Female Cruel Vengence

This is my first piece I did in Syracuse University for one of the greek myths about Artemis and her encounter with Actaeon. The piece was completed around August of 2009. For those who are interested in the story here is a website telling the tale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actaeon.

Media: I scanned my original line art, lightened it in photoshop, printed it on stratsmore 500 board and painted with watercolor and gouache.

Copyrights: All rights of this piece belongs to J.S. Choi (C) DO NOT USE!

Kaiko - Sea of Clouds

I originally posted this on DA with a bad resolution and saturation. This is a better resolution and soon, DA should have the same quality for those who follow me there.

This was a class piece I did in 2009 that I had fun doing with mostly complimentary colors of oranges and blues inspired by a European animated movie called, Nocturne. I can't remember the exact purpose of this project, but I do recall the course required a person to pick a phrase out of the list of words mentioned in the professor's sheet to create an illustration. Mine was 'Sea of Clouds'. This led me to create Kaiko, the flying fish soaring through a 'sea of clouds'. Kaiko is a creature mixed of an array of fish, bird, and water mammal such as an orca, shark, gold fish, flying fish, and the cockatiel parrot. The fish's name means, Sea Child. I chose the reading of Kaiko instead of Umiko, which people may misread on its name tag, which has duel pronunciation in Japanese's kanji. Why? Umiko sounded too girly and possibly common since Umi is a well known girl name, where as the sharp strike of the word 'Kai' with the soft 'Ko' felt more pleasing to me. It also had a tomboy ring to it since Kai is a boy name, with the softness of Ko which is a girl ending for names. I could be wrong, but at the very least, I liked the sound. For those who know about the popularity of Japanese names, do correct me if I am wrong. I love the concept of making names and learning languages. It's really fascinating!

Illustration by: J.S. Choi (C) DO NOT USE!!
Media: Pencil, Watercolor, and Gouache

3 to 4 hour painting

A calm, landscape painting I did a while ago at a Christian picnic gathering I was persuaded to attend around December in 2008. Sometime that day, I crept away to paint in some quiet and remote area far away from the community for about 3 to 4 hours. It was a nice escape. The air was cool. The few random strangers such as children came to talk. The birds chirped. A raccoon hide near the lake. Ducks swam. The nature was ever so pleasant... Till my mother somehow found me in her Christian driving crusade throughout the park with the Evil-Matriarch face that I know all you Asian gents and ladies know when faced with it. It always throws you into surprise to remember they can be insane at any turn, especially the gentle, naive ones! So I left the group cause I was sick of the preaching, I'm sorry! All that went through my head was:"SHE HAS ZOMBIE JESUS HUNTING/HAUNTING POWERS! HOLY SH--!" I was in an obscure place far from the picnic center they were at! I recall glaring at the sky mumbling obscene things. Now that I think about it as a memory, half the things she said and did were kind of funny. But yes, this odd event happened all for a quick painting session.

Media: Watercolor and gouache on blue tone paper. Pencil was barely used for composition.

Copyrights: Artwork belongs to J.S. Choi (C) DO NOT USE!