Sketch to Life

Storefront concept sketch, January 2013

Oxtail Studio storefront, August 2013

silkscreened linen pillow

2012 Gift for Kokua

Home-sewn clothes for visit to Europe

A glance at some garments I sewed for my trip to Vienna, Slovenia and Italy this summer.

Clockwise from top left: Black-white-striped stretch-cotton mini dress; Reversible gray-blue-striped cotton tunic; Blue-skirted stretch-cotton tank dress; Earth dot-striped cotton tank; Floral cotton pillowcase tank; Eggplant strech-dress. All patterns were drafted from existing clothes or originally designed on the fly, with the exception of the Blue-skirted dress (for which I sewed an original top to an existing skirt).

the Whole advent calendar...

Now that the 2011 holidays are behind us, here are some photos – from behind the scenes – of what was INSIDE the advent calendar I made for Julian, and how I put the thing together. Enjoy! (And Happy New Year!)

advent calendar art for Julian

I made Julian an advent calendar for his birthday this year, and since December is RIGHT around the corner, I thought I'd share just the front of the calendar with you all... at the end of the year (after Christmas, when he's opened all the windows) I'll post the photos I took of the inside, too!

I was thinking of selling custom advent calendars in limited quantities from my online shop (thesugarpine.etsy.com) next year... it would be a CRAZy etsy experiment if people actually ordered them!

holiday cards going fast

I sold my first few sets of holiday cards from my etsy shop, last week! It's very exciting (and nerve-wracking!) to suddenly have orders lined up, and new empty spaces in my online shop! Wish me luck this holiday season . . .  eek!

KOKUA means "help"

I designed and hand-printed these totes for the front desk staff at the dance studio, as a thank-you (or "Mahalo") from all the teachers and students that they help keep sane.

Bathroom Cleaning Checklist!

I've been meaning to make a cleaning checklist to put up in our bathroom (shared by four people on a regular basis) before my housemate Katy gets back from a long trip... she's been gone for over a month, and now that she'll be back in about one week, I felt it was time to get our bathroom cleaning act together...

SF Ethnic Dance Festival notecards

so after I gave the hula dancer block print to my Kumu Hula, she asked me if I could design and print cards for the panelists at this year's sfEDF auditions... how cool!  this is the final version of the block print, which I nitpicked for several days, but this one's only printed in my notebook with stamp ink, not the sticky real deal ink.  I also did the text stamps on the left for this project, including the little "SHL" logo which I plan to use on future work!  yay!

Hula Dancer Block Print

I cut this one from two smaller blocks (the seam runs horizontally through the hole in the ipu heke gourd drum) to make a congratulatory card for our Kumu Hula (hula master), Mahea Uchiyama, who's taking a year sabbatical from the hula school to work at World Arts West (the organization that produces the Ethnic Dance Festival).  This will be a transitional growing time for my hula family and myself... wish us all luck in 2011!

Happy Heart Block Print

Made this block print during a Crafternoon a couple weeks ago... I also used it to make some handmade wrapping paper for xmas, which worked out pretty swell and I think I'll do again with other blocks for birthdays and what not.

Holiday Card Block Print

On Thanksgiving Day I felt completely relaxed–  I think the fact that it was a holiday, the fact that everyone ought to relax on that day, lent me such a carefree attitude... that, plus looking forward to our large, collaborative dinner made it all the more nice.  Anyway, after getting my dish going on the stove that morning (collard greens and bacon– nine bunches of collard greens!) I spent some time working on a holiday block print to send to friends and family this year:

(eew, sorry for the hair that got scanned in!)

Tuolumne Camp... special staff tee design

Last week I took my mom, Marija, brother, Genji, and friend, Sara, to our favorite place on Earth, Tuolumne Family Camp on the South Fork of the Tuolumne River, about 1/2 hour from Yosemite National Park.  After camping with my family for the first 15 years of my life, and working for 7 summers on the kitchen staff there, it was my second year not working and my first year back as a camper, doing  a 3-day hula workshop as an Artist-In-Residence.  I had a fantastic time, catching up with our friends on staff and meeting familiar campers, now camper-to-camper, and really soaking in the refreshing sweet forest smells and pure mountain sunlight and starlight... not to mention basking in the sun by the clear, chilly river!  Heavenly!!

While we were there, our friend Sean, who still works on staff, asked if we could draw him a t-shirt design that he would use to silkscreen special shirts for this year's staff.  That afternoon during "Quiet Hour," Sara and I sat down in the shade on our cabin deck, talked about a general concept and then shared some seamlessly free-flowing, enjoyable collaboration in creating this design.  During the next day or so we put aside time to meet Sean during his off-time to prepare the silkscreen and print some test shirts.  I'll post some photos of my shirt soon. . .

note: you can see an animation I did about working in the kitchen at Tuolumne Camp by clicking here.

Finally Photos of the Katz Shop Window

I painted this window/storefront for Mike Katz a few months back and finally went back in some nice weather to photograph it last week.

It's all painted on the inside of the window, so I was crouched up in that small lofty space, starting with the red-orange lettering and bordering with white, then sealing it up. I got on a ladder and did the outside portion last: "Buy/Sell Whole Estates Modern/Unusual Objects/Decor."

I had fun with this job because I did some research and created the retro-modern font myself, plus Mike made me help him figure out the name of the shop and that wording, too. The paint job took a handful of afternoons, but Mike seemed pretty happy with it in the end– he even got me to paint the little Eames chair.

concept work for Katz Shop window

just thought these looked kinda cool afterwards

Kate's Yoga Nidra Flyers

I put these together for my good friend and housemate Katy, who led a gift-based Yoga Nidra class every week this spring... you can see how after printing the first flyer I realized I could go a lot bigger with some things... I could've probably gone even bigger, but there were a lot of elements to balance for these posters.

for now, Katy's away in VT over the summer... more Nidra posters to come in the fall?

Cleavage Night Poster

a poster I put together for "Cleavage Night," an event to raise money for breast cancer research and support, this time taking place at the Missouri Lounge in Berkeley.