Home Hair Cut!

Last week Zoei cut my hair! I had been planning to get a hair cut the end of March, but then everything shut down. THEN I kept seeing videos and tips on how to cut your own hair at home. So Zoei and I decided to give it ago. Honestly I wasn't that nervous. Zoei usually cuts my bangs for me and shaves my undercut (which I'm now growing out!) She's surprisingly good at cutting hair! Probably because she is a very, very patient person. We didn't chop a whole lot off, but just enough that it doesn't strangle me while I'm sleeping and dead split ends don't flop off every time I brush my hair. It feels SO. MUCH. better! Afterwards I dyed it with some henna, but this picture is before then. (Hence you can see the grey hairs in my bangs!) I use THIS brand to dye my hair. Its super affordable and has great results, although a little time consuming but I've got a lot of time these days.

My advice is if you want to do, grab a buddy and DO IT! Its only hair, you'll have a fun afternoon and who knows it might turn out super cute! 

This is the video I found to be the most helpful!

We're 29!

I was suppose to write the post a while ago. Our birthday was last Thursday. Honestly I've been processing it all. When I was younger I always thought that people didn't like their birthdays as they got older because they didn't want to get old. Now I'm realizing its because its just another way to mark the passing of time. Another reminder that there is so much to do! So much to see and accomplish and life is moving so fast. We ended up having a picnic and some roasted marshmallows. I'm so grateful that I got to spend my day with my amazing housemates, that take very good care of me! I truly believe that I was meant to navigate this world with a twin. I know there is no way that I'd have the life and encouragement that I have with out her! Every year on our birthday we take a selfie together. I think when we're older we're going to be glad we did!

Complications of Relationships Blob Zine!

New mini zine! I posted this one on my instagram but thought I'd post it here also. I made this mini zine while contemplating all the different kinds of relationships. Relationships manage to go though so many different phases. All these phases constantly put me in awe and frustration with life. I'm comforted by the notation that all the negative bits of relationships are balanced by the beauty in existence. I suppose I wanted a mini zine to capture all these feelings about relationships I've been having.

 This one is that feeling when someone makes you feel silly and small then has the guts to ask you what is wrong.

This one is all those warms fuzzy feelings you can get from sharing unspoken words with someone. 

You can see a whole flip though HERE! Also if you'd like a copy I'd be happy to do trades, let me know at remikeahi@gmail.com

Making. Listening. Eating.

There was a lovely draw this in your style, house addition on instagram. I loved the idea so I had to partake. So here is me in house form, a classy A-frame house with bee hives and wisteria trees.

Waxahatchee's new album St. Cloud has officially become my spring quarantine go to. It fills me up with the urge to twirl in the sunshine and also bundle up and cry. Which is fitting for the world we find ourselves in. 

I'm not a coffee drinker but I've really enjoyed whipped coffee crystals (HERE) We plopped it on top some almond milk and add a little bit of condensed milk also!

Rat King Zine

I was suppose to table at a local zine festival the beginning of Aprils, but do to the STATE of the world it has been cancelled. I had brainstormed up a whole bunch of new zines that I wanted to make and since the idea is the hardest part, I decided to make them anyways! So prepare yourself for a lot of up coming zine posts. This is a zine that I made about rat kings! The idea for this zine came from the term "rat king" popping up and after a google search spending the evening down the rabbit hole reading about the spooky phenomenon that is the rat king. After my night of research I was plagued with nightmares. ( I only have myself to blame honestly!) So in attempt to overcome my fears I started to use art as therapy and just started drawing rats and rat kings. Surprisingly it worked and this zine was born! Near the end of creating this zine I started to really enjoy the idea of rats and it became something I started to endear. Kind of crazy how the world works sometimes! 

As always email me (remikeahi@gmail.com) if you'd like some zines, or if you'd like to trade! I LOVE a good trade! If you'd like to see a quick flip through you can do so on my instagram HERE! 

Bat Illustration!

I donated one of my bat zines for an auction thats being hosted on instagram. I decided to make a little gouache bat illustration to go with it! I'm really pleased with myself how this little illustration turned out. This bat zine is one that I've made ages ago and is one of my all time favorite creations. This format for a zine is so cool and I love seeing people when they open it for the first time. Unfortunately folding this zine is a HUGE pain in the bum. When I first made these I got so frustrated I had Zoei help me finish them. She's always good at technical things and they took a lot of measuring to get the folds correct. So I won't be making these kinda zines any time soon.

I'm really enjoying gouache lately. I've been using colored pencils to add little accents. I'm over the moon about how the combo looks! Its so much fun to draw on gouache, its so smooth! I'm trying my best to be more confident in my illustration skills. Participating in things like this auction and zine submissions really help with that a ton.

March Art Journal!

Last months are journal turned out to be such a mix of things. During March the month started out all normal and then kinda crumbled into a mess at the end. My favorite thing about this journal is how you can see the progression of heaviness that loomed over last month. So many things are happening and also nothing is happening? That is mighty contradicting but seems to be the best way to describe it. Everything feels different and I've never lived life like this except every day starts to feel the same. So things feel differently the same? This kind of contradiction is the epitome of last months journal. I'm grateful that I have this journal to track everything down in. I hope I can gather myself enough to read though it someday with out feeling all the dread that it holds. I'm sure April journal will be much more positive! I made this journal using scrap paper I had after trimming a bunch of zines. I use a simple pamphlet stitch, mostly cause I forgot how to do a coptic stitch. I'm enjoying this idea of using and repurposing little scraps. Sure does make for a cute journal!

Happy Easter!

Easter will alway hold a special place in my history and heart. I'm saddened today because I'm not able to bask in the sun with all of my loves. I'm not able to have long talks about the wondrous rebirth of life while eating indulgent treats and that is such a bummer! Of course I'm still going to have a lovely day but its just not going to be the same. If time has taught us anything its that these aren't normal days. Things are going to feel different because things ARE different. Its kind of sad, but its good that things are different. Different means we are doing the right things. Its means that we are protecting our communities by doing the hard things. So, on this lovely spring day I hope that you're at least getting some fresh air and preparing for a new week.

Hope you're keeping happy and healthy!

Games: Little Miss Fourtune

I haven't ever really blogged about games before! Mostly because I'm not a huge gamer. Once in a while I'll come across a game that is too beautiful or cute to pass up. The game Little Misfortune is one that is WAY too cute I couldn't help myself. It turned out to be a bit spooky-sad but balanced it well with cuteness. This game is cool because its one that you can play multiple times because depending on how you respond dictates what happens next. I've only played though it twice and both times were very different. Actually getting though to the end doesn't take too long. I can see that annoying some people but I liked the shortness. I have a couple of other cute games on my list that I think I'll give them a go one of these stay-at-home afternoons!

The vastness of the gaming world is so huge that its easy for me to not fall down the rabbit hole because I get overwhelmed easily. I find as I'm spending more time at home the more time I have to explore things like games,  projects and yes even books (even though I'm not exploring them enough!) All this home time has me exploring more things than I thought it would!

Are you a gamer? What kinda cute puzzle games would you recommend?

Current Reads!

Welp the bad news of this post is that I'm yet another book behind of reaching my goal of 24 books this year. The good news is I did read ONE book last month so I'm at least making a little bit of progress! Last months book was Well Met by Jen DeLuca. This is an adorable romcom book (no surprise there) I read it in one night because it was so cute and I couldn't sleep. (This quarantine life has got my sleeping all kinds of messed up!) This book is about a gal, Emily that moves to a small town to help her sister recover from a car accident and ends up being a taxi for her teenage niece. She gets roped into taking part in the renaissance fair as a tavern wench. In true romcom fashion she ends up falling for an english teacher that she once butted heads with. Was this book predictable? Yes. Do I care? No way, I want to read another please! Now more than ever I'm looking for moments to just escape into a more predictable world. I didn't understand this about the romcom genre and how it provides an escape but I clearly understand it now. The world is like its never been before and cute things make it feel less scary.

Let's hope I buckle down and read more this month! 

Free Printables! Coloring Pages + Mini Zine

I have seen so many illustrators make free coloring sheets and it makes me feel so warm and fuzzy! I was compiling a bunch of them when Zoei suggested that I make my own! I'm not sure why I didn't think of it, but after her suggestion of creating a dinosaur one it seemed like a good idea. THEN I was kinda into this idea of making some free downloadable printable projects! Since everyone is stuck at home it seems like the perfect thing to toss into the world for anyone that wanted a cute project. The second project I created is a Quarantine Zine. Its a mini one page printable zine that has little spots to fill out. The idea I had for this is to fill out to send to my pen pals and a blank one for them to fill out! I really enjoyed the way this turned out and I think my pen pals will get a kick out of it. I hope to create another one of these once I can think of a clever idea!

You can find all of these in my dropbox HERE!

If you need help figuring out how to fold this mini zine I've found THIS to be helpful, but there are also a lot of youtube examples out there! Just search one page mini zine folding. 

What other kinds of coloring sheets or printable zines would you like to see?

Strange Days + Window Lettering

I was working in my art journal the other day and kept finding myself at a loss of words. I'm still not sure how to describe what is happening with the world or how I'm feeling about it ALL. It is easy these days to be sad and anxious. I think people everywhere are feeling anxiety and those of us that are already prone to being anxious are dealing with processing a whole new type of anxiety. I do seek some comfort that we are all working on how to deal with the state of T H I N G S. I hope we see more communities coming together. More people leading with empathy and compassion. These days that feel hopeless we're taking time to do cute projects. Zoei bought some window markers and lettered some cuteness on our house. There is something wonderful about sitting outside in the sunshiny cool breeze that just for a moment felt like everything was going to be ok. Now is definitely the time to take a moment to indulge in cute projects that nurture your soul and make things feel a bit better. I'm so grateful for all my loves carrying each other though this time. At the end of the day we are all in this together. 

Song and Doodle #80

Last month Waxahatchee's new album Saint Cloud came out and it is AH-mazing! This has been playing nonstop these last two months. I've been a huge fan of hers for a while now but this new album is a bit different from her old stuff. This new album has a bit more country-singer-song-writer vibe to it. I mean its always a joy to see artists expand and grow right? My favorite track off the new album is Can't Do Much. She has a way of creating songs that feel very real and honest. This song captures all of that with a heavy dose of warmth. I adore the sentiment of this song, we don't always get to choose the people we love. Love doesn't always have to follow logic. Which is tragic and comforting all at the same time. She has been doing a lot of instagram live streams lately and are a pure joy to watch and be a part of. You can find her instagram HERE. She just feels so genuine and smart. It is really inspiring. I highly recommend tracking though Saint Cloud and basking in its beauty.

"Love you that much anyhow

Can't do much about it now"

Mental Health Zine Submission

New zine submission! I'm always on the look out for people doing collaborative zines and then I saw this one pop up about mental health I figured i'd give it a go. This zine is hosted by Space Babes Art and you can find volume one of the mental health zine HERE! I'm a huge fan of their work and esthetic. They are so super cute and inspiring! (Give them a follow!) This little gouache and colored pencil piece I did was definitely a labor of love. I struggled so much with this color palette. Its crazy to think about now because the colors are maybe the best part about it? I can find about 10 things I'd like to change about it but I need to get into the better habit of just calling things done. So I choose to just send this one off. Hopefully it gets picked but if it doesn't its not the end of the world. I think submitting artwork to zines you're a fan of is a great way to show your support for the artist compiling a submission zine, even if they don't find space for your work in that issue! 

For the mental health theme I wanted to base my illustration around social anxiety. I have been anxious about people since I was just a wee baby. I specifically remember the first time having severe anxiety in kindergarten. Its beyond feeling nervous, its unable to breath and seeing spots. As a child I thought it happened to everyone! Everyone always just labeled me as shy, so thats what I thought I was. Sure maybe that label can apply to me, but even more so I wasn't just shy I was having social anxiety. Now that I'm older I've come to learn what anxiety is and how theres so many different types and how it effects everyone differently. So the best visual description I could think of is trying to introduce yourself with a mouthful of oranges and someone giving you excuses instead of the space to take your time to answer. I'm sure all you shy girls out there have and a parent or friend do this to you. It always has the best intentions obviously, but lets all learn to give shy girls some space and time to think of their responses. Also don't label people, let them tell you how they want to be labeled.

Phew this post turned out to be more ranty then I thought it would be!
Hope you're all healthy and safe!