Flower names

I had a tea and the name translated to "Thousand sun rouge." Pretty name.

Audrey Hepburn from Funny Face

Michael's is having a contest!!! They're taking you to Paris if you win! The theme is "Springtime in Paris," and you can bake, draw, do floral arrangements, blah blah blah. Check out paris.michaels.com.

Anywho, I did an illustration of Audrey Hepburn from the movie "Funny Face." It's only appropriate to draw a character so in love with Paris for this submission. What do you think?

Website update!

Hello all!

Since last post, I have been directing a musical with the music teacher, painting and drawing more, and overall enjoying my life.
To show case that check out my updated website:

mikajnakano.com

Portrait #1

Portrait of my friend

"Laraba" gouache and pen.

Piece for Blooms of Nigeria, http://bloomsofnigeria.tumblr.com/

Beautiful project where female illustrators were names of the abducted girls from Nigeria to illustrate with a single flower.
I had "Laraba," which means "Wednesday daughter."

HURRAY RAVENS!

Congrats to Ravens!!! I am so excited to be living in this city filled with so much excitement.
To honor the Ravens and my pride for the team, I painted Ray Lewis in my sketchbook.
Wishing them great luck and amazing victory for the Superbowl!

(Sorry for the bad quality - I really should get a scanner so I don't have to update my illustrations using Photobooth).

Testing dollar items

Yesterday I went to a Japanese dollar store called Daiso.

They have amazing stuff there! And I found some brushes, watercolor, and air dry clay.

This is me testing out the clay.

Pretty snazzy.
Can't wait til I get to paint 'em!

I only got the black ink, but they turned out pretty cool!

That page was my last page for my sketchbook. Gotta find a new one.
Until then, I'll be drawing in paper napkins and such. You know, the usual art people paper.

Dana Scully

I've been waiting for so long, and now that I've had the chance, I totally forgot to show you the final drawing of Dana Scully!
Last week was the opening reception for the Light Grey Gallery; it's too bad I couldn't make it because from the pictures on flickr the reception seemed like such an amazing event!
Here's some information about the gallery I had the opportunity to contribute in:
"Curated by Light Grey Art Lab's own Lindsay Nohl, Francesca Buchko, Chris Hajny and Jenny Bookler, Girls: Fact + Fiction is a spectacular new exhibition that celebrates women from history, literature, film, music, culture, politics... and everything else!"

View their gallery for more up coming events and information regarding the gallery: http://blog.lightgreyartlab.com/

To purchase a print or a booklet with many other amazing works by illustrators, visit http://lightgreyartlabshop.bigcartel.com/product/pre-order-of-girls-fact-fiction-book

Thanks! :)

Persephone #2

I forgot to upload this! But I redrew Persephone with a whole new concept.

This is it ladies and gentlemen, Persephone:

Lifestyles

To make a gift for each of my students in Lifestlyes, and by "my" students I mean Dan Krall's students that I'm TI-ing (Teacher Instructor-ing), I compiled a calendar for them using their illustrations I assigned 2 weeks ago.

This is what I drew for them. :)

Map - Barcelona!!! TEN PACES

Woohoo! Ten Paces this week...MAPS!
Julia Kostreva did the original sketch and I did the final.
To be honest, I don't think I did justice to the sweet city of Barcelona.
Sooo critiques are welcome, but please be gentle, colors kinda exploded on me. Meh.

Just for fun, this is the sketch I did for Map...TO DEATH! Muahaha!

 

And I can't be any more happier with the result of what Natalie Andrewson did.

Isn't she amazing?!

Travelogue: Baltimore

Helloooooo Baltimore!

This is my final piece to complete my Travelogue Fashion series. Hope you liked them!
My works will be up in the Fox building at MICA for another week, so check them out and draw/write something in my sketchbook if you'd like!

Travelogue: São Tomé!

My second fashion illustration:São Tomé

Tomorrow I'll post my final series: Baltimore!
People seem to like that one the most. We'll see how you feel.

Let me know if you have any comments/questions about these illustrations!

LA - sketchbook

More scanned!

 

Ladi da.

That's it! I have more but I want to show more of my other stuff.
I'll upload the sketches for my LA pocket book soon. Stay tuned!

For Dad's work - princess series

Last but not least, and definitely my favorite working on these series: Princesses!

I had trouble figuring out how to make a green castle look good...I suppose I managed.

Next project is to work on my Summer thesis. I'll talk about that more next.

For Dad's work - ballet series

Summer's here!
Now that school's over, it's time for me to show the world what I've been up to.

My father works as an craft manufacturer and he needed illustration series for the girls.

So here's my first one's. I have 4 girls in total, but I'll just show you the 2 for now. Here they are!

All done in Illustrator

If you like, check out his website: http://www.sakuracraft.com/

Art Market!

Last year I sold 2 different screen prints:

"Under the Sea"

and

"Into the Woods"

These are both on white background, but I sold larger prints with tan colored paper, which were beautiful!
I still have more to sell if you're interested.

Okay fine...

I give in.

Let me retreat myself back to the internet world,
and show you all my works:


But to begin with,
I just got an e-mail from Anna M.!
She is a wonderful and sweet lady who has commissioned me to make 2, 8"x10" art work for her 2 year old daughter.
So what do I draw?

A flying pig and sheep of course!

Here they are:

Both done by gouache, but the pig was altered just a tad with Photoshop.

The assignment for this was
 2, 8"x10" images, appropriate for a 2 year old daughter for her room decorated mainly in pink and green.

bunny ABC

I haven't updated in SOOOO long!

So, I'm going to upload a drawing...that I did a year ago. But good nonetheless!

 more will be posted soon...

Seriously, how do people update their blogs/websites so frequently? I need an assistant...

Genie the Giraffe - finals

Yayyy so I finished some! Check it!

This is what the cover looks like...:

The writing for the title "Genie the Giraffe" and the little window for Genie is actually open so when you open it, you see this...

I printed the mock-up at Kinko's and the images came out a little more saturated, but fortunately (?) my class liked it more saturated. So I suppose I should be more confident with the colors I choose and brighten them up a tad more. We'll see.

Here's a little snip-it on the first page. Mind you, It's a pop-up so Genie's head is supposed to raise up when you open the book.

Critique away my friends!