Fun a Day Dundee: Vietnam illustrations

This year I took part in Fun a Day Dundee, which takes place in January. It's all about doing something fun (usually creative) during the endlessly dark and tedious first month of the year.

Because I'd been to Vietnam at the end of November and it was still fresh in my mind, I decided to base my project on that. I thought of all the things I'd seen in Vietnam that felt iconic of that country.

I wanted to create a somewhat retro style of illustration that looked like it had been printed, so I learned a lot of new skills in Procreate, like using halftone images and slightly mis-matching the alignment of the layers. Towards the end of the month I also treated myself to some mid-century brushes from Bardot Brush, so that I could create an ink-bleed look and some other retro effects.

I really enjoyed being part of Fun a Day Dundee and posting my illustrations on Instagram every day. I'm hoping that there's going to be an exhibition of everyone's work soon!

My fan collection

My collection of fans is something that happened quite by accident - in fact until I gathered them together for these photos I had no idea I had quite so many! But I suppose that 4 trips to Asia, where they are a natural thing to buy as a souvenir, and the others that have been picked up along the way, all add up! Since they were spread around the house, either as decor or in places they might be useful, I didn't realise how many I had.

And this is not the whole collection, because I have at least one in my drawer at work! It's a purple Spanish one that I bought for practical reasons at the local charity shop on a very hot day!

My most recent fan purchase, from Vietnam, is another one that was bought because it was a very hot day!

Free fan from a play at the Edinburgh Fringe by a Japanese group, and a secondhand woven fan.

 

The other side of the free Japanese fan

Found this fan when clearing my Gran Reid's house. The paper on it was completely falling apart so I replaced it with this wrapping paper.

This was bought from a craft centre in Kyoto on my first trip to Japan.

A brush-painted fan I bought in China

 I think I bought this at a museum of traditional crafts on my second visit to Kyoto

I love this old fan that I found in a charity shop. It looks like someone has been practicing their signature on the back, or maybe repeatedly writing the name of the person they love, but I can't make out the writing very well. My best guess is J Currie.

Folded paper fan from a dollshouse magazine

Blank fans for future craft projects!

Travel journal covers

I like to decorate the covers of the Moleskines I use as my travel journals, so that I can easily tell them apart. I had a bit of a backlog, with my Kyoto and Italy journals still not decorated years later, so when I added my Vietnam one to the pile I decided it was time to buy a new tub of Mod Podge and get decorating!

I like to use patterned paper as the main part of the decoration. Origami paper works best in terms of not wrinkling, and I used it on the Kyoto and Vietnam ones. For the Italy one I used some marbled paper that I had bought in Florence. I cut some of the lettering using a die cutter, but I also used some lettering stickers on the Vietnam one. I love how that turned out, because it reminded me of the mish-mash of retro fonts I’d seen on shop signs in Vietnam.

Vietnam bookmarks

One of my fellow travellers in Vietnam, Dawn, let me know that she collects bookmarks. So when I came back I knew that one of my first craft projects should be to make her a bookmark. I went for a simple design, inspired by the Vietnamese flag t-shirt bought by one of our group, and I ended up making enough to send to the other friends I’d made on holiday too.

It was quick to make such a simple design of bookmark. I cut rectangles of red card, and angled the bottom to make it a bit more interesting. I punched yellow stars and stuck these on, and covered the bookmarks in clear film to make them hardwearing. Then I punched a hole and added some pretty string.

Vietnam display

When I came back from Vietnam I had some souvenirs that I wanted to display, so I created this little corner. I also put on display a cookbook that I’d ordered, one of the bookmarks I made, and a zine that I’d had for a few years, along with a lovely papercut card that a friend and her wife had sent me after their Vietnam holiday (their trip was one of the inspirations for going there myself).

Folded banknotes

I came across the idea for making folded hearts from banknotes in Vietnam, when our guide in Halong Bay, Jenny, showed us one. The plan was to get her to show us how to make them, but we were so busy that we didn’t get round to that. Luckily I found a tutorial online.

It wasn’t too difficult to make the hearts, so very quickly I had created a whole batch of them from the leftover small notes from my trip. 

I sent the origami hearts to the friends I made on holiday, and to another friend I was writing to at the same time.

Sunday self-portraits: Vietnam

My parents commented that my Vietnam posts didn't have any photos of me! Well, that's because I've been saving them all for this post! They may not be the best photos ever of me (I wasn't exactly spending a lot of time on hair or make-up!), but they bring back great memories and that's what counts! And, yes, I did pretty much live in that red dress for half the holiday!