Tiramisic Proof

ohohOH and here is the first piece of tiramisu photographic evidence! A very special Tiramisu Diagram obtainer was able to make said dessert for a housewarming party AND SENT ME PROOF!


I am so appreciative.

Some photos from APE 2011

In case you weren't able to stop by, here's our table and what we looked like standing by it.


(Click to make the image bigger.)




And here's me prior to the show, working late into the night at my new medical X-ray light box, which I now love a lot. Look how hard I work for you. Just LOOK

Currently taking commissions!

THE HOLIDAY SEASON IS UPON US.

Therefore I am now taking food illustration commissions, just for this reason. What are you giving for Xmas/Solstice/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa this year?

I can do: Pencil, black and white, full color, etc. I typically draw and ink by hand on Bristol board, add digital color, and print on quality card stock, although I can be talked into selling the original line art too.

Commissions are priced according to what you want illustrated (simple? complicated? 1 item, multiple items?, etc.) + what format you want + shipping. I'm currently just doing food only, please. Basic or limited environments, if any, and no people or animals at this time.

Email me at tracihui@gmail.com and share your deepest, darkest food illustration fantasies with me. Muahahaha
... if I think it's really gross, I just won't sign it.

Happy Brainstorming!

Tiramisu Diagram featured in TDAC!

Just got the news that They Draw And Cook is featuring my tiramisu diagram this week, along with 5 other tiramisu-phile artists. Awesome!

Linky: http://bit.ly/sByeDn











*Note the slightly different layout (compared to the zine or the print).

APE 2011 in The Daily Californian - A write-up on ME!

Can I tell you something excitingOKTHANKYOU

I got a write-up in The Daily Californian, in an article on APE 2011. I'm happily squished in between my favorites Kate Beaton and Shannon Wheeler, and the talented Matt Sundstrom! Thank you Sarah Burke, for the wonderful description. I'm positively chuffed. CHUFFED I tell you!

Here is the article in full:
http://www.dailycal.org/2011/10/10/alternative-press-expo-2011/

There is also audio commentary accompanying said article. Listening to these convention newcomers fall in love with comics because of their experience at APE just fills my heart with joy. That feels way less cliché than it reads.

OMG SRSLY w00t

15 minutes with Jennifer de Guzman (and The Smiths)

Yayyyyyyyy, I'm going to draw Jennifer de Guzman's comic based on "Reel Around the Fountain" for "Unite and Take Over," the new Smiths anthology!


www.jenniferdeguzman.com

NOW FOR SALE: Twin Castle zine + 2 prints!

Now you can buy my Twin Castle zine right here on this blogspot (ooh la la), as well as my Taco and Tiramisu diagram prints! Just click on those handy yellow "Buy Now" buttons in the nav bar on the left and you will get the goods, shipped direct from my zine-making lair. (International friends, email me about shipping.)

Anything else you guys want me to sell online? I mean, stuff I make, of course.


LAST NIGHT AT TWIN CASTLE ZINE - $7 +S/H. 2nd Printing!






TACO PRINT - $4 +S/H






TIRAMISU PRINT - $4 +S/H






FOOD YES, COOK NO #1 - $5 +S/H

APE 2011!

APE was great! It's only my second time exhibiting and I'm excited to say things were all around improved from my first show. And the first show wasn't bad, either. :) I'm slowly figuring out what people like about my work and what of it they want to buy.

I sold out of both my larger prints (save for 1 copy of Midwestern Taco), and sold out of my new color zine "Last Night at Twin Castle." People liked my new illos of Twin Castle food, especially Mr. Friday Fishburger, the vanilla and Sharpied-chocolate Frostees, the most beautious (spelled wrong) corn dog, and the ketchup boats. It's satisfying to see people get enthusiastic about food I love. It also doesn't hurt that most of these foods are iconic-looking already, and sometimes even pretty. American fast food is certainly an interesting subject to draw.

So now what? I'm going to do a 2nd printing of Twin Castle zine and offer it up for sale online, as well as to some local retailers. I'm going to set up another Paypal Buy Now thing for it soon enough but for now, if any of you guys out here in Blogger Landia want to buy a copy, please email me at: tracihui@gmail.com and we'll arrange for it. It's $8 via mail (includes shipping) and I'll throw in a couple extra goodies.

Also, I few of you expressed interest in seeing me illustrate specific foods, i.e. "I would totally buy from you if you did a sushi roll," or "Hey, I like Reuben sandwiches." That got me thinking about taking commissions. Should I? ... Yes of course I should. But would any of you be interested in buying them? Email me if you're interested.

To conclude, here is Mr. Friday Fishburger (and friends). Enjoy! :)

End of July already?

Holly carps, I cannot believe July's almost over already. I seemed to have skipped a whole month of posting! But I can assure you it was for a good reason.

Here are some of the things I've been working on as of late ...






A man talking into a cup and plate! Like you do!
A vector art test.













Mais oui! A french chateau!
A precursor to an art test.









And a special birthday illustration.
A personal art test. This image has been in my mind for months, and it's gratifying to see it out in the world now, so close to the original idea. I've always been frustrated by similar efforts before, so I feel like I've made progress.




These were good reasons, no? Best yet, I'm happy to report that the whole process is getting a little easier ...

.

Group Sketch in the Summer!

(... Grooooooouuuuup Sketch, For EVAH! does no one else get this stuck in their head?) I mostly wanted to call it Group Sketch because it sounded like Group Sex.

ANYWAY, yes, a group of us braved the gloomy weather on Saturday to draw at the Conservatory of Flowers. The last time some of us had been there was back in school, when we had to draw 50 flowers and 50 trees for homework. I think maybe that's the last time I had used the particular sketchpad I had brought, as I found some old drawings of pitcher plants inside it! It was fantastical to be inside the humid white glass building again, albeit overwhelming. Next time we might choose to paint in it, instead of draw. But it was a great challenge for everyone (even the seasoned pros) so, Win.


Golden Gate Park trees. Trees are hard. Perhaps I could have chosen to focus on a single leaf instead.









When it got too cold (I think Lenny got frostbite on his fingers, haha), we took refuge inside the Velo Rouge Cafe to draw old ladies singing jazz and rock improv songs about how it's ok to be queer. Also we drew each other.





Next Group Sketch coming soon! I'm thinking maybe the Oakland Zoo?

.

Zombie Traci

I caught Teh Crud. Teh Brain Crud.

Sickness compromises my brain, Roommate bails me out

4 Sketchbook pages

Bandelier National Monument, NM - Longhouse










Taos Pueblo Cemetery, NM
















Brown Sugar Kitchen, Oakland


















My dirty hair, Everywhere

Updated portfolio, a.k.a. Send work my way!

Finally updated my online portfolio (and my resume, but I'm not posting that here). I've rearranged pre-existing stuff, added a gaming UI menu I did, added some illos in the Magazine category, and added a few pages from both my Sketch Blog and Sketchbook. I like this design a lot more; it's cleaner, simpler.

Let me know what you think. Click the "Portfolio-liolio" hyperlink in the sidebar, or go to: www.krop.com/tracihui
Thanks!

Experimenting with grey areas

This reminds me of this thing we used to do in drama class where we'd take vague dialogue and construct scenes by projecting various emotions onto them.

Although this conversation sorta actually happened, give or take a panel.

Emeryville Cove is for da boids

Did some East Bay sketching this Sunday, testing out a new pen. I forgot how nice it is to be specific in a drawing.

This is Eville Cove's bird refuge. For all the bird refugees. They come over 20-30 birds at a time, sitting on handmade rafts fashioned from bits of blown-out tires, so hungry – most haven't seen the sight of millet in days – driven out from their native home by bird oppressors, the anti-avian guerilla groups of Marin.

Anyway, at the Marina, I got us invited to a party hosted by the people who live in the boats. I would have gone, but the sun was setting, and it was hella windy. I stopped drawing not because I was done, but because I was too cold to stay there.
"Thanks for the invite guys, but I gotta go home!"
"No! We got food! And music!"
"I'm freezing!"
"We got blankets ..."

A comic journal page is in the works. IN MY MIND

Emo Storm Thoughts

It's not often you can walk and smoke in Oakland without being asked for a cigarette, or money. So you have to do it when no one in their right mind would be out, like 2am in a miserable wet gale. Recommended!

Thinking aloud: Should I swap out the text above for the text on the sketch journal page, which is crap and annoying to read?

Gossip Day

I thought about adding more of an explanation to this page, but decided I like it the way it is. For the time being.

Eventually you will notice that I am usually eating food, getting food, thinking about food, and/or drawing food ...

Tampocalypse 2011

James Jean's sketchbooks are works of art unto themselves.

I draw tampons in mine. What.
-----------------------
Drew this one around the time drugstores stopped supplying o.b. tampons for several months, something about a problem with the distributor. That made no sense, but the end result was nothing but the hated Tampax, Kotex, and other such nonsense for a long-ass time. Boxes of o.b. were selling on eBay for $50. I was worried it might never return, although the fact that the empty spot in the Feminine Needs aisle stayed empty (rather than being filled up with other products) gave me hope.
Lucky for me, o.b.'s back on the shelves again. Just bought a box a few weeks ago. I almost didn't open it.

Dimsum, Hanae Mori, not looking away

But then we healed.

Neither here nor there

"She just wanted to pick some stuff up. No big deal."

"God I hate that time, that picking-up-stuff time. I just went through that before I came here. You know that song called, 'Patsy Cline Times Two' I play? That's about me and my ex dividing up our record collections."

"It's a great song."

"Thank you."

Sketch Journal, 1/11/2011 + Mission Comics

And the good news is, City Lights wants more of my books than I expected, and now Mission Comics carries Food Yes Cook No too!

Life is good. (Despite the things you read in my sketch journal.)

Sketch Journal, 1/5/2011

Sketch Journal, 1/4/2011

Hey baby, can I make it up to you?

SOLD OUT at City Lights! Plus other illos: Best Friends Magazine + They Draw And Cook!

Did a couple color illustrations for Best Friends Magazine, which will be out March 1st! Available at Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-A-Million, and other such places. My art director Eric Evans was rad enough to snap these photos for me:




If that weren't awesome enough, I found out that They Draw And Cook posted my tiramisu recipe illustration. It's in color, baybay!:

http://tdac.neotericdesign.com/recipes/albertine-rende-tiramisu-by-traci-hui


Last, but not least, my quasi-cousin (quasin) Allen Hui told me I've essentially sold out of Food Yes Cook No at City Lights Bookstore! I've got to send over more copies, and I'm soooo excited about it.

Thus, I'm letting that encourage me to the point of following my friends' further advice to peddle my zine to other local bookstores. First on the list is my other favorite SF (book-related) institution, Green Apple! Wish me luck ...

Sketch Journal, 1/10/2011

I personally think a 16-shelf white IKEA Expedit bookcase would solve all my room mess woes, don't you?

Hope everyone had a splendid President's Day weekend!

Sketch Journal, 1/8/2011

I should not be awake at this hour.

Sketch Journal, 1/7/2011

What criteria do you use to select jukebox songs?

In this instance, I chose mine in this format:
1) Past
2) Present
3) Future

Sketch Journal, 1/6/2011

I'm going to try to post a page a week. They might not be consecutive pages, and I can't promise they'll be chronological, either. But a page a week, is what I'm starting with. Here's the 2nd installment.

Sketchcrawl!

It's my firsta time. Got to meet lots of cool people and check out their sketchbooks, including Enrico Casarosa's! And Charlene (drawn above) surprised me with a belated Christmas gift, an amazing artbook called LA<>SF, by Christian Schellewald. Still wowed over that. Thank you, Charlene! <3

And thanks to everyone who came out. It was a good day.

A New Project

Eric gave me a copy of EMITOWN before the holidays, and it inspired me to start my own sketch journal. I started on January 1st, 2011 and plan to draw a page for every day.

I showed a couple pages to P and N at our last Skype meeting and they suggested I post it online. So here's a page, to start. Maybe mine should be called EmoTown.