DreamSpace

Hello! You have stumbled upon the personal blog of Australia based Designer & Illustrator: Pei-Wen (Winnie) Kwang.

This is my DreamSpace where I'll be sharing the things that inspire me, things I create and things that generally excite me.

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A Night of Photographic Magic

I had the honour to attend Peter Solness’s Night Magic workshop as part of the Centennial Park’s 125th Anniversary celebration. During the workshop, Peter passed on a lot of valuable tips and tricks on lighting and its power to turn an ordinary picture into something memorable. Most of it appears to be very simple theories but watching him in practice, you’ll realised that to create masterpieces such as those featured in his The Illuminated Landscape series takes master skills and a lot of patience! 

It was an amazing night, spent with other night photography enthusiasts and just acting like kids again, playing with coloured lights. The highlight was definitely our attempt at creating a surfer going through the world’s biggest ‘light wave’. The night was definitely the highlight of my week and I’m looking forward to signing up for my next night photography workshop already :) 

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DREAMSPACE = HOME Let’s take a moment in December to share some of my favourite things sitting around my house. I do realised that some of them may appeared quite useless but they’re so pretty to look at, who could resists? (from top left to right) (1) Munchies for tea/coffee breaks - flavour of the week are jam drop biscuit & Taro Mochi (2) Toasts taste better when they come out of my red retro looking toaster (3) Homewares with colour SPOTS (4) Lavender nail polish & Jasmine scented nail polish remover pads from Kit Cosmetics (5) Audrey Hepburn black Assam tea bag from the Cup of Fame novelty tea bags set that also includes Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Lurch from the Adams family and Charlie Chaplin. You can get this and other cool novelty tea bags set from Monster Threads - http://monsterthreads.com.au/onlineshop/ (6) It’s Mango season! Need I say more :) (7) Kiwi fruit knitted coaster (8) Whale tea diffuser (also from Monster Threads) (9) Kiwi fruit cooling face masks from The Face Shop High-res

DREAMSPACE = HOME

Let’s take a moment in December to share some of my favourite things sitting around my house. I do realised that some of them may appeared quite useless but they’re so pretty to look at, who could resists?

(from top left to right)

(1) Munchies for tea/coffee breaks - flavour of the week are jam drop biscuit & Taro Mochi

(2) Toasts taste better when they come out of my red retro looking toaster

(3) Homewares with colour SPOTS

(4) Lavender nail polish & Jasmine scented nail polish remover pads from Kit Cosmetics

(5) Audrey Hepburn black Assam tea bag from the Cup of Fame novelty tea bags set that also includes Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Lurch from the Adams family and Charlie Chaplin. You can get this and other cool novelty tea bags set from Monster Threads - http://monsterthreads.com.au/onlineshop/

(6) It’s Mango season! Need I say more :)

(7) Kiwi fruit knitted coaster

(8) Whale tea diffuser (also from Monster Threads)

(9) Kiwi fruit cooling face masks from The Face Shop

Welcome to Summer Hill So, I am now approaching my third week in Summer Hill - which for those of you who are not familiar with the Inner West area of Sydney, it’s about three stops away from Newtown. Summer Hill in many ways, has a lot of charms of other parts of Inner West: the old buildings, nice boutique shops and friendly people in the neighbourhood. Over the weekend, I went on a little ‘explore Summer Hill’ trip on my way to do the boring old grocery shopping (killing two bird with one stone, you see). So, let me take this opportunity to introduce you to some of my favourite finds in Summer Hill so far… apart from the old buildings that reminds me of Newtown/Enmore (my previous neighbourhood), there’s the Summer Hill mural that sits along the wall alongside a fountain and park benches in the middle of the suburb. And there’s this corner fruit shop where upon entering, you’ll just want to buy every single fruit in the store because they all look that GOOD and fresh! And last but not least, there’s ‘The Creatory’, a charming little craft store that stocks craft supplies and run creative workshops. I had a nice, friendly chat with the owner and promised to do one of the workshop they run next year - getting excited!! This concludes part one of my Summer Hill adventure :) High-res

Welcome to Summer Hill

So, I am now approaching my third week in Summer Hill - which for those of you who are not familiar with the Inner West area of Sydney, it’s about three stops away from Newtown. Summer Hill in many ways, has a lot of charms of other parts of Inner West: the old buildings, nice boutique shops and friendly people in the neighbourhood.

Over the weekend, I went on a little ‘explore Summer Hill’ trip on my way to do the boring old grocery shopping (killing two bird with one stone, you see). So, let me take this opportunity to introduce you to some of my favourite finds in Summer Hill so far… apart from the old buildings that reminds me of Newtown/Enmore (my previous neighbourhood), there’s the Summer Hill mural that sits along the wall alongside a fountain and park benches in the middle of the suburb. And there’s this corner fruit shop where upon entering, you’ll just want to buy every single fruit in the store because they all look that GOOD and fresh! And last but not least, there’s ‘The Creatory’, a charming little craft store that stocks craft supplies and run creative workshops. I had a nice, friendly chat with the owner and promised to do one of the workshop they run next year - getting excited!!

This concludes part one of my Summer Hill adventure :)

The Magical World of Dr. Seuss

As part of the GRAPHICS week in Sydney, there was a free Dr. Seuss exhibition to celebrate the release of the new Art of Dr. Seuss book.

Although I didn’t discover Dr. Seuss until well into my adolescence, you can’t help but be captivated by the quirky & wonderful characters and rhymes in his children’s books. I think my favourite is ‘Oh, the places you’ll go’ because I love adventures :)

I’ve posted a whole heap of photos on my Instagram gallery > look up ‘Peiwen K’

“wedding bells” I have the great pleasure to put my creative skills to good use to come up with some designs for one of my best friend’s upcoming wedding. Congratulation Richard & Jess - you two are just the loveliest people I’ve ever come across and I’m sure the beach wedding will be amazing! *Side note: sadly, Rich did not win the battle to use Star Wars The Imperial March as their song to march down the aisle on their big day :P 

“wedding bells”

I have the great pleasure to put my creative skills to good use to come up with some designs for one of my best friend’s upcoming wedding. Congratulation Richard & Jess - you two are just the loveliest people I’ve ever come across and I’m sure the beach wedding will be amazing!

*Side note: sadly, Rich did not win the battle to use Star Wars The Imperial March as their song to march down the aisle on their big day :P 

“Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody”

Holden Caulfield - The Catcher in the Rye.

Back in Highschool, The Catcher in the Rye was one of my favourite books. Every now and then, I feel the urge to dig up my copy of The Catcher in the Rye (it’s in one of the many boxes in the garage somewhere) and re-read some of my favourite parts of the book again.

If you happen to be a fan of this book and the character - Holden Caulfield, you’d agree with me that he’s one of those characters with endless classic quotes. For some reason, just out of the blue, this ending quote in the book crossed my mind again today….

Take that leap of faith There always comes a moment in life where you’re presented with the chance to take a leap of faith, follow your heart and have a go at what you really believe in. Recently, many of my close friends have decided to move overseas, change career, get married… everyone seems to be embarking on a new journey in life. A wise friend of mine once said to me “if you always have a back-up plan for everything in life, you’ll never get anywhere because you’ll always go back to the comfort of having a back-up plan”. So, here’s to leaving back-up plans behind and embracing the changes ahead! High-res

Take that leap of faith

There always comes a moment in life where you’re presented with the chance to take a leap of faith, follow your heart and have a go at what you really believe in. Recently, many of my close friends have decided to move overseas, change career, get married… everyone seems to be embarking on a new journey in life.

A wise friend of mine once said to me “if you always have a back-up plan for everything in life, you’ll never get anywhere because you’ll always go back to the comfort of having a back-up plan”. So, here’s to leaving back-up plans behind and embracing the changes ahead!

A WEEK OF GOODBYE  Last Friday was a sad day for us at TST, as we said our goodbye and farewell to a few much beloved team members at work. Alas, it was not all bad news - we ordered take-away pizzas for our last team lunch, rockets full of sweets were given as gifts (I mean this literally, our managers got popping candies in rocket containers :P) and let’s not forget this ‘family portrait’ that I did to remember the good times :) High-res

A WEEK OF GOODBYE
 

Last Friday was a sad day for us at TST, as we said our goodbye and farewell to a few much beloved team members at work. Alas, it was not all bad news - we ordered take-away pizzas for our last team lunch, rockets full of sweets were given as gifts (I mean this literally, our managers got popping candies in rocket containers :P) and let’s not forget this ‘family portrait’ that I did to remember the good times :)

Who are your Creative Heroes? You know…. the ones that makes you go “oooooh” “ahhhhh” (at the same time, dying of jealousy) every time you see their work?  Here are some of mine. I have such a long list (the number is always increasing) that it’ll take me a while to post them all onto my Pinterest board. By the way, if you happen to be a Pinterest addict too, drop by my boards and say hello ;)   High-res

Who are your Creative Heroes?

You know…. the ones that makes you go “oooooh” “ahhhhh” (at the same time, dying of jealousy) every time you see their work?  Here are some of mine. I have such a long list (the number is always increasing) that it’ll take me a while to post them all onto my Pinterest board. 

By the way, if you happen to be a Pinterest addict too, drop by my boards and say hello ;)  

The Frank Chimero Experience So, I promised that earlier this week that I’ll do a more detailed post about the Frank Chimero talk I went to as part of the Portable Talks series for 2012. Instead of rambling on about how amazing the experience was, I whipped up a little illustration based on some of my favourite parts of the talk.  I got a copy of Frank’s book - ‘The Shape of Design’ on the day, which was entirely funded by his Kickstarter project. You can get a glimpse of the first chapter here: http://frankchimero.com/ It’s not a pretty picture book but rather, one that I think designers (all creatives in fact) would be able to benefit from - how to reach that higher level of thinking to create better designs. I can’t wait to see the next project Frank Chimero got up his sleeves! High-res

The Frank Chimero Experience

So, I promised that earlier this week that I’ll do a more detailed post about the Frank Chimero talk I went to as part of the Portable Talks series for 2012. Instead of rambling on about how amazing the experience was, I whipped up a little illustration based on some of my favourite parts of the talk. 

I got a copy of Frank’s book - ‘The Shape of Design’ on the day, which was entirely funded by his Kickstarter project. You can get a glimpse of the first chapter here: http://frankchimero.com/ It’s not a pretty picture book but rather, one that I think designers (all creatives in fact) would be able to benefit from - how to reach that higher level of thinking to create better designs.

I can’t wait to see the next project Frank Chimero got up his sleeves!

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