🎨 art & chai ☕ Issue #3

Wrapped up my first GN colorist project & DIMNH is an award finalist~ 🖍️🏆

Mar 25, 2023

We’ve hit 50+ subscribers to this newsletter~ 💐 Thank you!

And, after putting 10 months of work into it, I am happy to share that I have finished coloring my first ever graphic novel! ✨

Also, I’ve also come to terms with that fact that I cannot write short newsletters, so, there’s that. 🙈

i) Here’s the cover of GHOST ROAST, my first ever GN, which I’ve colored the interiors of! 🎉🎉🎉 TA-DA!!!~ 🎉🎉🎉

The cover may undergo some changes closer to the release date.

Ghost Roast is written by Shawnelle Gibbs & Shawnee Gibbs, drawn by Emily Cannon and the interior pages (only) are colored by me. I also did the flats for this GN. 👻

This has been my biggest project yet and wow, it has been a roller coaster. 😂

I still can’t believe I did all this work, looking at the 200+ pages, but it’s also a book I am very proud of. I hope to show some pages in the coming few months! 😉

Ghost Roast is available to pre-order and will be out on 10th October, 2023. ✨

Pre-Order GHOST ROAST

ii) In February, my friend (Adelaida) introduced me to Surface Pattern Design and I was blown away. I did not know about the existence of this industry (officially, like there’s a term and everything LOL) and what it even was. And it’s EVERYWHERE! 🤯

I did a free workshop by Bonnie Christine and researched more about SPD while looking up artists who do this. I’ve been interested in creating patterns before but never put more time or thought into it until the workshop. ✨

While I am currently only having fun with this new area of art, I do want to eventually make patterns properly (hello, vector art, after avoiding you for 9 years) and see what other possibilities lie here. 😊

Below is the first pattern I drew early in March and it’s available as a phone-wallpaper for my Ko-fi subscribers. 🎉

And, this is how it’d look like as a phone wallpaper. (For monthly subscribers only!)

Get It Here!

iii) Last time, I shared about the

#The100DayProject Newsletter

. This year, my goal is to draw daily in my sketchbook (so far, I’ve missed 4/32 days ) and to use whatever medium I feel like in the moment, to draw gesture drawings, specifically using reference pictures in the Fat Photo archive. 🙌🏽

I am quite weak at designing fat/plus-sized characters, so I thought, this could be a great practice and so far, it’s been amazing. I don’t force myself to take a long time. Some days, I do the drawing in 2 minutes, and other days, I take 10-15 minutes. The purpose is to build muscle memory, understand the structures and fill the pages of my sketchbook. 😊

Here’s a couple of pages!

i) I had an amazing start to March, what with Arsenal winning 3-2 against Bournemouth, but more importantly, Man Utd losing 0-7 against Liverpool. 😂

It was an exciting weekend! ⚽

ii) I have now resumed revising my Japanese language skills. I am hoping to sit for the N5 (beginners) level exam later this year.

Recently, I also came across another language learner, Victoria,

Study Notepad: Language Studies

, who writes newsletters about their progress regularly and it has really motivated me to get back to my revisions. ✨

An IRL friend also gave me his dad’s old Japanese language books which I’ve already started reading through to retain as much information (casually), as I can.

I started learning Japanese 🇯🇵 during the pandemic. I was lucky to find someone in my “friend of friend” circle who has studied the language and was willing to teach me. It’s been 3 years since I started learning it. My teacher taught me the N5 course for 8 months, after which I have been self-studying (casually) and keeping up with daily Duolingo lessons.

I also started learning Spanish 🇪🇸 (super chill, just for fun) 7 months ago. I’m just learning from Duolingo for now.

iii) Railway stations can be an intriguing place if;

you don’t have to catch a train yourself
you are just going to pick someone up
it’s after 9.30pm

I say this because some platforms would be quite empty and peaceful. I experienced this late February, when I had gone to pick up my maa with my brother. We walked at Platform #7, watched Leicester City vs Arsenal on my phone (Arsenal won 0-1, woo-hoo!), had ice-cream and asked the bookshop if they still get Champak issues or not. They do. 🤩 (I managed to pick up the first issue with my work in it, just a couple of days ago!~)

iv) Super excited to also share that DIWALI IN MY NEW HOME is a finalist for 2022 INDIES Book of the Year Awards by Foreword Reviews! 🪔⭐

We are in the Picture Books, Early Reader (Children's) category; in which illustrations play a significant role in conveying the plot, characters, and ideas, and words are usually present. For ages five to eight. 🥳