Thirteenth-cover

wooow... I finally finished the cover! yay!
All I have to do for the summer is coloring the center page and making the end papers.
Can't wait to bind this book!
Thanks for All the American Boys who are in this book!
xoxoxoxo

Finished drawing book project

Here is one of my favorite pages of the book.
It is 16 pages for total, and I made 5 copies today.
The title is "I love NY's Street Vendors."
I'm not 100% happy for this book, but like the way it came out well on the brown papers.

I can't believe I've never missed Carol's class even one time.
Half of the classes were field trips = on location drawing.
From her class, I found out NY has so many unknown beautiful places.

Still goody two shoes~...
:P

Teachers

Here is my beloved teachers' pattern.
You know who is who?
lol

Twelveth

Meeting American Boys were all my dreammmm.... SHIT!
:P

Eleventh

Almost there!
whoop whoop!!

Very late award pics

Click HERE to see Society of Illustrator 52 Reception Gala photos.
Thanks so much to Jessica & Kate for the awesome photos!
I'll show my parents, and they can believe it was really happened... haha
xoxo

Twitter?

There is another world existed.
My twitter
umm.....

Tenth

One of my favorite movie stars Quinton Aaron who is from the Blind Side became a UBS baseball player in Chicago.
Cute muscular illustrator Rich Tu takes Miss Eggplant to San Francisco bay with UFO.

I just got a good news from ADC that I got a gold cube in 89th Annual.
I've been thinking of not attending the award presentation, but seems like I should go there.
They want me to upload an acceptance speech for the Awards Presentation- what is this? (oh...no more speech...)
aww... but Thanks for choosing my work.!
I almost cried, but happy... really.
:)

Nineth

Hawaiian boy who is Will's cousin, and my lovely Twinkie Harold.

Eighth

Here is the eighth finished page.
My American Boy project actually got inspired by this parody by Timothy DeLaghetto who is my favorite You Tuber.
Enjoy his video! :)

Seventh

Wow... this page took hours hours and hours.!
Ray Jones takes Miss Eggplant to his hood~ ;)

Sixth

Taking roller coaster from New York to LA with a representation of cute white guys- Bartlett.

Fifth

Miss Eggplant lives in a doll house.
The American boy is Kumar! :D

Fourth

American boy took Miss Eggplant to a diner.
She tried to eat American food with chopsticks.
:)

interview

Ariyana Suvarnasuddhi who is a brilliant senior illustration student in MICA asked me to interview for her thesis project.
Her major theme of work is food, and has created great images based on Asian culture.
She made awesome questions all about me and my work, and I'd like to share some questions that people occasionally asked me. :)

Do you consider the fact that you had to learn American culture in order to work in American illustration as an advantage, disadvantage or double-edged sword for your work?

For about two years, I had a hard time adapting to American culture with regards to my work and personal life.

I saw everything in my narrow view that I had had for 23 years in Korea, and struggled with using the second language. However, after a while, I realized that my Asian base could be used an advantage of my work. Many Americans are interested in Asian culture, but I have a totally different view. Even though I have great painting and drawing skills in art, if I didn’t really understand cultures, they are useless. Illustration is a language, so it’s more important for artists to absorb different cultures in their life.

How did you come up with the idea for Eggplant girl? Most of your themes revolved around food, religion, and self-image/memoirs. Do you wonder where these themes stem from?

I decided to become vegan when I started Grad school. Since then, my major dishes changed to vegetables, and I was compelled to study about vegan life. When my mom visited me last summer, she said “ American eggplants are huge~!!” because Korean eggplants are less substantial. What my mom said inspired me. The shape of American eggplants reminded me of a chubby body, and I was attracted by its name. How come Egg+Plant could be a name of a vegetable, and it was funny enough for me. Then I put my character into Miss Eggplant.

Most of my works are from my personal life experiences. Sometimes I’m producing the drawings to my work using symbols. Most of the characters are people who are around me during the time.

Since your current work is a series of comics, do you see yourself as fine art or comic oriented? There are some stories that are very personal, like your ex-boyfriend series, did you feel embarrassed about showing them at first?

Yes, I did. My fine art base is the strongest thing I have. It helps me think more out of the box using shifting approaches and a variety of styles in all kinds of my work, and made my eyes open wide. I didn’t really have so many ex- boyfriends, but I thought as long as I made them funny stories even though it will be my fake autobiography, it was going to be a cool project. But I was embarrassed when people believed I had seven- ex boyfriends. For now, I have no plan to continue the project. (I’m truly conservative about this matter.)

Third

Now, I'm pretty fast working digitally.
:)

Second

The boys who will take Miss Eggplant everywhere in America in the rest of the book!
I picked the boys based on this info from Wikipedia-

Race/Ethnicity (2008)[127]
White	79.8%
African American	12.8%
Asian American	4.5%
Native American and Alaska Native	1.0%
Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander	0.2%
Multiracial	1.7%
Hispanic (of any race)	15.4%

The first "finished" piece

Digital printer made me really miss working at the print shop.
It is much easier and faster for me to silkscreen than print out by computer.
I wasted so many papers...

Here is my first spread for the American Boys book.
Now, I realized that it was quite a huge project to finish in a semester. ( just keep living in a dork life.)
Hope you like it. :)

Here is the meaning of F.O.B from Wikipedia.
Will said that I'm a lemon. (not a banana yet, but also not a mango either.)
good good~ :)

Fresh Off the boat (or "F.O.B.") is a phrase used to describe immigrants that have arrived from a foreign nation and have not yet assimilated to the host nation's culture, language, and behavior.^[1] It can also be used to describe the stereotypical behavior of new immigrants as, for example, their poor driving skills,^[2] and their use of 'broken' English.

In the sociology of ethnicity, this term can be seen as an indicator of a nature of diasporic communities, or communities that have left their country of origin and migrated, usually permanently, to another country. The term has also been adapted by immigrants themselves or others in their community who see the differentiation as a source of pride, where they have retained their culture and have not lost it to assimilation.

In some instances, an "ethnic community" may find it difficult to shed a FOB image, independent of the degree of their assimilation.^[3]