#rina weekend cartoon

[secretadmirer29]

RiNa (Cartoon+AI) - Jom kita pulang, dah ditunggu ayank... 🤭ups, maksud saya dah ditunggu ayah.. 😂😅

[acaseforpencils]

Rina Piccolo and Part Two Of Rhymes with Orange.

From time to time, A Case for Pencils has had experts on the blog. People at the top of their field outside of greyscale single panel cartoons, whom I admire and want to learn more from myself! I decided to have more people from the fields of newspaper strips, graphic novels, painting… people who inspire me and who I think it would be wonderful for artists to hear from. This week is the second installment of a three part series with the wonderful cartoonists of Rhymes with Orange, Hilary Price and Rina Piccolo. Of course Rina has also done quite a bit of fantastic work outside of Rhymes with Orange, and I am very happy to have her on Case!

Bio: Rina Piccolo’s cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker, Barron's Business Magazine, The Reader’s Digest, Parade Magazine, and more.

Her syndicated daily comic strip, Tina’s Groove ran from 2002 to 2017. Currently, Rina’s cartoons can be seen from Monday to Saturday in the comic feature Rhymes With Orange (in collaboration with Hilary Price, and Syndicated worldwide by King Features Syndicate). Rina is also the co-author of the book Quirky Quarks: A Cartoon Guide to the Fascinating Realm of Physics (Springer, 2016).

Lately, Rina has worked with King Features and Mental Canvas (a graphic-media-design system) to create interactive comics and cartoons that involve 3D environments.

She is also an avid doodler and sketchbook-keeper.

Here’s one of two New Yorker cartoons from long, long ago... my drawing style has changed a little over the years...

Tools of choice:​ I have a few: Definitely can’t live without my daily sketchbook (I’m an obsessive doodler and art-journal keeper), my two fav fountain pens (Namiki Falcon, and Carbon Platinum desk pen), and I should also mention my iPad Pro for the digital stuff I do (including Rhymes With Orange)!

Tool I wish I could use better: I’d like to master Mental Canvas — a software, mentioned above, that I used to build the Rhymes With Orange Interactive cartoon, and other 2d/3d drawing projects (in the pipeline)!

For Non-digital— watercolor. I want to learn how to do it better.

Tool I wish existed: I wish there was a pen that could skywrite like airplanes do. Like, you would literally just draw in the air in front of you, and the drawing would stay up for a few minutes, and then just gradually fade into nothing. The pen would have buttons for different colors, and different nibs/spouts so that the line could be changed from round, flat, puffy, etc. I would call it “the Jet.” Ha ha, I wish. Hey, all you inventors, get to work (Bonus: you could also use it for self-defence)!

Tricks: ​Not anything I’ve been using on a regular basis, but I have used twigs to draw thin lines, and once cut the quill of a pigeon feather so that I could use it as a dip pen (it worked better than I thought it would!) In terms of my daily cartoon work, I’ve developed weird writing rituals that verge on insanity, but a sort of insanity that gets me in the “zone” of writing usable stuff— I don’t want to say what they are because you’ll think I’m crazy. But maybe I am crazy, ha ha. In any case, my rituals have been highly effective over the decades!

Misc: Here’s something random that I’ve learned over the years. In the past, when people would ask me what I was doing over the weekend, I’d say, “I’m working.” To which people would reply, “oh, sorry you have to work,” or “you work too hard.” What they don’t get is that I LIKE spending time creating stuff, and often hate doing the other things people normally associate with weekends. Well, I grew a little, and now take another tack. Now when people ask what I’m doing, I give them specifics — without using the word “work”:  “This weekend I’m going to attempt to paint a watercolor of an underwater scene.” Or I might say, “I’m going to try to draw a holiday village scene with gingerbread men and snowmen.” When I say it that way, the response is always great. People even encourage me on, and wish me luck, and say, ‘have fun!’” The budding artists around me might say, “I wish I had time to do something like that.” So there you go. There are too many takeaways here, I’ll let the readers choose their own. But one thing is for sure, the word “Work” is way too vague to use in a sentence if you want people in your life to understand you better. 

Website, etc. 

RhymesWithOrange.com

RinaPiccolo.com

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If you enjoy this blog, and would like to contribute to labor and maintenance costs, there is a Patreon, and if you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee, there is a Ko-Fi account as well! I do this blog for free because accessible arts education is important to me, and your support helps a lot! You can also find more posts about art supplies on Case’s Instagram and Twitter! Thank you!

[davidinosaka-blog]

March 15

Hi again! I’m taking a bit more time between posts now, so I’ll try my best to keep the quality up. I’m going back about a month ago, starting bright and early at morning track practice. This was my first one because no one told me there were morning practices before then, but everyone came on that first day to say goodbye to the students leaving for foreign exchange. Every year, one sophomore age homeroom goes on a year long exchange to Canada. That’s the same program that my current host brother, Ryosuke, came home from in January. In track club, there was only one person going: a really outgoing girl named Ami. After morning practice, we took a last team photo with her, then went on to our normal day. The whole program is amazing to me; each homeroom has about 40 students in it, and for the most part each student goes to a different school in Canada, which is so many! The teacher in charge of making sure all of the students get to their school alright is Mr. Okada, who normally translates for our Japanese history class. Since he was gone on Wednesday, Mr. Mizou showed us some old Japanese artwork. It was strange at first, because he showed us paintings of hell and diseases, but it kind of fit with our topic that religion was very important? I’m not quite sure how it was related, but he also showed us the first Japanese manga, which depicted samurai as rabbits and commoners as frogs, and had them doing sumo, riding horses, and wearing kimonos. Again, not sure how it was related to class, but it was funny. The next day in our home economics class, we made hamburgers and apple pie, which felt pretty American, but then in our next class our teacher made my classmates and I clean our room by hand, which felt veeery foreign, cuz I don’t like cleaning so much. It wasn’t actually that bad, and we messed around a lot as we were working. My teacher also explained to me that it’s a sort of good luck thing, to clean your room yourself towards the end of the school year. My last class that day was PE, which we used to have with the class that went to Canada, but since they left, my host brother and his homeroom joined us. It was especially fun because they all speak almost fluent English, so they would yell and curse at each other as loud as they wanted and no one else understood. The next day my host mom packed me a pretty awesome lunchbox, but in particular she packed green beans. I have those a lot in the US, but I hadn’t had them since coming to Japan, so I kind of felt a bit homesick. Who would’ve thought I would miss something as small as that? After lunch we had volleyball, which I really like, but that day in particular was awesome. All we did were matches, and in our second one I served the first 15 points straight! My team was really hype about it, and eventually the coach came over and joined the other team to help them out. In general it was an awesome day, and a huge confidence booster for the class. After dinner at home, we celebrated a festival called Setsubun, which is supposed to keep out the bad spirits from your home. The way to celebrate it, though, is to have someone wear a mask and try to come inside while being pelted with soybeans. We all took turns, and it was really fun! The next night, Saturday, we had a welcome home party for Ryosuke and his classmates at home, and it was great! Like I said earlier, everyone knew English, and they knew a lot about American and Canadian culture, like twerking and rap songs. A few people brought cameras and took candids the whole night, which was really funny. The next week I went to monday morning, and I realized that the first time with Ami was exceptionally well attended, because at this practice I was one of only three people to show up. We did our thing, though, and it was easier to talk when there were less people around. On Tuesday and Wednesday both, I spent a lot of time after practice hanging around and talking to people. Once it was with the sprinters, and they were all super excited about speaking English to me and singing American songs. The other day I talked with the distance team about the summer trip to Okinawa, and they told me a bunch of different foods to try while I’m there. They’re going to England and Canada instead for a month to work on their English, so we also talked about the differences between American and British English. But the next day, Thursday, was my favorite day since coming to Japan. We had a half day, and after school one of my friends from math invited me to go and grab lunch with him and two girls. My host mom gave me the thumbs up, so we went and ate in Tennoji, the big station near the school, then saw Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. It was really fun, and it was really easy to talk about this and that. After the movie I went straight to my violin lesson, where we worked on vibrato for the first time. Then after the lesson, I went out to dinner with my teacher, his wife, and my host sister at a grilled beef place. I took more time to eat than everyone else since I ate more, so everyone else just drank for the last bit of the meal. Then we went on to another restaurant, this time Italian, for salads. Everyone else said they were too full to eat very much, though, so again, I ate while everyone else drank. My teacher and my host sister both got pretty tipsy. My teacher, Mr. Matsuda, alternated between roasting Korea and  complimenting Azumi and me on our instruments. My host sister didn’t do anything as dramatic as that, but she nodded off on the train and was hiccupping a little. It was a really fun way to end an awesome day. The next day was a holiday, so Ryosuke and I played each other in Super Smash Bros on the Wii, then he went to his soccer practice and I went to check out Kyuhoji park. I wanted to find a track, or at least some kind of lockers to put things in while I run, but there weren’t any. It was still a fun trip out to the park. I had only been once before, with my first host brother Kenta, so I got to explore more this time. The next day I went back to the Terakawa family to stay the night. I went on Saturday morning, and was picked up at Yao station by my host dad, Yu and Rina. The car ride back was fun, seeing the same neighborhood where I used to live, and talking with Yu and my host dad was nice. I realized how much my language skills had improved compared to the last time we had seen each other, so we were able to talk more than when we lived together. Once we got home, I met my host mom again, and we talked about how the Tsuchida family is to me. I sort of knew that we would talk about it, since it was a big change for both of us, but I hadn’t really thought of how it would feel to talk with my first host mom about how well I was doing with my second host family. While my host mom worked on lunch, (quesadillas!) Yu, Rina, and I kicked and threw some balloons around the living room, just like when I lived with them. Kenta’s friend came over again, as well as a family friend of the Terakawa’s, who I met on my first weekend. We met up together at Tennoji, ate lunch together, and went to get my commuter pass. His English is very good, and we talked about how I’d been doing since I arrived. The last time we had seen each other, I hadn’t been able to make a complete sentence in Japanese, so he was really interested in how much I had learned. We had a good time together until the late afternoon, then everyone who came for lunch went on home. We had some down time after that, and it really didn’t feel any different from when I lived there. We just sat around in the living room, watching Rina’s cartoons and talking during commercials. My host mom needed something from the convenience store for dinner, so Yu and I walked a few blocks over to buy it. When we walked out the front door, though, Rina started crying and throwing a fit that we could here through the open window. Yu just looked at me and gave me one of those “She’s three and I have to put up with this 24/7” looks, and we went and did our thing. When we came back home, though, my host mom told me that Rina had been crying because she thought I wasn’t coming back. I hadn’t thought of that, and I went through a lot of feelings and thoughts, like did she cry that much when I moved? It was a strange feeling, but she was fine when I came home, so we all put it out of our minds. Dinner was okonomiyaki, the cabbage and bacon pancake-ish dish. After that, we all took our baths and showers, then it was time for bed for Rina. She and my host mom went back to their room, but a few minutes later they were back, and my host mom said Rina wanted to stay up until I went to bed. It was pretty early, but I didn’t want to argue, so we went back and had an early night. The next morning nothing special happened. I had the same breakfast as I used to on normal school days, then the Terakawa’s drove me back to the Tsuchida’s house. The goodbye wasn’t bad at all, in terms of emotions, so I think that was a little bit of closure after the whole email thing. Then school on Monday was back to normal. After classes, my host family took me to go see a saxophone concert. The group was half Japanese college students and half Taiwanese college students, and Shinji, my host sister’s boyfriend, was one of the principal players. It was a great performance, and once it finished I found out that was the first time they had played together. Before they had been practicing separately, in Taiwan and Japan, but from the performance I never would have thought it. The next day was Valentine’s Day, which is very different from in the USA. In Japan on Valentine’s Day, only girls give chocolates. There’s a separate holiday called White Day that happens a month later when guys give gifts back to the girls they received chocolate from. I actually didn’t get very many from my homeroom, but when I went to my math class, almost everyone had something small to give to me. I was a little worried about White Day and remembering who I needed to give gifts to, but White Day falls during Spring Break, so I don’t think there’ll be much pressure to get chocolates to everyone. After school I checked Instagram, and I saw that track was starting up in Austin! Time really is flying by. I’ve realized now that once school starts up after break, I’ll only be in Japan for three more months. It seems crazy to me that I’m already that close to heading home, and even crazier to think that I’ve been in Japan for almost 7 months already. Anyway. Back to the story of my life. I had a really good day on the day after Valentine’s Day. First, as a disclaimer, I 100% meant to go to track practice. Was not planning on skipping. But, you know, life happens. We had an assignment in homeroom to create a poster about a college you want to go to, then choose which poster we thought was the best put-together. It was due Thursday morning, and the posters were in the classroom, so I had planned on scanning through them and filling out my ballot before going down to practice. It took me a while to read the posters, though, but my homeroom talked me through what the tougher ones said, and gradually our conversation kind of drifted away from school. I ended up completely missing practice, and talking with my homeroom until 6:30 when the building starts closing for the night. It was awesome to spend time outside of class with my friends, and I met a bunch of new people, too. The next morning, Bain and I were supposed to join a Skype call with Bain’s school back home and all the students interested in coming to Japan next year, but when we joined, there were no students. No one had applied to come. We talked with the head of the program at Bain’s school, and with a Japanese teacher about keeping up Japanese once we come home. In PE, we were wrapping up the school year, so we ran the 1500. My host brother, Ryosuke, and one of my friends from math, Takeo, had been talking trash to me and saying they were going to beat me, so we had a pretty serious race. I want to give a shoutout to Coach Carrozza, because I whooped ‘em. It was actually pretty slow, and I actually didn’t win by that much, but still. I just wanted to give a shoutout to Coach. The next day, Friday, we had our last volleyball and guitar classes, so we played matches and had a playing test, respectively. Both were really fun, and it was a little sad, because I don’t know if I’ll have the classes again next year, or if I’ll see my classmates again. On Saturday, Shinji and Goro both came over, and we played a giant game of UNO and another playing card game. We had a lot of fun, even though I got completely run over in both games. I also went and got my haircut again, which normally wouldn’t be big news, but again, I’m in Japan, so everything is big news. In particular, I went to the same barbershop as last time, which hasn’t happened until now. I even had the same barber! The next week at school was the last one before finals started, so classes were for the most part laid back. In music we watched these home video type movies, and our teacher played different soundtracks over it to show how music changed the feeling of a movie. Then he showed a different movie, that he explained as his recreation of the Terminator movies. It was very funny, in particular to see his personality outside of class. Our last judo class was as lit as always. I had to finish up the required number of matches, so I had to do 5 in the class period. The guys that I had talked with last time about nicknames cheered me on during my matches, and chanted USA pretty loudly whenever I did something good. It was a great way to go out, if a little embarrassing. I went running on my own after school that day, and the area at Nagai park in front of the stadium was packed with college aged guys doing skateboard and BMX bike tricks. They were blasting American rap music over speakers while they were at it, and it was really cool to watch while I warmed up. I’ve seen some small groups of friends messing around before, but it looked like a coordinated event this time. The next few days were pretty slow and relaxed before exams, but on Thursday when I was at Nagai, I ran into some guys throwing a frisbee while I was cooling down, and they let me join and throw with them for a little while. It was pretty cool; we met on the street, did our thing for 10 minutes or so, then said goodbye and went our separate ways. Friday and Saturday’s exams went well; I have my Saturday math exam back and I aced it! Once my exam finished on Saturday, my host mom, Goro, my host grandmother, and I went to the plum gardens at Osaka Castle. I was kind of dazed after my exam, so I wasn’t listening to the conversation in the car as we were driving, but at a stoplight, my host grandmother tapped me on the soldier and asked me how people in America are buried after they die. I was really confused and it showed, and Goro explained that they had been talking about if a zombie apocalypse could happen in Japan. He told me that in Japan most people are cremated after they die, so there aren’t any bodies to become zombies, and my host grandmother had been wondering if it was more likely to happen in America. I told them what I could, and we kept talking about it until we got to the castle. The plum blossoms were beautiful, and I got to take lots of pictures. The garden was very spacious, and lots of people were walking around just enjoying the view. The rest of exam week went by pretty uneventfully. I also got back my Japanese and Physics exams, 97% and 95%, and on Sunday Bain, Takeo, and I went to Nagai to throw a frisbee around and avoid studying. It was really fun, and it was a really cool place right in front of the stadium. We accidentally got the frisbee caught in a tree twice, and once threw it over a security fence, but we got it back every time. On Friday I went to Namba, the big downtown area, with Takeo and Isoyama, who are both in my math and home economics classes, and with Bain. We went sort of window shopping in the morning and walked down the big streets, then went to the best restaurant ever. It was a pizza, pasta, and curry all-you-can-eat for $7, with no time limit. Best. Deal. Ever. All four of us went back for thirds, and we might have had more if we hadn’t been planning on going to Round One. It’s an entertainment place, with games like an arcade, and three floors of indoor sport courts. We played tennis, volleyball, badminton, basketball, and even went rollerblading. There was also archery, segway lessons, and ping-pong, but we ran out of time before we could try it all out. It was awesome, but the closest one to the school is four subway stops away, so it’s a little inconvenient to get to, but I’m definitely going to try to go back again with friends. Now it’s getting into spring break, so the days are kind of disconnected. One day, we went to see another one of Shinji’s concerts. This one was special too, because all of the pieces were written by one British conductor named Philip Sparke, who came to Japan to conduct the concert. It was very interesting to hear so many pieces from one man’s mind, because you could kind of see how he viewed the world through it. For example, the last piece was called Symphony of Colors, or something along those lines. There were five pieces named after five different colors, and each one had its own personality attached to it. There were also several non-traditional instruments throughout the whole performance. I also noticed some of the cultural differences between Mr. Sparke’s conducting and what the performers were expecting. After each movement, the conductor pointed out the people who had a strong presence in the movement and had them bow, alone. At first, none of the Japanese performers were expecting it, and there was a bit of confusion about what was going on. By the end of the night everything was flawless, but the way Mr. Sparke left the stage was really surprising. He made a big show of saying thank you and bowing, then left the stage with everyone standing. He came back out a few seconds later, holding up the number one and mouthing “One more?” Then, in the middle of the last piece, he stopped conducting, walked around looking over the principal player’s shoulder at his music, then sitting in an empty chair in the percussion section. The song ended and the audience started applauding, and he just stood up, waved once, and stepped off stage to let the performers take the attention. I had a really fun time watching it. The next day, my host family woke up early to go spend the day driving around. Our first stop was an all-you-can-eat strawberry farm. It was amazing. We could walk around the greenhouses, pick whichever strawberries we wanted, and take as much time as we wanted. After that we went to this river in the next prefecture. It’s pretty famous because the riverbanks are over a hot spring, so if you dig out a hole, it’ll fill with clean, hot water. We tried to dig our own, but the process was taking a long time, so we used one that was already made. It was really cool, and we messed around skipping rocks and crossing the river to get to other springs. A few days later as I was about to head home from Nagai, I met these three guys who were finishing up their own workout. One of them, Kaoru, speaks really good English, and he and I talked for a little about this and that. We followed each other on Instagram, and since then we’ve met up once to workout, and Kaoru wants to go to a Gold’s Gym with me, then go get Mexican food. Honestly sounds pretty fun, but I’ve only met him twice, so I’m not sure if it’ll happen. On Wednesday, we had our last half-day of classes, and now we’re in a month long spring break! To sort of kick off the break, Ryosuke took me to a bathhouse in our neighborhood that has a “denki-furo,” which literally means “electric bath.” I was very skeptical about it, mostly because it has “electric” in the name, but Ryosuke sort of peer-pressured me into it. It was weeeeiiird. Like, it didn’t really hurt, but I could definitely feel the charge in my muscles. We both chickened out after, like, 2 minutes, then went back to the normal baths, but hey! I tried it. The next day I had track practice at Nagai Track for the third time ever, and it went really well! This was the first time I had on spikes all year, and it felt pretty good. My first time ever at Nagai was really bad; I came dead last in an 800 meter time trial and was almost in tears most of the way home. This time, though, was the exact opposite: I was either second or third for every interval, and coming home I had that one line from Bounce Back stuck in my head. The next day I went with Azumi to go see Moana in Umeda. It was opening day in Japan, and I had been seeing ads for it all over, and it was really good! After the movie we had dinner, then Azumi showed me some places where she thought I could get good pictures. On the 13th, I went to Universal Studios Japan! I had made plans with Misaki and Hana, who both went to Canada a few years ago and helped me get adjusted to Japan, and with Harada, one of my friends in my homeroom class. We met up before the gates opened and stayed all day, almost until the gates closed. We rode some of the big rides, but the lines were so long we couldn’t really do them all. While we walked and waited, though, we talked a lot! Communication wasn’t that hard, either, but by the end of the day I was pretty fried. It was an incredible experience! And finally, yesterday we went to hear Azumi’s graduation piece. She had been practicing the same piece since I moved here in December, and yesterday she finally performed it! It went really well, and tomorrow she’ll leave to go to New Caledonia as a graduation trip. One of my host mom’s piano students came with us to Azumi’s recital. I don’t know his actual name, but he told me to call him Boss. My host mom told me that when he was in his 20’s he was really cool and hot, but now he’s in his early forties, and even though he’s not what he once was, he still is called Boss by his friends. He was really cool, funny, and very easy to talk to. Aaaand that’s a wrap! I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written, and I’ll try to stay on top of it from now on. Love y’all!

[secretadmirer29]

RiNa (Cartoon+AI) - Shopping dengan Mama Mantu.. 🤭😅

[secretadmirer29]

RiNa (Cartoon+AI) - Shopping dengan Mama Mantu.. 😅😂

[secretadmirer29]

RiNa (Cartoon+AI) - Shopping dengan Mama Mantu.. 😅

[secretadmirer29]

RiNa (Cartoon+AI) - Shopping dengan Mama Mantu.. 😅

[secretadmirer29]

RiNa (Cartoon+AI) - Sunday Funday..

[secretadmirer29]

RiNa (Cartoon+AI) - Keep Calm and Go Shopping..

[secretadmirer29]

RiNa (Cartoon+AI) - Shopping dengan Mama Mantu.. 😅

[secretadmirer29]

RiNa (Cartoon+AI) - Piss Baby ✌️

[secretadmirer29]

RiNa (Cartoon+AI) - Nak shopping kejap dengan mama mantu.. ehehehee..

[secretadmirer29]

RiNa (Cartoon+AI) - Saya dah cantik tak..?

[secretadmirer29]

RiNa (Cartoon+AI) - Sat Nite be like.. Part 13

[secretadmirer29]

RiNa (Cartoon+AI) - Sat Nite be like.. Part 12

[secretadmirer29]

RiNa (Cartoon+AI) - Sat Nite be like.. Part 11