Famous Portrait Pun-tings

Illustration

Recreating my all time favourite famous portrait paintings just for fun 🙂

I created this illustration series during my month-long break a little while ago. I loovee looking at classic paintings, especially the portraits one. I also loovee pets and bad puns. I decided to combine those three (classic paintings + pets + bad puns) and these came up.

What would the subjects from the well-known paintings be like if they were to be painted with pets?

The paintings are reimagined by adding pets while experimenting with puns. The titles of the paintings are pun-tweaked from the originals to match with their new little companions.

From top left to bottom right:

Girl with a Purr Earring
Original: Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer

Meowna Lisa
Original: Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

The Critters of Adam
Original: The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo

Pugtrait of Madame X
Original: Portrait of Madame X by John Singer 

The Birds of Venus
Original: The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli

The Bull Boy
Original: The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough

American Goathic
Original: American Gothic by Grant Wood

The Labs’ Supper
Original: The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci

Swan Gogh self-portrait
Original: Van Gogh self-portrait by Vincent can Gogh

The Two Fishdas
Original: The Two Fridas by Frida Kahlo

Whisker’s Mother
Original: Whistler’s Mother by James Abbott McNeill Whistler

The Son of Manx
Original: The Son of Man by René Magritte

I had so much fun recreating those paintings and being creative with the bad puns attempt. I wish I could make more but my free time is pretty limited right now. I was even super busy right after the holiday break. TGIF!

Cheers to the first weekend of 2020!
Carolynn

My Little Studio Tour

Decor

It’s only a few hours left before we enter 2020. I cleaned my little home studio today because I want it to be pretty and neat when I wake up in the morning tomorrow. It’s a simple way to motivate myself for the New Year.

In case you are wondering, I’m a freelance illustrator and graphic designer who works from home. I spent most of my time in this little room drawing and designing and just being creative. It’s kind of lonely sometimes working alone but I’m more focused and productive when I work solo.

I keep all of my old sketchbooks and notebooks. I just couldn’t throw it away even if it has been ages. I started drawing when I was little and my drawing styles has changed so many times over the years. Maybe I’ll have a tour of my old sketchbooks next time.

I have a cute little assistant that always follow me around and accompany me when I’m working but he only knows how to nap or distract me with squeaky balls so it’s kind of useless.

Can you believe yet another year has just passed and we are going to need a new calendar starting tomorrow? Speaking of calendar, I’m loving this 2020 Cabbit calendar that my friend Ellie from Seoul sent me. Cabbit is a character she created, it’s a cross of cat and rabbit. She designed and sends me Cabbit calendar almost every year. This year calendar’s theme is Korean traditional objects of old artworks.

I wish to create more and be more productive in this little studio next year. I hope you have a wonderful wrap-up of 2019.

Here’s to a year of blessing and beyond!
Carolynn

Christmas Eve in Sapporo

Exhibition, Travel

Continuing my previous post about the winter trip I had in Sapporo, I think this is the perfect time to reminisce this particular part of the trip because today is the 25th!

Anyway, I hope you are having a wonderful time this Holiday season 🙂

Speaking of wonderful, there is really no other way to describe that one Christmas Eve I had in Sapporo. The night was loaded with tons of snow, yummy treats, sparkling lights and lots of toys!

We started off the evening visiting Shiori Koibito Park and Ishiya Chocolate Factory. As a fan of the biscuits, I had a great time tasting and shopping for Shiroi Koibito’s products as well as seeing the production lines in action.

As the sky getting darker, the lights on the buildings and the park are all lit up creating Christmasey atmosphere. It was snowing hard but we couldn’t bother because the view was just beautiful. And also because B likes eating ice cream in the cold winter, you know, cause the ice cream won’t ever ever melt.

Besides the pretty scenery outside, I enjoyed my trip to the vintage toys museum inside called Old-Style Children’s Toy Box. There are soooo many sentimental toys in this little museum. I‘m always fascinated by vintage stuff especially the ones I still can relate to.

My siblings and I used to have Norakuro alarm clock when we were kids. It sounded so annoying we always disturbed each other by playing it close to the ears of whoever woke up the latest. Ahh the good ol’ days!

After Shiroi Koibito Park, we went to Odori Park and walked to Former Hokkaido Government Office. Along the way we stopped at a curry restaurant for dinner and a little warm up.

From Former Hokkaido Government Office, we walked back to Odori Park to go to Sapporo TV Tower. I personally like visiting observation tower because, of course, the view from above is always spectacular.

I hope to go back to this very tower again next time in other seasons. I guess everything will be so different but yet equally gorgeous.

It was still early when we were done with the tower. We decided to spend some time in the park enjoying some more icy breeze. There was this one area in the park that made a lot of people slipped and fell in the snow.

We ended the night by doing mini shopping in the mall and taking kawaii picture in the photo booth machine just for fun.

It was indeed one blissful Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas everyone.
Carolynn

Winter in Sapporo

Travel

I will never get sick of seeing winter pictures, especially of a city as charming as Sapporo.

Compared to Hakodate, Sapporo is way colder but also more lively. The city is bigger and busier as it is the capital of Hokkaido Prefecture and also the 5th largest city in Japan. However, when the snow started to fall, there would be lesser people outside as the temperature could drop to -8°C.

The snow in Sapporo was pretty intense when I was there. The photos below were taken on the same location in only a few hours apart.

Noticed how the snow has practically transformed everything in a blanket of white? Even just a boring street has turned into some kind of magical winter scene.

Exploring a new city means taking a lot of pictures! I try to preserve as many memories as I could. I wouldn’t want to forget ever seeing beautiful things in this trip although it wasn’t easy taking nice pictures when the whole time you just want to bury your frozen hands in the pocket.

There are some other interesting places I visited in Sapporo but I guess I will leave it for another post.

Stay tuned!
Carolynn

Goryokaku Park

Travel

During my short trip in Hakodate, I visited Goryokaku Park which is a huge star-shaped historical fort built in the last years of Edo Period (1940s). Since it had been snowing all night before, the snow has transformed the whole park into an endless field of white. It is like a view taken out of a painting!

I’m glad we bought those traction cleats before stepping down to this park because I’m obviously not used to walk on the slippery ground.

I also went up to the Goryokaku observation tower to see the entire park from above. Mount Hakodate can also be seen from here alongside the panoramic view of the city.

I really wished I had more time in Hakodate and explore more places in this wonderful city. Sadly I only had 3 days to spend here and it’s obviously not enough.

Till my next post.
Carolynn