Sketching Trip @ The Switzer fall

My teacher organized another outdoor sketching trip to The Switzer fall area. I had just recovered from food poisoning a week ago, and decided that an outdoor sketching trip would be a good thing, so I decided to join them. The group is smaller than usual this time, but it's probably because the weather forecast kept saying that it's supposed to be one of the hottest day in September ever. I packed a lot of drinks and food, so my bags actually had 1/3 art supplies and 2/3 water and food lol.
Drawing outdoors is so hard. It's difficult to find a good spot to sit and my butt would hurt because we tend to end up sitting on rocks and things. Then there are bugs crawling up my legs or ants attacking me. The sun usually would creep up on my paper and shine super brightly, bouncing the light off of the white sheets, hurting my eyes T_T. And I can't move because I'm in the middle of painting from that point of view. Despite all these, it's still a very fun trip. The air is nice, you can hear water streams, the trees are big and it just feels very peaceful *Zen mode* haha. I also always enjoy talking to my teacher's girlfriend. She is such a cool person. It's just that she gives out such a positive vibe and aura. She's also super talented. I want to grow up to be just like her!<--- this sounds so funny lol.

Dreamworks' DreamWorlds show @ USC

A giant statue of Po from "Kungfu Panda"
I went to Dreamworks' Dream Worlds Exhibit at USC today. It was a small gallery, but very inspiring. There were a lot of storyboard sketches, backgrounds, and character ideas/designs. They were also showing previews for "Rise of Guardians". It looks nice!

Chantilly

Black Sesame and Chocolate Choux


Poire
Mitsu and I went to Torrance today. He found Patisserie Chantilly (in Lomita near Torrance) on L.A. Weekly's "99 things you must eat before you die" lol. Well, it was very amazing indeed. They are known for Black Sesame choux cream (cream puff). I normally don't even like black sesame desserts, but after tasting this one, I'm sold. It was not super sweet and the taste of the black sesame was not over powering at all. I also tried their pear cake called Poire (french word for Pear anyways lol). It's soooo good! I really have to go back and eat some more soon.

Bonus pic: Look at all the Japanese snacks that we bought while we were in Torrance!
Snacks!

Dream: Magic garden

I haven't posted about strange dreams in a while. Yesterday's dream was super cool though. I almost want to draw a comic or an illustration based on it. I dreamt that I was a daughter of a botanist. We had a pretty garden in the backyard and there was a walk way with arched top that was filled with plants and vines. That garden was actually connected to another garden that was like a parallel world. It was kind of like walking through the closet in "The Lion, The Witch, and The wardrobe". The arched garden walk way lead to another side with exactly the same layout as our garden, but was filled with carnivorous type of plants that I've never seen before. I saw a boy there and he said his father is also a botanist. I think most of the plants in that world are the carnivorous types. He poked a cluster of colorful flowers with a stick and they kind of swarmed over (like a wave) attempting to eat the stick and broke it. I kind of freaked out. Visually, it was a very beautiful dream. I wanted to keep on dreaming, but then it was time to get up :(. I wish we have the power to continue dreams on the next night.

Birthday

This year, I got some amazing presents from friends. I got a very cute ham plush and a beautiful teal colored necklace. Thank you Lak and Mitsu. Pailin also got me a backpack and some make up too. My dad made baked Ziti. We also went to see Batman (I finally got to see it.) and he also got me a cute little cake ^^.
FSc told me about a new iphone app called Line Camera, and that's what I used to do all the sparkles in the picture above lol

Sister & Nephew

First birthday @ Disneyland!
My beautiful sister came with her cute little baby to visit from Thailand. She also brought his nanny along to help out. He celebrated his first birthday here. It's the first time that I've met her son in person. Babies have such round heads XD. His head is so big that all the collar of his shirts are stretched beyond repair. They had such a hard time putting the shirts over his head lol. It's very funny to how my sister and the nanny has to work so hard to change his shirts. The highlight of the trip is probably Disneyland. We were debating if we should take him for his first birthday or not. (Yay! he's a Leo just like me >:D) In the end, she decided to take him and he had a great day. He loves Toon Town. I think he just likes cars in general. This is actually my first time going to Disneyland with a baby. Here are some pics that I loved the most from the Disney trips.

He also loves Mocha and Sherlock. He'd always try to play with them. We're so lucky that our pets are also very good with children. ^^
He made a new friend while he was here. Liam from next door stopped by and played with him a few times. Liam showed him some basketball and baseball moves. Liam is in Little League. He's my favorite little boy. Isn't he super sweet and super cute? ^^. He even let him borrow his super cool car :)

The super cool car. The super cool car deserved a big picture slot since Reef's expression is also priceless lol. He was so into it.

Klimt @ The Getty

I went to the Getty Museum for Klimt exhibit with Mitsu, Pailin, and her baby. They didn't allow you to take photos inside the gallery, but Mitsu and I brought our sketch pads, so we also did some studies sketches while we were there.


Then we went to Amandine and grabbed tasty sandwiches and desserts :d.

I've been wanting to make origami roses for a while now. I messed up a few times, but eventually I did it! Yay! Now what should I do with them? @_@ lol. I actually learned how to knit recently as well. I feel quite crafty lately haha.

James Jean Prada

James Jean's special edition Prada
I just saw this bag in my mom's closet. My uncle gave it to her. OMG! She doesn't even know who James Jean is! I'm not even into designer's purses, but I'm totally stealing this Mwhahaah *fangirl moment* :p

cool gadgets

new toys! I like compact things because they take up less space. I love walking around Japanese stationary stores. There are so many cute and cool gadgets. I bought some new toys. Aren't they cool? It's hard to tell what they are when they're in their compact forms, but viola! a scissor and a stapler :D so cool!

Double set of lashes

I was at Porto's for lunch and I saw a very pretty little girl. She was probably around 3 years old. She had very pretty eyelashes. They were long, thick, and perfectly curled. Even her lower set of lashes were very long and prominent. Her mother told me that it's actually a birth defect. She was born with double set of lashes. Of all the birth defect huh? Lucky girl.

When I came home, I googled it because it seemed interesting and found out that Elizabeth Taylor also had the same birth defect! It's called "Distichiasis".