San Smith

Hanging origami crane tutorial

So! As requested, here is a quick little tutorial on how to make Senbazuru, aka hanging origami cranes.

A little info from wikipedia on Senbazuru:

千羽鶴, Senbazuru is a group of one thousand origami paper cranes held together by strings. An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury.

 

You can buy kits to create Senbazuru, but since I've been trying to be thrifty I decided to just buy 1000 sheets of origami paper and figure it out myself. I think the standard is to hang 40 cranes on 25 strings, but I've been experimenting with different ways to space out the cranes to look nice while I work towards 1000... Here is what I've come up with so far!

Here are instructions for making origami cranes, and above is everything you'll need for this project! If you don't have origami paper, you can purchase some at your local shop (or online!) or make your own by cutting a sheet of paper into a perfect square. You could use magazines, wrapping paper, old letters or whatever! Be creative and have fun :) The paper I used was about 2x2" - I think this size is easier to fold than larger sheets and takes up less space when completed.

Step 1: Cut a piece of thread the length you want of cranes, tie a knot at the end and thread through your needle. Then push the needle through the opening at the bottom of the crane.

Step 2: Continue pushing the needle through the center of the crane until it is threaded. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for each crane added until you have the desired amount for your strand.

Step 3: Lay the threaded cranes on a flat surface and spread apart gently on the string until they are in the position you would like them to be. Once positioned, place a small drop of super glue on the entrance and exit point of each crane and leave to dry. If you want to stack your cranes directly on top of each other like traditional Senbazuru, then skip this step.

And that's it! Hang the final piece however you'd like. I taped a few to the underneath of a shelf until I can get more made for some sort of complete piece.

Hope you enjoyed this, if you guys make any let me know! And if you'd like to know more about Senbazuru, I recommend this reading traditionscustoms.com.

The Totoro cookie tutorial will be next Tuesday!

Random sketches

So I had hoped to the tutorials up today, but I think I'm going to end up posting them on Monday... I'm feeling a little run down from bad sleep and am just going to take it easy - sketch slowly and read a bit!

I wanted to post though - so here are a few sketches of stuff I'm working on/brainstorming about. I'm trying to figure out ideas for new sticker sets - I think it would be fun to do stickers of a cute girl character... I keep drawing her with pinky tones but I think I might go with blue or purple in the end! The boots/dog are from some old magazine clip I had in my office - and the rest is just mishmash from other stuff I'm working on.

That's all - not much to say today! Hope you guys have a great weekend <3

Fancy cat drawing + Things I love Thursday

So I found this in my tea stash the other day, and while trying it out I noticed the ridiculous cat on the packaging... seriously what is going on there? A Siamese cat drinking tea and painting in some asian-inspired studio?! I posted it on twitter and flickr got some great responses, such is as:

And then I started thinking, "Wow, that cat IS classy. I gotta draw that."

(Btw, Wendyness =  http://wendyness.com/ Go check her out!)

So here is my interpretation of this amazing cat:

And a haiku in honor of the tea-ness and my new Siamese cat friend:

Drinking tea, I see
fancy cat whom I admire.
Wow he's so classy!

Heheheh... Anyhow.
Things I love Thursday! Here we go:

SoundlyAwake's youtube channel - hillllarrrious. I love all his characters! (Thanks to see_katie_draw who indirectly introduced this to me via JP Metz's channel!)
Riding my bicycle to the park on my lunch breaks... I've been taking my dog, magazines and my new portable radio and its so fun! I am excited about Spring.
Other goofy outdoor things - I really love walking to the neighborhood pizzeria. Check out how huge the slices are there!
Playing Um Jammer Lammy (still)
Working on mini comics and writing on the script for my larger dream comic. Very exciting!! Nothing amazing to share yet, but I will once its more solid.
This ridiculous drawing my friend Seth did of myself and Chris from his dream last night. Uhhh! What!? I like how he drew my hair and the fact he called it "What I dreamt about Thursday".

Last but not least, THE SCOTT PILGRIM FINAL BOOK COVER annnnd TRAILER! Hello, awesome!

Nabbed this from the offical movie site.

I love the casting and costume design in this! It's exactly as I had hoped. I'm so excited about this movie its ridiculous! Also, I might get to help out with the Scott Pilgrim release party at Criminal Records, which would be super fun and just add more fuel to the geeking-out fire. I love good ol' nerdy excitement. Hope you guys are having an awesome Thursday! What are you excited about right now?

Visual wishlist of summery wants

Lately I've been in a shopping/window(internet window) browsing mood... I blame it on spring fever - but I keep wanting books, cute clothes, a new bag for carrying my stuff in when I'm out and about... But I'm about to go on a trip to San Francisco so I really shouldn't be buying things! That want want want feeling is pretty naggy and keeps lingering, so I thought I'd draw out all the main items I wish I could buy right now.

Skull Cardigan  |  Summery Blouse  |  Pink Head Necklace - long discontinued, only on ebay :*(
Green Tea Sampler pack  |  Graphic Novels (too many to list)
Bust, Giant Robot and Zipper Subscriptions  |  Retro style airline bag  |  Glow in the dark stars
and gorgeous teal cowboy boots to wear with the cut-off shorts I made

Look how happy I am with all this stuff... clearly I need it in my life! Hahaha...

Ah well. A girl can dream! (and then draw it!) Sorry no color, I'm practicing working in black and white right now since I'm going to start trying to do mini comics. (Its a lot quicker for me to do things this way.)

On the note of money, I had a company contact me week ago asking if they could pay me to write on my blog about their site. The site was for coupons, it seemed cool and was designed nicely - but it didn't really sit well with me... I thought it might offend you guys? It just seemed kinda weird to me - so I turned them down after talking about it. I don't mind doing interesting side projects for money, but I wasn't sure if that was a good route to take with my blog since it had nothing to do with illustration, crafts or anything else I like. What do you guys think about stuff like that? Would you have done it?

Kiki's Delivery Service doodles

Ahhh, as usual there is never enough time in the week. Where did this week zip by? I still have so many drawings I want to share but they aren't quite ready... I thought I'd at least share some of my Kiki sketches though! I'm working on doing a full illustration of Kiki flying through the sky (see below sketch) and the rest of the stuff is just doodles that happened while working. If you haven't seen Kiki's Delivery Service, I totally recommend it - especially if you are a fan of Totoro or other Miyazaki films. The story is about a young girl going to live in a town by herself for a year to establish herself as a witch, and while doing so she learns the important lesson of believing in herself and following her heart. Love love love this movie...

One of my favorite parts is the opening scene where she is flying on her broom and listening to 50's sounding Japanese music. (The song is "Rouge no Dengon" by Arai Yumi for the curious!) It makes me want to go grab a battery powered radio and listen to fun oldies while riding my bicycle... I found a clip of it on youtube, check it out: