Family

Dear Ally,

Officially you're moving to Taiwan on the 9th of June, so I wanted to make sure I got these paintings to you before you leave. I'll be bringing them home with me next week. I hope that when you see the painting in your room in Taiwan you'll know that I'm always thinking and loving you.

There are some things you need to know about your family. By the time you read this, you'll experience a lot of hardship, a lot of drama, a lot of learning and all without me right next to you. I hope that our skype sessions will keep us in touch, but now that we're going to be so far away I want to remind you about a few things:

1. Your parents have a huge heart. They love you, cherish you, and will do anything for you to see that you're set for life. They've lived a hard life and they only hope that your life will be easier. Give them some slack when you are older!! They're getting older too!

2. Family will always be there for you. This move is tough because we're all going our separate ways... but no matter when or where if you call me I'll make sure I'm there. You come first in my life. Always.

3. We're going to disagree on a lot of things. Culturally, we're going to be raised differently. In terms of family, I never had relatives besides our immediate family whereas you're going to get the whole basketful of Chens. Though we're going to be very different, I hope that though any time of disagreement, you know I will always love you. ALWAYS.

Basically, I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU miss Allyson Chen. This means unconditionally, through any mistake that you might make, through any struggles we might face.

And I'm going to miss you. It's already hard just talking to you on the phone without wanting to run hundreds of miles up the coast of California and squeeze you.

I love you, and I can't wait to see you in a week. This is going to be the best week ever. I'm taking you EVERYWHERE.

Your anxious and obsessive sister,
Sheila

Underpaintng, Acrylic


Background almost done, painting of Mommy and Me in the bg, Acrylic

"Family" Acrylic

Abstract background, Acrylic

"Dear Ally, I'll always love you." Acrylic

Progress Report

More progress on Spud the Giraffe:

Spud's neck, Acrylic


Spud on my wall, Acrylic


Spud on the floor, my feet on a chair. Acrylic

Spud is basically done though I want to go back to the bottom square and work on the shading more. This is also considered unfinished because I still want to make the entire giraffe, but unfortunately my apartment walls are not tall enough for my life sized Spud to exist.... Also I want to add a large tree in the background. Lots of things to do with this one, but so far it's perfect the way it is ;)

My painting for my mama:

Underpainting, Acrylic


Finished background, Acrylic


Mommy and Me, Acrylic

This is the first time I ever painted people, and also the first time that I distorted the background to create a blurry feel. I like how things turned out, but I still want to go over some details to make it better! Personally, it looks better in real life!

Dear Ally,
Its been hard this week knowing that you'll be gone.. but that's what this blog is for. When you grow older, I hope you'll read these posts of your 21 yr old sister and just know how important you are in my life.. this transition into something new is so hard to bear because I don't want to be separated from you or from mom and dad. You're so precious to me. Right now you're only five but I can see through the trials our family goes through that you'll be a strong, tough cookie. You're so much fun, so kind, and so loving to all the people who are blessed to have you in their lives.

Ugh, I really hate how you're going to be across the world in just a few weeks.

So while you're there amongst our distant family (though they wont be as distant to you as they are to me), I'll be here painting.. with you in my heart and on my mind always.

I love you.
Much more than you know.
I miss you already..
Your heart-broken but hopeful sister,
Sheila

April Showers Better Frkin Bring May Flowers

Dear Ally,

Someday you will walk across these dreaded birds named crows. They are not your friends. Sometimes they will be perched on a fence that you often walk by to get to the bus. They purposely plan themselves so that you cannot avoid them, no matter what. Sometimes they will not move from the fence, despite the fact that you're two feet away and most animals will run away at that point. After walking away from the bird, it sometimes might fly from behind you and think your hair is worthy of nesting.

I advise you, dearest Ally, to take a large stick and whack the daylights out of it.

Love,
Your Very Angry but Alive Sister
April 5, 2011

"Fckin Bird" Sketch, graphite

Dear Ally,

We're a strange family. For some reason whatever living thing our mother feeds (plants, fish, dogs, us..) they sprout like giraffes. This is why giraffes are your sister's favorite animal. They're weird, they're abnormally tall, and they appear on commercials as mini giraffes that make your sister laugh with an "ooh hoo hoo hoo hoo!"

Get a giraffe.

Love,
Your Giraffe-stricken sister
April 18, 2011

"Walking on Library Walk" Tanbark

Phase one, Acrylic

Phase 2, Acrylic"Spud" Acrylic (not completed yet)

Goodbye Winter Quarter

"Spud the Giraffe" Acrylic

"Rooted Conflict" Water Color, Acrylic

"Silent Massacre at Home" Acrylic, Based on "Massacre at Chios"

"The Elite" Acrylic

"Invisible" Pen

End of Summer Classes

First off,

AUG 8, 1:00-1:30PM PT, PLEASE VOTE FOR ME #63!

"You Got Mail!" Acrylic

Did this today to submit in a contest for one of Dice Tsutsumi's original artworks! For those who don't know (and you should so now you will!) Dice is one of my FAVORITE Pixar artists. I love his artwork. Love. Adore. It inspires me all the time to push myself harder and try new techniques. To have one of his artworks will be.. well.. amazing. If not, it'll be nice for him to notice me? Even a bit?

Oh, he was also the art director for Toy Story 3. Yeah.

PLEASE VOTE!

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I apologize for the lack of blogging. My excuse is that my classes got harder and took up a large chunk of my time. And I've been feeling extremely exhausted lately, which I'll blame on being female and on my thyroid :D

Here are artworks from my figure drawing class:

Left: Soft Pastel, Right: Graphite

Soft Pastel


Soft Pastel


Soft Pastel


Soft pastel

Here are my finished 3x5 series and my final painting from Acrylic class!

Acrylic


Acrylic


Acrylic


Acrylic


Acrylic


Acrylic (2x4 feet! First big canvas attempted)

Hopefully next time I will be able to post new soft pastel drawings. I'm feeling really inspired by Bill Cone. I'm going to try and imitate his style!

Until then,
Love- Sheila

Better late than never?

I'm sorry for the late post. Yesterday I spent my morning painting and the evening with a special man. Hope you enjoy this!

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The next two are tiny 5x7 canvas paintings. I'm doing a series of six, but here's a sneak peak on the first two! It's from my airplane ride with the lover on our six months with his brother as pilot. <3>
Dear Crystal Adams, I hope you do not see this until it arrives in NZ ;) If you do, don't say anything til you get the actual painting! Heehe. It's still in process, but it is almost done!


Hi. I am Angie's lemons. Nom. This was after being super frustrated with one of my other paintings. I decided to join in on the assignments to beginning class was doing. :)



Herro Miss Skeleton! First time with a traditional pen and ink wash. This might be my favorite way of sketching now :)


Gorgeous woman, but it was a bit hard drawing her. Not a lot of variety so it was not as fun, but still great practice.




Just going to call her the hottest model EVER. What amazing curves in all the most amazing places. Damn.

Tralala

This week has been rough but through it all I've been sketching and painting to help time by. Here are some ideas I want to put in the apartment next year! My scanner is too small to scan the entire page on the last two, and I swear you can read it in real life; the quality is kind of shitty. My bad.

Theres a lot more coming :) It's nice to be painting so much again.

Daily Routine, Acrylic

"If you think you know it all, you're a fool for sure; real survivors learn wisdom from others" -Poverbs 28:26

"There are people who make things happen, those who watch what happens, and those who wonder what happened"