Monologue (May-July)

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. 🙂

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2016 07 monologue 1

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

2016 07 monologue 1-2

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

2016 07 monologue 2

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

2016 07 monologue 3

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

2016 07 monologue 4

Then I tried fashion drawings. Haha.

2016 07 monologue 5

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

2016 07 monologue 6

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

2016 07 monologue 7

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

2016 07 monologue 8

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

2016 07 monologue 9

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?

Painting portraits

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:

2016 06 Portrait 1

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

2016 06 Portrait 2

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)

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.

2016 05 Monologue p1

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

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2016 05 Monologue p2

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

2016 05 Monologue p3

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

2016 05 Monologue p4

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.

2016 05 Monologue p5

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

2016 05 Monologue p6

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

2016 05 Monologue p7

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

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

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2016 04 dive&trek dock

2016 04 dive&trek 1

2016 04 dive&trek sunset

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

2016 04 dive&trek sunset 2

Sunsets are the best. ♥

2016 04 dive&trek 2

2016 04 dive&trek art tambay

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.

2015 Watercolor Summary 2

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!

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2016 03 sunflower for a friend

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

2016 03 sunflower1

2016 03 bottle arrangement

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

2016 03 sunflower2

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

2016 03 hydrangea3

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

2016 03 floral arrangement

Also love this. ♥

2016 03 sunflower3

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

2016 03 sunflower4

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

2016 03 sunflower5

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

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.

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2016 03 peony

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

2016 03 hydrangea1

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

2016 03 waterlily1

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

2016 03 hydrangea2

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.

2016 03 galaxy flower

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 ♥.

2016 03 peony2

Tried to use more water here.

2016 03 rose

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

2016 03 first floral arrangement

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

2016 03 bouquet

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

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.

A watercolor affair

After resigning from my job last January 2015, I promised myself that I would do more art and try out all of my art materials. And I did! At the same time, I also shared my works on Instagram and got to know a lot of local artists. A few months after that, I joined a local watercolor group hoping to meet new people (seriously). The admin organized a watercolor atc trade event a few weeks ago and I attended. So, what are ATCs? According to this link:

Artist trading cards (ATCs) are miniature pieces of art that are traded around the world. Artists create, trade and collect art at organized “swap” events, either in person or online. The only official rule for ATCs is the size: 2.5″ x 3.5″

I attended the event with my IG friend Jean (@jeankelly11 & @watercolordive). We met up at Glorietta and got lost on the way to the venue. But it was a blessing in disguise because the next person to arrive at the event was one of our idols – Margaret Morales ! We were table mates and group mates for the trade. I was sooooooo happy! She was really nice and down to earth. 🙂

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When we finally had enough people, we went to our assigned groups and started trading! I was in Group 3. Two from my group didn’t get to attend, but they sent their cards to the admin to be traded.

012016 watercolorist meetup 1

On the left are Jen Mandia ‘s delicious looking ATCs, on the right are Dindin Lagdameo ‘s colorful ATCs.

012016 watercolorist meetup 2

Clockwise from upper left: Dianne Zaragoza ‘s , Mikai Tuazon ‘s kyooot large ATC , Monique‘s food ATC, Dindin’s, Jen Mandia’s, and Ardee‘s period fashion ATC.

012016 watercolorist meetup 3

Monique‘s food ATC, Margaret Morales‘ amazing ATCs, Aiza‘s crazy detailed ATCs (huhu my photo didn’t do justice to her art, go check her IG!), and finally my ATCs.

My ATCs captured by Maggie.

My ATCs captured by Maggie.

What I received after the trade.

What I received after the trade.

Everyone is so talented and inspiring! I had a great time chatting with people with the same interests as mine. If given the chance, I’m sure we can talk about art materials the whole day HAHA. We only met that day but it felt like we’ve been friends for a long time. ❤ We even took outfit photos together AHAHA (but I won’t upload that here).  Hay. So grateful 🙂 . Hopefully there will be a next time. I promise to attend more art related events this year!