Portraits: Doug

Like a young JFK, don't you think?

Hope, Change, Doug Rudeen. 2012.

Website? Website!

It's finally done! My website at sarahhiraki.com is now live!
Go check it out! And bookmark that sucker!

iPhone binoculars

You've gotta learn to line up the lenses just right.
No filter on these, ladies & gentlemen, that brownish tint comes from dirty binoculars and sunset lighting-- and that's actual vignetting, too!

It's my favorite season

Today is my 21st birthday! And a beautiful fall day on Capitol Hill.
This past weekend I went for a walk through the neighborhood with my boyfriend. We like fancy houses and fall colors, for sure. I took some photos.

Also, today I finished three midterms and applied for graduation!

Definitely a really good day.

Vocational Discernment

It's a been a while. I'm back at school and still waiting to hear from Europe if I'm invited over in January.
I've been busy at work in my last year of school, working on a website (coming soon) and on some more projects with OurAmericanGeneration. Here's a quick sketch I made last night-- I've been loving Watch The Throne and Relax, the new Das Racist album-- while I fantasized about what it would be like to just chill. For the rest of my life.

Ok. Back to work.

Tweet tweet!

Just redesigned some twitter backgrounds for Our American Generation, The Seattle University Spectator & myself! Working on them reminds me of when I first learned how to use photoshop-- by making Sailor Moon desktop backgrounds in Photoshop 7.0 in elementary school! 4th grade was a helluva year.

EDIT: also, hungrykanye. DUH.

It's an OAG thang...

I've started a new partnership with a social justice organization called Our American Generation.

You can check them out here: OAG.org.

It's run by the youth for the youth, and provides grants for research and a platform for expression on social justice issues. It's like that club in high school that had all the cutest boys, also.

Above is a sneak preview of their 'zine, which I have been working on re-vamping.

Branded.

It's summer, which means it's time to look for new jobs or prep for the new school year.

And that's what I've been up to. I have revised my resume and made some matching letterhead:

And (in the past few months) made some resumes for friends:

Does your resume or letterhead need a makeover? email me at sarah.hiraki@gmail.com and let's talk.

A quickie

Just a quickie from my notebook.
Because sometimes you gotta tell it like it is.

Text Messages to My Lover: 3

An old text, but one I wrote down a while ago. Boy, you made me so sad.

Just lending a hand..

Spending the next few weeks helping out MadHomes & SuttonBeresCuller. More later after the show opens July 13!

Pioneer Square: Dipdychs

Three diptychs of the wildlife at Pioneer Square.
Larger versions here, on Flickr.

Road Trip: WA, ID, MT

My brain feels funny from being in a car for so long, but I just got back from a road trip to see my cousin get married in Libby, Montana.

Like always, I had my camera (his name is Camron), along for the trip. I had a lot of fun in particular in two places: an abandoned building near the Idaho/Montana border and the our motel in Libby, MT.

Thanks for the fun adventure, Mom!

(More photos here, on flickr)

Gasworks at Sunset

I snapped these surreal images during sunset at Gasworks Park. I will be presenting one (I haven't decided which) to my photo class tomorrow for a discussion of composition.

Wish me luck! and you can view the rest of them here.

Good night!

The Perfect Date

At a recent critique I was asked, "What's your fantasy?" as a way of pushing my inspiration.
Here you go, guys.

(Also, this is stored in a desktop folder called "Summer Jamz")

My etsy is live!

The shop is open for business. How exciting! You can see my first listing here.

Text Messages to My Lover

Another in my real life text messages series. Sorry, Mom.

Father's Day

We went to our favorite chinese food place for Father's Day lunch-- Dad, Grandpa, and Mom.
One of the women who work there called Grandpa Superman.

What a champ.

Happy Father's Day!

Thank Yous

I made some thank you cards this morning for my recently graduated friend Eric. He recently held an art show at Seattle U., so I was very excited when he asked me to make some cards for him.

Congratulations on graduating, Eric! I hope your family likes these cards.

Printmaking final

I produce a lot of work based on my experiences with ex-boyfriends. I'm a 20 year old lady, and the logic behind it makes sense to me. I believe in only representing the things you know best through art, so I depict a lot of boys, foods, and cute animals. Go figure.

I also drew inspiration from the stain paintings of abstract expressionist Helen Frankenthaler. I love art history and I wanted these prints to have a wet, used, stained feeling, while also being light and ephemeral like my memories of his room, so I pooled diluted pigments on the plates and allowed the press to take the water to different places-- hence the pigment bleed outside of the borders.

More detailed images are posted to my flickr

Cleaning up & moving out

Cleaning up my RA room for a move-out means filtering through the zillions of papers I have stored in every nook and cranny. This year, I took Drawing I where I flirted with realism, and Printmaking, where I got fingerprints on everything.

There are plenty of new things to look at on my Flickr-- like those whale prints that I did just for fun on the endless supply of fancy paper in the print studio!

YEAHH PAPER!

And stay tuned for my printmaking final, and the heartbreaking story behind it. I'm really excited to have it back.

Love,
Sarah

The Wheelie

This is my friend Luke. He rides fixed gear bikes, speaks Japanese and just graduated from college. We dated for a while, but I still think he's very handsome.

Happy Graduation, Luke.

Oh, and here is the original photo that I took of him:

School is over

School is over, and for me, summer school begins soon. I made this during finals week. When you walk through the Administration building, everything is quiet-- except during the ten minutes between classes.

My Mother Was a Fox, My Father Was a Rabbit

This was my final project for Digital Imaging at Seattle U. I began this project with my future children in mind, they will be at least a quarter Japanese, a quarter Caucasian, and half something else that is equally wonderful. The only problem being that there aren't a lot of children's books or tv shows that highlight multi-ethnic families. I love my family, and I'm very happy with this project. Don't tell my parents-- but for the next gift-giving holiday, I'm going to print a few copies on blurb.

You can flip through the book in its entirety on my flickr.

EDIT: I got a hundred percent on this.

Welcome!

Hello beautiful people!
I'm Sarah and I am a design student and illustrator
from Seattle, Washington.

This will be a place to see what I'm drawing every week.

Thanks for visiting & Stay tuned!