Art Blog of Linda Houry

www.LindaHoury.com

2011-08-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

Hello!
LindaHoury.blogspot.com is now http://www.lindahoury.com/ ! It will be there until I redesign my portfolio again (as you have read below). No new updates lately but I will post something when I think of something good :)
Thanks for keeping up with me all who read this!

Here are some sketchbooks (that were on my website) for your perusal!!

Open publication - Free publishing - More bones

Open publication - Free publishing - More pencil

Open publication - Free publishing - More drawings

Open publication - Free publishing - More and

Some more images:

3D modeled & textured & rendered in Maya

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Hi all who read this blog!
I accidentally deleted wordpress pages to my portfolio website so I have lindachao.com redirected here now. I figured I need to get a new domain name later anyway because of my name change. So I will do that sometime soon. Lindachao.com will not be owned by me anymore after February 14th though, so you will probably be redirected somewhere else. I will let you know what my new site name is when I get it!
PLEASE ALSO VISIT: LINDAHOURY.BLOGSPOT.COM !
Thanks!

Collectible Stores in Taiwan

2011-06-20T17:16:00.000-07:00

Hello,
Just posting this for myself. Planning a trip to Taiwan and looking for collectible shops for my husband!

http://kaijukorner.blogspot.com/2008/07/taipei-toy-shops.html
http://www.vagabond.co.nz/locations.php
http://forums.hobbyhype.com/archive/index.php/t-4586.html (forum discussion)

Happy Birthday to My Sister-in-Law!

2011-05-20T09:01:00.000-07:00

Mount Rose Church

2011-03-27T20:05:00.000-07:00

I did a drawing of Mount Rose Evangelical Free Church and played around with the idea of it being on the church bulletin on Sunday (below)! [Click on the image to get a full picture without being blocked by the links on the right!]

Cooler Critter!

2011-02-28T16:40:00.000-08:00

Made by & starring David & Linda Houry!

My Illustrated Recipe Featured on RecipeLook!

2011-02-23T11:10:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

2011-02-14T08:33:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day All!!!! As a Valentine's activity, David & I labored over and submitted to the Nestlé Toll House Valentine's Day Chocolate Chip Cookie Design Contest yesterday. The image above was my entry! I am happy with how it turned out but I might not even be picked as is with my luck these days. O well, it was fun to make and I'm proud of it. Here is the link to my submission on Nestle in case you're interested. (You'll have to install the app on facebook to see it.)

First Ever Illustrated Recipe!

2011-02-09T09:21:00.000-08:00

First ever illustrated recipe! Inspired by Rachael Ray's Oven-Baked Samosa recipe and my husband & I's trip (with friends :)!) to the India Kabab & Curry in Reno, Nevada. Click on the recipe icon above to go to the illustrated recipe!

Roulette Wheel

2011-02-03T11:18:00.000-08:00

I did this as a sample piece for a studio in Reno that ended up never getting back with me. Maya, Photoshop, Bodypaint. (*sigh)

See my new pen & ink stuff! www.lindahoury.blogspot.com

I drew a Mango!

2011-01-31T14:58:00.000-08:00

See my new pen & ink stuff! www.lindahoury.blogspot.com

Illustration Friday: Dusty

2011-01-26T15:46:00.000-08:00

New pen & ink drawings beginning @ www.lindahoury.blogspot.com

Illustration Friday: Déjà vu...

2011-01-12T14:25:00.000-08:00

I probably don't have this quote right but Molinari Squirrel* makes me think of a line from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Have I been here before? Yeah.. I've been here before.
Yay for Illustration Friday :)
*My high school friend Callan Molinari posed for me for this drawing. Well, just the head part.

Happy Birthday to My Father-In-Law last Friday! 10/15!

2010-10-18T17:01:00.000-07:00

I drew this portrait and put it on a card for him!
I'll be happy to do one for anyone looking to give a gift of a portrait to a loved one :)

Re-Learning Mandarin Chinese

2010-10-18T13:46:00.000-07:00

So I've been learning Chinese (Mandarin) again. For those who don't know, I am Taiwanese-American. Mostly American though (20+ years now). My family moved to the U.S. in 1990 and I speak English without an accent-- well most of time! Anyway, sometime between elementary and junior high school, my mother enrolled my brother & I in Chinese school and I just had a horrible time there. I hated it. It was really stressful and I did not like my teacher. Nothing was getting through.
Now, some 10+ years later, I decided to re-learn my Bopomofos and "get it." For REAL. lol
So I did, and I can't tell you how much I love learning it on my own. I love learning it at my own pace without any tests. I naturally test myself and challenge myself with the characters I try to read.
But of course though, something else to add to my enjoyment is the fact that I can understand some of it already (from my parents speaking and being surrounded by people who do). So when I try to pronounce the words, I can recognize the word from sounding it out usually. Unless it's something I don't know. Other questions I have, I pester my mama. :D

So what I wanted to share with you is some online resources I found that is EXTREMELY helpful, for anyone who is re-learning Chinese like me!

This is the best audio Bopomofo that I've found: http://mtc802.pixnet.net/blog/category/726727/11
The only wrong one she pronounces is ㄊ, which is "tuh."
[Note: Bopomofo is like the pronunciation alphabet for Mandarin Chinese. You can combine these characters, add accents, and then create the sound of a word. PS, Bopomofo = Zhuyin fuhao]

This is a useful Bopomofo/Pinyin Phonetic transcription chart: http://www.mandarinbook.net/bopomofo/bopomofo_to_pinyin_chart.php

This is a Zhuyin finder: http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/index.html
Copy & paste a character you want to know how to pronounce in the 我想找 space. (我想找: I'm thinking of finding)

I like this Chinese-English Dictionary: http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php
Type in English what word you want to know and voilà. They have sound clips too. (Some of the sound clips might be a little weird though, so you might want to try sounding out the Bopomofo yourself.)

And finally, some fun (and funny!) learning sites:
http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/biweekly/574/d2.htm (I'm learning this one right now :D! Cute & funny story!)
http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/culture/biweekly/607/e/indexe.htm
http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/culture/biweekly/609/e/indexe.htm
http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/culture/biweekly/610/e/indexe.htm
http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/culture/biweekly/611/e/indexe.htm
My mom sent me these and what I really like about them is that you can go to like the "Character Origin" link and click on the sentence and it'll read it for you. They all have the Bopomofo next to it. Also, the stories and cartoon characters are very cute. What a fun way to learn! You can go to the index to search for popular or other lessons that I have not provided the link to here. I can't understand what they list out so you're on your own with that one. I just click and be surprised! :D

ALSO, one last thing. I had no idea Vista had this and I was doing flips when I got it working. You can install Chinese on there and get this amazing thing called an IME pad where you can write in the word and the characters the computer thinks you are looking for pops up along with the zhuyin! Holy moley!
There's also a keyboard too, if you want to type in the zhuyin yourself. My mom has stickers on her keyboard, but I don't know if I want to do that myself just yet so I use the pop-up software keyboard.
Here are instructions to do that on a Windows Machine (sorry mac users <:-/)
http://www.dehming-school.org/blog/grade5/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Input-Chinese-Character-on-Windows-Machine.pdf

Here's a snippity snap shot ^

Well I hope this has been helpful to anyone who is an intermediate Mandarin speaking & non-Chinese-reading person like me! Let me know if any of my descriptions are off, I can correct it for sure.

Enjoy, my friends!

Some Signs

2010-10-16T12:12:00.000-07:00

Hello,
I recently had a job interview somewhere (will not mention where because don't want to jinx it) and made these samples of work (because I didn't have any kind of work like it in my portfolio). I decided to pick foods that I liked and just make signs for them :)
I really liked how the sushi ended up!

I had a lot of fun making these, I really enjoy drawing food! Maybe I'll do more of these for fun. I was thinking of something more too... O- just as a note too, all these are made-up. I hope not to get in trouble for the Guylian one. I am not making money off of any of them. They are just for my portfolio.

Hope you enjoy :)

French Memo Board

2010-10-11T20:17:00.000-07:00

Hello again!

Thank you for visiting! I have now publicized my first Etsy feature on Facebook! I'm wondering if I should get a Twitter account and do the same.. not sure just yet. But I'll do more publicizing in a little bit!

This is something I wanted to share, that I can share now, now that it has been revealed and given away :). A friend of mine at church threw a baby shower for her sister-in-law and I volunteered to make a French memo board to serve as the "money tree" (since she did not ask for gifts). So I created this:

It ended up working quite fabulously while people stuck cards and cash into the ribbon slots.

I was quite pleased with the result, and impressed that I could make something like this! I wanted it for myself at the end. It looked so lovely hanging on my wall! The backing is cardboard (I had at home) and the materials I found quite cheaply. All it needed was some time & a lot of love and voilà!

I feel compelled to make this again in the future. If anyone would like me to make one for them, let me know ;)

Beautiful Original Custom Pencil Portraits

2010-10-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

Click for larger view!

Welcome!

The first Portrait & Art feature is officially online on the Portraits & Art Etsy store.

Visit the store for details or if you have any questions email me directly [lindaycchao@gmail.com].

Greetings

2010-10-01T08:58:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the first blog post of Portraits & Art. My name is Linda, I am an artist/illustrator/3D artist and I've recently wanted to start to offer my services and sell my art through this blog. Through this site, I hope to post new ideas, daily musings and everything else. I'd also be thrilled to get feedback from anyone interested in my work, private commissions (if you see something you like and want it personalized), and your thoughts in general.

Thank you for visiting and I hope you can come back to see the new art I will be posting here :)

Linda