Doodle : Threadless

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Hello my dear awesome doodlers,

I posted this Sleepyheads design to Threadless, and it is currently up to be scored by you. Click on the link and sign in using Facebook, and score the design by the numbers on the right. 5 for super awesome and 1 for meh.. 

5 days to go, 1 day to go ! :F

For more of my Sleepyheads madness, 

check out my Behance here.

Thank you ! 

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TED Talk : Why 30 is not the new 20

Here is for the 20 something, claim your years :

Reckless Life 4 : Rambling Session after 4 weeks.

1) It's been 4 weeks at home. 

Four weeks , as in 26 days = 17 fasting days = 17 mornings without caffeine in my system while working and I did fine. A bit dreary but acceptably fine. Some cold rainy mornings were a bit challenging, and some were just like ordinary days. Several hours of works, + wandering off on Behance and Tumblr, + several minutes of lying back staring at the bunk bed, + several more minutes of hugging and kissing Awan, and some tiny minuscule minutes on doing sits-up and stretching up because I told myself that I can't be sitting so many hours in front of the Mac, *not a way to a healthy life - and I thought I need to do such 'activities' to keep my body lean and healthy. Mehh.

So what I'm having are super awesome days because I do what I like to do, every single day : researching, sketching, illustrating, doodling, doing some commission works. Repeatedly. It doesn't feels like work,  it feels more like freedom.

No-fun stuffs : tight budget on everything because I no longer have monthly salary like I used to. So I don't go out much - or almost none, I don't buy stuffs, and thank God it's Ramadhan, I can't no longer watch movies while eating heavily caramelled-popcorn.  

Tight budget = staying at home making money / I make myself believe that I am 'making money' - a bit slower than expected but, we'll get there. 

I've stopped blogging because I don't feel like telling the whole world about how excited I am in having my daily life working myself out. I do this repeatedly, so who would actually want to read about me, working ? That sounded excruciatingly boring. *but I promised myself that I'll record things on my reckless months here. Phew. 

2) Eid in 2 weeks, and who am I kidding.

3) And the Sleepyheads are still up on Threadless to be scored by you. Another 4 days to go. Go and hit the number 5 and I promise you, no matter what people tell you, you should know that you are such an awesome person. 

4) I still hate the fact that Society6 refused to do shipping to Malaysia. They are currently having a free shipping days, 'worldwide', until this Sunday. Phhhbt, 'worldwide'. + I complained to them twice since last year and they said they will update their shipping list once every few months. 

Now this reminds me, I need to go and check my postbox down at the creepy parking lot because the book I ordered has not arrived yet and it has been more than a month - *how I love complaining to the online customer service.

5) Go to my Etsy and buy stuffs, so I can watch movie and eat caramelled-popcorn.

6) I can't no longer stand Facebook, it shoves all the sweets and dirts in one go. I'm bloated. But the emojis are very cute indeed, same goes to Line's downloadable emojis. I remember in the previous event I went to several months back - the director of Line, Korea came and explained about their alarming popular instant messaging app. He was surprisingly very chatty and funny, nothing like what I imagined a director should look like or act. The download rate of Line was around 100 million in 19 months. So yes, the emoji played a big role in making the app hits the market super fast.

7) I feel like I am throwing up words in a brain-storming session. 

So I should rest from my rambling now.

It's 7.30am in the morning. 

Who would sleep early in the morning? Phhbt. 

Happy working, everyone !

Reckless Life 3 : DIY Signage

Some of my time were used to make a DIY signage. 

So I can bring it along when I open a booth at events :D

Acrylic and permanent marker on wooden cutting board.

It was a fun experiment with fussy cutting and painting process.

Reckless Life 2 : It Continues

It's been 12 days and I spent it all on creating more doodles, making plans for little projects, distracting myself with the net, updating my behance, experimenting and as many mini escapism as I can get. Additional work scope : cooking and managing the house, *phew.

It was a bless in disguise. I had a hard time managing time to work and time to waste around doing nothing much - as my friend said, "the first few months are the hardest to focus, because we'll get easily distracted", *true, true.  

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On Mini Escapism : 

I had a fun time wandering in the city. I don't think I've ever walked that much before. It took almost half of my day. I walked from KLCC to Matic, to area around UniKL, to Maju Junction and Pasar Seni. Later I walked around Setiawangsa and Wangsa Maju to look around the area. It was definitely a lot of new sights for me. By 6.30pm, my feet felt so tired and I was having my usual headache - * a way for my body to tell me that I am already exhausted. 

A great thing about this whole walking experience is how much I can update my data on places in my brain, because I am quite good in remembering routes. I love how I can visually imagine all the routes I took on the previous walking day. It feels like rewinding moments.

Another great thing is a chance to explore new places, even though it is as close as anyone could ever get. But I am not much of a city-girl, so exploring the city of tall buildings and traffic jams were still considered as a nice new experience for me.

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On Behance & Imitations :

Here in the link to my behance. I am finally updating my previous overloaded works and it took me so much time than I expected. There are still so much to update, so stay tuned and follow my behance to stalk almost all my works.

Oh yes, now that we touch the topic, I realized that there are several more doodlers obsessed with imitating my works. Bare in mind that by keep on imitating other people's work, you won't know how far your imagination might goes, and the possibilities of expanding will be stuck by what you are seeing at that time. It is okay to imitate certain styles and strokes that you like while mixing it with your own style, but if you imitate everything, might as well call it copy-pasting instead. 

Bunyi macam poyo je kan, tapi when I people mentioned it to me, and I saw it myself, well it creeps me out a little. But if you feel that you are learning so much by imitating my works, well, if it works for you, then I guess I can't stop you - wish for the best in finding your styles and create super-awesome doodles ! Wihu !

Doodle : Hello Custom Header

Taken from a doodle in my doodle book :

Who wants a cheap fast custom header with this illustration + your tagline,

send me an email : azreen_31@hotmail.com or pm me here.

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Reckless Life 1 : The Beginning

I've always wished for a reckless life, because I played safe most of my time. I hid behind so-called-life that the society created to define who I am. For 26 years, I stayed in the typical life - as long as I have a routined days that gives me money for my family and as long as I do everything that other people do. But I craved for something more than that. I thought, "there must be more than this, because I don't want to spend my days repeating yesterday".

I am not getting younger, and my days are leaving me. It is now, or never. It is a perfect timing, I am not married, I have no kids, I have 'some' savings, and I am, sheesh, 26 - *if I live up to 50, that means I just reach half of my life.

So I chose now.

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There are three big things that I wanted to do last month :

1. Mini escapism

2. Quit the job

3. Personal matter

The first one : mini escapism. It happened as planned, wonderfully. I could never imagine better stories on that particular day. Even though it was not as far and as challenging as other people would do, but it was a great turning point for me nonetheless. 

The second one : quit the job. I finally sent my resignation letter after 927 days ( 2 years 6 months ) working with the lab. I worked for a month before my final day and ended my short chapter there 5 days ago. What I had with the lab and the Secret family were a great experience that I'll cherish forever. Some might ask why I did such thing when I haven't found any jobs yet and it may sounded a bit reckless. But, I really wanted to know how far I can reach when the possibilities are beyond my working environment. 

It was hard to explain to my mom about my decision, knowing I do have a lot of financial responsibilities. But the excitement is too much, I just had to follow my gut and risk my comfort zone. This, is for my 26 years of living. For the first time, I wanted to do so much for myself and I wanted to know how far can I go. 

I have 3 months to experiment with my freedom from a routined life before my mom can nag me about considering to have a safer typical life as others.

The third one : this is a little dream of mine, I'll keep this for later.

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I promised to myself, that I'll document everything here. 

For my own record and as a reminder for any lessons I'll learn along the way. 

Doodle : I am Sorry

Taken from a doodle in my doodle book :

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Event : Islamic Art Exhibition, Matic KL

Last weekend :

My mother and us siblings went to Matic KL for the preparation of the Islamic Art Group Exhibition she participated along with other 20 artists. We arrived quite early and my mom being my mom, she brought along all other equipments as well : portable folding ladder, super spring, etc. We didn't start the work right away and took several hours waiting for other artists as well *note : the air-cond is still broken. 

The Morning

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She managed to create 5 big mixed media paintings, mainly using batik technique. She took about 2 months to finished up the artworks. She is a bit secretive while making a new artwork, so usually we get to see it when they are almost ready. The artworks are phenomenal. Let's just forget that this is my mom we are talking about, because I am her biggest fan and it sounded a bit bias knowing I am her daughter. 

But you just need to go and see her works :

Almost ready.

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So we went to Matic, hanged all the artworks for hours. I literally shaking and sweating madly after several hours of standing on the top of the ladder, tying up the tali tangsi and walah, I'm done ! 

PS : I can do this for money, because I'm pretty good at this :D 

The Brother

The Helpers

Other artists with their works :D

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The event started yesterday, for the whole month of July at Matic KL, better check them out before the fasting season, I bet no one wants to walk around much by that time. Click here for the direction.

A little info on my mom, my master sifoo :

Zanubah Hamzah

She is a full time artist, I don't remember her doing anything other than creating artworks. She indirectly taught me so much about improving my works and creating stuffs - just because I wanted her to notice my works too :F hewhew. She is my number one inspiration ❤ , if you have a master sifoo artist as a mother, you'll understand how stressful it can be sometimes :D 

Follow the white rabbit : Fb Page.

My favorite piece, I want this please.

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Di Sini

 

kau tidak seorang, 

dan aku tidak seorang. 

kita semua bersama. 

tutupkan matamu, 

kau rasa dalam-dalam, 

aku ada di situ, 

seperti kau ada di sini.