Portraits (July 2016)

August 5, 2016August 7, 2020Leave a comment

I’m back to doing portraits! The “to do” list is still long but at least there’s progress. It’s a weird yet fuzzy feeling that there are people who requested an artwork from me. So here are the ones I did this July. Apparently, July is also the #WorldWaterColorMonth.

Office mates.

Gifts for the Senior Architects.

Left: My online game friend requested a portrait / Right: Birthday gift for an office mate.

VERY late birthday gifts for my friends. ♥

VERY late birthday gifts for my friends ♥.

My portraits are not 100% the same with the reference photos, but I feel like I’m improving a bit. As usual, progress and continuity are important to me. Whenever I browse my blog, I feel this sense of accomplishment like “Hey, I did something for this month! I’m productive! I didn’t just laze around & played video games all weekend!”. Haha.

Here’s to more art in the future.

Cheers.

Monologue (May-July)

July 2, 2016August 7, 2020Leave a comment

I’m back! Still can’t transfer my photos from my phone to laptop through USB connection, but I discovered that I can transfer through the ASUS app Sharelink. SO – I’m halfway through my Monologue notebook. Thinking whether I should get another one soon or to upgrade to Stillman & Birn or Strathmore notebook. The reason? Some pages of the Monologue soft sketch book won’t absorb the paint as shown below. (The hair on the left drawing).

2016 07 monologue 10

Argh. I hate the effect! But still, progress is still progress. As usual, the realistic portraits are referenced from Pinterest. The anime-ish ones are mine. My watercolor set is Prang (unless otherwise stated), and I use my Craftdoodle waterbrushes. 🙂

Left: I like the hands / Right: Galaxy hair without the white speckles yet.

The left drawing doesn’t look the same as the reference HAHA.

Left: My Sola ♥ / Right: I don’t like the final render huhu

Left: I used my Reeves watercolor pan set here / Right: Loose pencil sketch with loose rendering. 😐

Then I tried fashion drawings. Haha.

Left: I already posted this on the last Monologue post / Right: I tried blending the skin by adding water on dried paint.

Left: I used my officemate’s Simbalion watercolor set. Too powdery for me / Right: Kimono girl sketch.

Left: Self portrait with light wash / Right: Sketch of Sona, a League of Legends hero.

Left: Progress artwork with wet on wet technique. / Right: I tried to render with more shadows. Doesn’t look like the original though!

I’m now into drawing leaves as shown here. HAHAHA.

2016 07 monologue 10

The first & last image are my latest drawings. Not sure if I should finish the left one. I like the wash effect but I was supposed to put more detail on the lanterns. The right one is still unfinished. It needs more leaves in the background.

I’m glad that I can still paint. ♥ Mostly during break times in the office. Speaking of which, I need to do those “requested” portraits soon. Argh.

Until next time?

Lineart

June 17, 2016August 7, 2020Leave a comment

Last year, adult coloring books became popular in Manila. Being the kuripot/hipster person that I am – I bought a plain notebook so I could make my own coloring book HAHAHA. I also did the Inktober Challenge that time. So, anyway!

2016 06 lineart 1

Feeling a bit guilty for not painting – I brought my plain notebook and markers to work. This used to be my main medium but it got too expensive for me so I switched. And the fact that I feel limited to the colors. Right now, I’m in the mood for inking linearts again. So here are some artworks that I did this week.

2016 06 lineart 2

Ragnarok Online wanderer. I plan on coloring the left side with color pencils.

I also did a fanart of my Arch Bishop in the same notebook months ago:

This is the reason why I can’t use my markers on the left side.

Sola ♥.

The left eye is wrong :c

2016 06 lineart 5

2016 06 lineart 6

2016 06 lineart 7

2016 06 lineart 8

I did this today. Obviously I only brought my flesh tone markers HAHA.

I did the hair using a cheap ballpen.

Ahhh. Satisfied ♥. Time to do more artworks later!

Painting portraits

June 10, 2016August 7, 2020Leave a comment

I’ve been painting every other day, everywhere, ever since I’ve acquired my Craftdoodle waterbrush. It really helped a lot in keeping up with the momentum. But I’ve stopped painting right now due to other matters – mainly Overwatch HAHAHA. Here are some portraits that I did of my officemates during the rare times when I was waiting for feedback on my projects:

Left: Farewell gift to Royd / Right: Graduation gift to Zarah

Left: Birthday gift to Karen / Right: I drew Sons out of boredom

Sad that I didn’t get to take a photo of the portrait that I did for the boss. Oh well. There’s a long list of requests that I’ll do sometime in the future. Hopefully I’ll start on it soon. I really want to improve more on drawing and painting portraits.

Monologue (Dec-April)

May 3, 2016August 7, 2020Leave a comment

For the past few weeks, I’ve been bringing around my Monologue soft sketch almost everywhere so I could sketch or paint whenever I have free time. Well, it worked, HAHA. Although my backpack is a bit heavier now since I also bring my Prang set, I don’t mind since I can paint anytime and anywhere. ♥ So here are my artworks from December 2015 to April 2016.

Left: obviously tried typography and failing AHAHA / Right: First artwork. I love the bloom effects.

Left: Living room interior sketch without using a ruler HUHU / Right: So colorful. *u*

I did this during our stay at Dive & Trek, Batangas. ♥

I didn’t like the artwork that I did on this page. So I covered it with some loose Canson paper artworks and washi tape.Still in the water / lily / girl phase.

Left: First try with my Craft doodle waterbrush ♥ / Right: First time to try out the Craft doodle waterbrush care of Jean.

Left: I still don’t know what to do with her / Right: Referenced from a photo. Used my Reeves watercolor pan set.

Referenced from photo. Used Prang on this one.

Overall, I’m quite satisfied with the Monologue notebook. I actually like the bloom effect on some artworks. The paper buckles with wet on wet technique, but since this is just for practice, I don’t mind that much. The A5 one is the right size for me. One complaint though is that the price of this brand now is ridiculous due to the increasing demand here in the Philippines. I bought mine for around 330php last November 2015. When I checked last month the price was at 470php. The bigger size (A4? I think) I got for 300php years ago, now it’s 700+php. Sigh!

Do you know any online sellers for this? I’d love to hoard this notebook, but with reasonable price.

Dive & Trek Batangas

April 17, 2016August 7, 20201 Comment

Last month, me, Inggo & my cousin’s family went to Batangas for the Holy week weekend. We went to Dive & Trek resort at Bauan, Batangas. This is a good resort to learn the basics of diving and getting your certification. But none of us did that HAHAHA. My aunt selected this resort due to the house reef just in front of the resort. So our routine during this vacation was : Eat, Swim, Eat, Draw, Swim, Draw, Eat. ♥

2016 04 dive&trek dock2

2016 04 dive&trek dock

2016 04 dive&trek 1

My cousin (left) drawing, my seat in the middle with my watercolor stuff, my Beloved (right) trying to connect to the wifi HAHA.

Sunsets are the best. ♥

2016 04 dive&trek 2

A different kind of art tambay. ♥

I brought my Monologue notebook, Prang watercolor set, Mixing palette, and a water container with me. The day before the trip, I did a lot of lineart at the office :)) I managed to finish some of them during this trip. I love this kind of art tambay! Great view, conversations, and companions with an iced cold coffee. ♥ We only did this when it’s too sunny to swim or the waves are too strong.

I would definitely go back here! All the staff were accommodating, friendly, as well as environmentally conscious. We learned a lot about this resort and their love for nature from their stories. They take care of giant clams, you know! You could actually see them during low tide when you snorkel (we didn’t though! UGHH that’s one of the reasons why I want to go back) Oh and their house reef ♥ There were so many fish in different shapes and sizes. We swam until we got all wrinkly. Swam in deep waters without life vests (but accompanied with a floating donut thing for safety). They have unlimited coffee, tea, and milo all day! So imagine how many cups of coffee I had everyday HAHA. Food was delicious and overflowing ♥ Their rooms were simple: aircon, bed, hot&cold water, you know, the necessities. I heard that some were iffy with the rooms (how it’s not nice, etc). But uh, you came to a DIVE resort, to DIVE (or snorkel for us) all day. Meep.

I wish for more days like this.

Twenty six.

April 5, 2016August 7, 2020Leave a comment

I just turned another year older as of writing. ♥ And I won’t go to work later for the reason that I just want to be happy on my birthday. (Sigh!) Here’s an artwork that I did for a watercolor group. Quickly doodled on my Monologue soft sketch book. They’re a cheaper alternative to Moleskine, around 300-350php. (edit: I found out that they’re around 470php now! Grr!) A lot of PH artists recommend this notebook, so I bought one out of curiosity (and when I finally found a store that has stock). After using it for a couple of artworks, I love it! I want to hoard more. ♥

2016 04 about me

2015 Watercolor Summary 2

March 29, 2016August 7, 2020Leave a comment

Hello! I just got back from an out of town trip with my family and my Inggo. We went to Batangas again this year. Anyway… I’m really excited to show here the last part of my 2015 watercolor summary. All of them are bouquets / flower arrangements because I wanted to challenge myself. Happy to say that it paid off!

This was gifted to my RO guildmate as a house warming present for his cafe. I heard he liked sunflowers.

2016 03 sunflower1

I really love the way I did the white flower. This was challenging!

I had a legit reason to use white poster paint here! I used it for the baby’s breath flowers hahaha.

Tried again to loosen my strokes. Happy with this. ♥

Also love this. ♥

I did this when I was sad one day due to an event I cannot control. Painting sunflowers is therapeutic for me.

I did this at a cafe! (a.k.a. the first time I brought my watercolor set outside)

This was done at Mithi Maginhawa. I met Jean there.

And done! This compilation shows that a little bit of patience goes a long way in watercolor. I could really see the improvement on my artworks. And I hope that this will inspire you to keep on making art. 🙂

Now what to write about next? Cheers.

2015 Watercolor Summary 1

March 21, 2016August 7, 20201 Comment

2015 was a good year to me as an artist. (I can’t believe I’m writing that hahaha.) I had the time to make a lot of art. I was very, very happy albeit costly. On this post, let me show you the first few months of my rediscovery of watercolor using flowers as my subjects. Most are referenced from Pinterest. I decided to cut the summary into two as it’s too image heavy for one post.

My first attempt at watercolor again after college. This was done on my Moleskine watercolor notebook.

Second attempt on my Moleskine notebook. Since I was too impatient, I decided to finish it off with white speckles using poster paint.

Since Moleskine was too small for me. I switched to the 180gsm Berkeley paper. Struggling with waterlily. Huhu.

This was made during one of the firsts watercolor tambay at my cousin’s place. I was the one who taught her the basics even though I’m not so sure myself HAHA.

One of the first artworks that I love. It shows how careless and free my strokes are. ♥ (Back in college, some block mates used to tease me about my careless/free/loose strokes. It doesn’t look good with interior renderings, they said. I got conscious a bit and tried to change that.) But right now, I love it ♥.

Tried to use more water here.

The red rose is symbolic for me. It was the emblem used for our guild during my Ragnarok days. ♥ Fenrir server represent!

This took too much time. Looking at it now, I want to redo it! But back then, I felt accomplished finishing this detailed piece.

Okay. Too much red everywhere HAHA. And that background color!

Okay, that was fun. Some things I noticed:

I didn’t have the patience yet.
I kept on using poster paint for white speckles.
Too much water on some parts.
Some color combinations didn’t go well HAHAHA.

This was just February to April. I’m happy to say that I’ve improved after that. Part 2 coming soon!

Cheers.

Sunflowers

March 14, 2016May 4, 2017Leave a comment

A few days after the previous post, I managed to squeeze some time after work to finish this watercolor piece:

Finally! ♥ I now need to buy a replacement charger for my digicam for clearer pics. I took that shot with my Zenfone 5. It looks a bit dull, no? When its actually bright and happy in real life. Hope that follows through with my design life now.

Cheers.