Ahi Tuna Bowl, Jakarta Bombing and Ramadhan Week #1

*The Mother We Share - CHVRCHS playing in the background*

So many things happened lately. 

In fact, too many emotions crumpled together all at once. Last week I was having one of the best times with my old friends from Soho (Ogilvy). We had dinner at Kashiwa, one of the best Japanese restaurant in Blok M area, in the same square with Daitokyo - but the queue is crazy.  I ordered quite a lot at that time because I was really hungry so I had a cold soba and a lot of grilled skewers. Ugh, so good. I met with my former colleagues, whom I don't really prefer to be called as friends, I think the bond is more like cousins. We rarely meet, I rarely reply their group chats, but once we are together, we couldn't stop laughing. They all are older than me, to call them friends is an understatement. 

While we were having dinner, I received a screenshot text from a friend telling that there was a bomb exploded near to my old house. I was pretty worried at that time and immediately checked my parents, my sister and my closest friends. Last year another bomb exploded at Thamrin area and I wasn't as scared as this time. I don't know, maybe because it exploded at an area that is really familiar to me. It's an area that I used to pass every day to get to my house. It's very close, not even 1 km far. I moved a year ago to a new house with my mom and I really thank God for that. The social atmosphere in Jakarta hasn't got any better, well maybe a tiny bit, after the governor election last month. It feels like everyone has an agenda and everything doesn't feel the same anymore. And this thing happened. It feels so chaos and I choose to stay away from the online world quite a lot and also physically. I chose to stay at home or at my Mom's house, because that's where I feel safe the most.

A scanned tissue paper - 

that pink stain is actually juices from dragon fruit that spilled onto my white desk.

These Instax below features a few different events from my recent daily happenings. Our newly installed floating desk from Ikea, which now is a perfect display for my books. My Alice's book (Yayoi Kusama) that I haven't finished yet. An Instax of my hubby looking messily handsome (I love man with beard and now I married one, ha!). Honu, a newly Poké bar in Kemang - an area that I love & hate the most. I tried their Two & Two poke bowl and boy, I have to go back there soon because they're so good. 

Did a few shots wearing a home dress (Daster, in Bahasa Indonesia) 

that I used to wear to the office back in 2012. And an old denim jacket.

Me - Puri - Katherine Karnadi - Kitty Manu at Instax SQ10 launch event at Lucy in The Sky

These squared Instax are dream came truuuu. Fujifilm invited me to their Instax SQ10 event a couple of weeks ago and I ended up wanting their new squared Instax really bad on my way home from the event. The Instax SQ10 camera has a screen on it so we can see the pictures before we decide to print it into a square Instax. Crazy, I know, they're like violating the unwritten rules of Instax - BUT I LOVE IT hahaha. And a squared Instax? Count me in.

I might be sharing more Instax in the next few posts because I have tons of it scattering on my desk. Thanks to Fujifilm for the gold Instax Mini 70 I received a few months ago, 

My Second Workshop This Year! OMG

Besides having live illustrating sessions at Edwin’s Gallery FashionArt Market, I also had my fashion illustrating workshop there. This is probably my second or third workshop this year, I’ve been very slow in hosting workshops or private sessions this year. First, because after I got married, I moved around so much and it was pretty hard to catch up and hold workshop. Second, I realised that hosting workshop really take a lot of time and efforts from my end. I have an intern who helped me doing workshops last year, but as this year the number of workshop is pretty limited, my intern helped me remotely and I did all the on-the-day preps by myself. But don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy my time doing workshop, talking in front of the participants, sharing all my tips and tricks in learning how to create fashion illustrations. But as I am half introvert, meeting a lot of people and talking constantly for two hours is a challenge, even until now. The third reason is simply I want to take a step back and learn more this year. I want to be able to have enough time to feed myself knowledge and new skills. Anyway, let’s talk more about my workshop last weekend!

I had this new idea in mind of having my studio set up in the workshop room. I brought my illustrations and sketches to the room, along with my tools like brushes, paints, pencils, etc. I wanted to share a bit of my world with the workshop participants. I also did a few illustrating demo so the participants could see how I do my stuff. Seems like this method is pretty effective because all the participants are actively asking me questions about the techniques or the executions. I’m also surprised by their drawing results. Seems like what they need is only advises on how to improve their illustrations. So proud!

Drawing Fashion Portraits at Edwin's Gallery

Did a two-days-live-illustrating session this weekend at Edwin's Gallery FashionArt Market. It was pretty fun to do live illustrating in an art gallery, even though I feel like a piece of dust when surrounded by the greatest artists' works there. I mostly met the people I had met a year ago at the exact same event - and they remembered me! How happy!

Some of the illustrations I did during the sessions.

Day Trip to Hakone (Photo Diary)

On my last visit to Japan, me and R decided to go to Hakone for a day trip. We were planning to hop on the cruise but as we got in Hakone, it was already too late in the afternoon so we missed the cruise. We went high up to the beginning of the mountains by the cable trains and things got too cold as the weather dropped to 2 degrees. We managed to go to Hakone Open Air museum, which was reaaallyyyy big and full of art installations. There I witnessed my first sakura ever in Japan. We were in a rush so we saw everything in the museum area on a glimpse. It was a fun day afterall with my hubby :)

 

FAQ - Your Questions Answered!

This article will be gradually updated, if you have questions, just write it down below and I'll have it answered in this post.

How do you create your work?

• I mix a bit of everything: Watercolor, gouache, pencil, brush pen, markers and photoshop.

Which university did you attend?

• Universitas Indonesia - Communication (Advertising major)

How do you become an illustrator?

What equipment do you use?

• Paints: Sakura Mat watercolors, Simbalion, Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors (Iridescent Bronze and Interference Silver), Acryla Gouache, Gansai Tambi (only a few colors from the pull out palettes)
• Brush pen - Alcohol based: Copic Ciao, Copic Sketch
• Brush pen - Water based: Marvy Artist’s Brush, Tombow ABT
• Brush pen - Ink based: Faber-Castell PITT Artist Pen, ZIG (Memory System)
• Pencils: Faber-Castell 2B graphite pencil, Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer for colored pencils
• Brush: LYRA (I mostly use the rounded brush between #3 - #5, the biggest one I own is the #12), Camlon Pro angled brush #4
• Paper: Canson Aquarelle (blue cover) and Arches cold pressed for watercolor, Canson Marker (purple cover) for markers
• Others: My Macbook Pro 13-inch, Canon CanoScan LiDE 120 for scanning my works and Canon EOS M10 for taking pictures of my work

Can I interview you for my blog or school/uni projects?

• Feel free to drop me an email, I’ll try to do my best to answer. Please be moderate on the list of questions as a long list will take longer time to answer depending on my deadlines. 

Can you do custom designs for personals?

• I’m sorry I can not at the moment

Do you teach private lessons?

• Yes I do, private and small group (up to 5 people). Email me to ps.dinda@gmail.com for details

How can I have you in my events doing live illustrations?

• Please email me to ps.dinda@gmail.com

Can you illustrate for my book?

• Yes, if you already have a clear brief on how many and what kind of illustrations do you need. I don’t do page layout, illustrations ONLY.