jealous-cold' in Korea to describe a short period of fierce cold right after people think it is spring. All the flowers are fully bloomed and people are enjoying light clothing and sunshine then boom! Winter is back!!

I changed my wardrobe last Wednesday night, packing every single winter clothing into my gigantic "immigration bag" in my closet. And yesterday, my teeth were all clattering. It's time to dig out some winter clothes again. Oh, well.

A Day before Holidays

On Thanksgiving:

1. To my plain greeting "Happy thanksgiving,"at the end of the email, she wrote me back "Happy Gobble Gobble to you!" I was so amused. :)

2. Against my expectation that the printshop would be very slow right before the holiday weekends, it was more crowded than usual. Had to squeeze in to find a spot to ink my plate. One very delightful eavesdropping made me smile though.

...conversation on thanksgiving plan.
Student: It seems like no one is really talking about what they are thankful for.
Teacher: Let's hear what you are thankful for.
Student: Mmm....I'm really thankful that my parents are helping me out to go to college. It is extremely expensive. And I'm thankful that I can be an artist and do what I want to do.

3. In the meantime, there will be a happy gobble gobble tomorrow! There would be a lot of cleaning and cooking and another cleaning going on. Happy Thanksgiving for everyone! ;)

Horang Likes My Work!

She comes, when I work on drawings and paintings.


She likes my work so much, she has to lick it.-.-


Being annoyed by my shooing her away from the painting, she soon turns her interest towards pretty colored water.

I usually lets Horang comes up to my working desk even while I'm working, but there were way too many open containers of pastels and palettes with paints and waters for brushes on the desk today. I constantly shooed Horang away and prevented her from jumping up to the desk, she was upset.

Bitter Day

From one of my favorite illustrators, snowcat's blog. (I have been a big fan of her for over 10 years now!)
About the feeling of bitterness of life.

"one can taste a bitterness of life even by just making sure of one had already known."

Sometimes it is rather surprising, how many pleasant things and unpleasant things could happen during just one day. I could just let everything go without feeling so much of anything while I could be very up and down again and again. I choose the former, for my own sake. Maybe I would become a better artist if I chose the latter.

Basil at Home!

My sister and I went to check out the local green market on Sunday in Jackson Heights and brought these Basil plants! We were looking carefully, and almost decided what to choose, even though the leaves were a little smaller than we wanted. We wanted fully grown basil so that we could eat right away!! Last time we bought some sesame leaves to grow, but they are still growing...:( Long way to go until we can pick them and eat them. So this time, we wanted big ones! Amie asked a guy at the stall if he got any bigger one, and yay! he pulled out real good ones for us and we happily took them. They smelled great.

We were a little worried that Horang might get so excited about her new salad dish (like she did when we brought sesame leaves to grow.), but she was quite indifferent this time. Maybe fragrance was too strong for her.

So, today's dinner was basil pasta, my sister's recipe, and it was really really good!

Green market on Sundays. Another reason to love this neighborhood..and I'm so loving this neighborhood! :-D

(Find more about the Greenmarket at Jackson Heights here! )

Cats on the Street

In my neighborhood, there are lots of stray cats. All kinds, various colors, diverse characters. I walk two long blocks with all the houses lined up along the way, and I meet and see many cats along the way. Some of them getting some sun at the porch, some of them sniffing around like doggies, some of them chasing birds, and some of them running from here to there.

My cat, in the meantime, is nibbling on the leaves of my plants at home and enjoying her salad...

On A Very Hot Summer Day, Iced Coffee Would Be Nice. :-)

I have been waiting for Memorial Day for quite some time, and determined to have a good rest at home. Finally it came, but it has bee just sooooooooooooo HOT and my AC is still in the closet. Instead of installing the AC, I dug up my art drawer and pulled out my old woodblock prints of Iced Coffee.

I made that print during the notorious hot summer of 2008 in New York City. I was diligently (I was, at that time) going to the Printmaking Workshop everyday during that summer, and that particularly hot summer day, I walked into the studio with an iced coffee, sat down, and just made that print. I just needed to make something that would make me feel cool and refreshed. The print certainly did. I made two versions of it, one with blue background, one without it. I like them both.

Since I pulled it out, I updated my etsy shop as well, which I have been postponing for so long. Why not share this coolness on the wall? :-D

D.I.Y. Table of Your Own

Sometime last week, when it was pouring outside,
I was working at my desk on the drawing DREAM #1, for the group show (that my friends and I are hoping to arrange) in December. Having artist's block, I looked for something more energetic than sitting at the desk and staring at my drawing.

So this happened.

I had a 4 - year- old, boring looking, but very useful tea table from IKEA. This.


Sadly, it got a lot of scars. Like this.


I decided to cover the surface. (I actually was never bothered by those scratches, but I just needed to do something. Also I needed a little more funner table.)
I took out my old New Yorkers. I was gonna use their covers. I was determined to use my favorite artist's, Jean-Jacques Sempé's works. (On top of the pile here.)


...But, somehow I ended up using my own illustrations. I loved New Yorker's covers, but I didn't like all the same size images. At the same time, I didn't want to cut them down to many different sizes, so I decided to save them. Instead, I pulled out the misprinted illustrations of mine and used them. They were going to trash because colors did not come out right while I was using the printer. But now here they are after a lot of gluing and several layers of varnishing.


With fruits and coffees on top. Yum..


It did not turn out to be super pretty, but I like it. Actually surface is not that even because I'm terrible at gluing. But now, after only a few days, I cannot see the surface anyway...

It was fun. :-)

Snow in March

I used to complain about this long winter in New York, but somehow this year I've been secretly hoping this winter to linger just a bit longer. Though I enjoyed the spring-like weekend very much, I'm kind of grateful for this last bit of snow in March. It will help me get ready to say goodbye to winter.

Updates.

1. The Art of Children's Books Opening Reception
-> It did go really well. Weather was very nice and breezy so I enjoyed a long walk along the tree lined street at the Victorian Flatbush neighborhood from the train station to the gallery. Q train wasn't running for the weekend, but it turned out to be better because I got to take F train which I had never taken before to Brooklyn and I actually liked that long walk.
A lot of people and a lot of kids. I so love that 'children friendly' exhibition. Though they are more into playing with each other, running around in the gallery and drawing with chalks on the side ways than looking at framed art pieces, it is the show celebrating children's books anyway!
I am actually considering to buy a piece from Sara's new book, BAKE SALE. It is about this cupcake who goes for a journey to meet foreign pastries. One of the pieces in the show was the scene in which the cupcake was selling a coffee to an egg. It was so amusing, I just couldn't take my eyes off from it! I really want to have it on the wall when I move next month!


2. New Promotion Postcards Arrived..
-> I made it with NAP ON WHALE. I did it through overnightprints.com as usual, but this time, didn't turn out to be so great. Somehow it picked up a lot of red and pink on prints, so whales are very pinkish. Hmm......


3. Blog Updates.
-> Have you noticed I changed the title? :-) When I opened this blog, I was a senior at SVA, one semester before I graduated. I made this blog with kind of obligation that I HAD TO HAVE A BLOG to promote my illustration better. I guess that was the reason I wasn't feeling so attached to the blog so far.
So I decided to change it more personal writing what I really want to write about. Drawing and illustration are big parts of my life, so this will still be a lot about what's going on with me as an illustrator, but I don't want to get trapped by the limitation. So I will now talk more about other things in my life and hopefully that will get me in track to love my blog and to talk more openly.
So far I like the new look of my blog. :)

4. Childrensillustrators.com/aramkim
-> Yes. Have you noticed the new cool banner on the right?! I did open a new account with them and worked all day to put my portfolio together on their site. I'm quite happy with the portfolio there. Looks nice and organized. Actually liking it better than my personal site, I guess. They look more focused and consistent. But I still like www.AramKim.com portfolio because it shows my history. It might be a little off from what art directors would like to see, but it shows how I have been working and how my style has been changed. I like that. (But I will need an update for that site very soon, too...So much work to do!!)

5.
It really has been busy, busy, busy past 2 months. Now things seem to slow down a little bit, but not really. A lot of new projects are coming up. Hoping to get some good rest until this weekend.
Tired, but feeling very good especially with Spring around the corner!

Sleepy Christmas Eve

Horang sleeps...


But she is still sleepy...


So she sleeps some more... (a lot more in truth...)


When she wakes up, she gotta scratch her face with some edges of something.


She doesn't know this winter a lot of people would see her sleeping.

Merry Christmas! :)

Sun Basking Turtle

“Being slow is being faster.”
It is an old Korean saying.

I learned that it was true when I started printmaking. When I rushed, it always went wrong and took much longer. There is so much time for waiting when I do printmaking. I, being used to do things quickly and efficiently, couldn’t stand the waiting time. I often rushed the process, wanting to finish it up quick so that I can do some other “useful things,” then totally screwed it up, having to start over. But as I did the process slower, eventually I got the result faster, and of course better.

I still have to learn how to slow down and not to think about efficiency all the time. Not everything needs to be “useful.”

Sometimes it is good to be a sun basking turtle.