Watercolor practice at home

September 25, 2020October 6, 2020Leave a comment

Found some pictures from some watercolor practices at home. I left my watercolor palette at my fiance’s house and I wanted to paint one night. Then I remembered that I have my Mijello tubes at home. So I used those and some extra art materials as well.

Mijello paints and my custom peony ceramic plate. ♥

A very loose sunflower painting. Photo in one of our office’s huddle spaces.

Pink rose.

Gumamela.

More loose practice. I liked the painting on the right with the combination of pink, yellow, and a bit of blue. ♥

And then tragedy struck! A ref magnet fell on my palette. 🙁

It was a fun experience painting without my usual art materials. I now try to do it every other creative day. ♥

StickerCon 2020 Prep

September 22, 2020October 6, 2020Leave a comment

To be accepted in the most coveted event of year for the third time has a bit of pressure. I knew I needed to create something new for the con. I’ve already created stock for Feb Komiket and had a lot left over. So the only problem was making something new to entice people to attend Stickercon and visit our booth.

My flower sticks look so pretty in a tray. ♥

The delivery box.

I had my stickers and postcards delivered to my office. Pictured above was the box that it came in. My officemates were also excited in helping me cut again this time HAHA. I gave them Coco milk tea as “salary”. Thank you so much!

Also bought some organizers this time. ♥

Sorting time!

I also realized that putting everything in a plastic envelope ruined some of my stickers. So I had to buy some plastic and acrylic organizers so I could sort and pack them safely. I bought these from Japan Home Center.

For the new stickers, I thought of bringing back my old sets but with new art and in kiss cut. The cut-it-yourself sticker pack didn’t last long, haha. I made and compiled artworks for Sunny (Sunflower, Rainy (Hydrangea), and Peony (Previously named Romantic) sets.

Some studies for Rainy set. I didn’t get to use every painting that I did.

More hydrangea studies.

And lots more!

This was a large painting that I definitely had to include.

An attempt at loose lotus painting. Didn’t liked it.

Another painting. Didn’t make the cut.

I made a lot of peonies. But I only chose two from this page.

Final sticker sets. ♥ I printed these sets the night before Stickercon. Whew!

Next up would be the event proper post. I hope I could write about it soon.♥

2019 Artworks

September 16, 2020September 23, 2021Leave a comment

When was the last time that I did a compilation post?! Two years ago! This feels so weird. It felt like I’ve been neglecting my blog after I got a job (I’m so sorry bb). I wanted to continue from the previous compilation blog, but I felt like I’ve blogged about most of my artworks here. The remaining ones didn’t have a lot to write about. So we’ll start with 2019. As always, photo heavy post ahead!

My first artwork on the Canson watercolor pad that I received last Christmas. ♥

A tropical feel artwork that I did days after Stickercon.

Gardenia on old watercolor paper.

The full piece. I think I also used Prang for the background?

Magnolia artwork. I found this color theory book in our office library and thought it would look good as a prop.

Some scibbles on my Moleskine watercolor pad.

Second page from my Moleskine pad.

Left: Practice peony. This took a long time detailing the petals. | Right: A random flower bouquet I referenced from Pinterest.

Sometimes I would have the patience to layer the petals. Most of the time, I don’t. This was a Berkeley paper.

Art tambay at Hannah’s house. I was thinking of new art for sticker sheets.

Left: Anemone bouquet practice. Daler Rowney paper and Mijello paints. | Right: Old canson watercolor pad and my usual watercolor palette. This was also made at Hannah’s, where I had an LSS on a detergent commercial song.

The way I painted this is so loose. I like it a bit.

I brought my Prismacolor pencils with me to work on day and left it on my pedestal so I could create art on idle time. On the left is my portrait practice, on the right is my team mate’s.

Then our team thought “We should buy a team sketchpad”. So we did, and I’ve been using mine during downtime. | Right: There was a time that I didn’t want to paint flowers, so I painted a portrait instead? Whyyyy.

Snapdragon painting that I did at Tweedlebook Cafe.

I sometimes got lazy to scan and edit my works. So I just took pictures under natural light. On the right is Nori trying to get in my way by posing near my works lol.

Tulip practice. Ruth gave me reference photos that she took from a tulip festival in Japan. The first attempt was on the left, and I hated the paper. So I redid it on my bigger canson watercolor pad. (I kept and re-used the paper on the left for my gouache works).

Some paintings that I find “ugly”. I think I don’t paint perfect or pretty flowers all the time. There will always be bad art. And that’s okay. Just paint the bad art away and you’ll create something good again. ♥

In our Office Secret Santa, I wished for a one time big time gift – 1k worth of watercolor paper. And my secret santa delivered! Thank you to Nadine! I especially loved the gift wrapper lol. It’s already September and I still have a lot of stock left!

Left: my awesome gift | Right: my first artwork

Since our office hour on our team ends at 3pm, we had a LOT of time to wait for the start of our Christmas party. I painted during the down time.

Another peony practice. One of my officemates loved this painting so much, so I gave it to her. It is now proudly displayed in their home. ♥

My last works would be from my art tambay with my cousin. Didn’t really felt that focused, I think.

Finished, but not perfect.

Feeling a bit lost, but still the same loose strokes.

And that’s it for my 2019 artworks! Hopefully I’ll post my 2020 compilations this year too.

1 Week Vacation

September 11, 2020September 19, 2020Leave a comment

My 1 week vacation started yesterday! ♥ Its just been 2 days, but I think I’ve done a lot already:

Set up the accounting sheet for our website.
Uploaded new works to my POD sites.
Updated the tags and descriptions in my existing POD sites.
Watched a LOT of Youtube studio vlogs (lol).
Started to create new art. ♥

Edit: My 1 week vacation ended, and I might as well post here my other achievements:

Built a shelf and a desk!
Bought an aircon.
Received my new seamiart glitter watercolor + brush and I got to experiment with them. 🙂
Bought an order of gold foil to try out as well!

A productive day

September 9, 2020September 25, 2020Leave a comment

What’s a productive day for you? For me its when I accomplish the creative things on my list. The more I finish in a day, the more accomplished I feel. But even if I don’t get everything completed, it’s okay! There are no deadlines in my set-up.

Create something. (A sketch, drawing, or painting)
Scan artworks.
Post-process scanned artworks.
Share to Instagram my new works.
Upload post-processed works to the following POD sites:
- Society 6
- Red Bubble
- Inprnt
Transfer phone photos to my laptop.
Sort photos and look for things I can blog about.
Photoshop selected photos for a blog post.
Create a blog post.

Pre-pandemic, there is also an additional list specifically for conventions.

Look for and apply to interesting conventions.
Create new works for sticker and postcard designs.
Print new works.
Package new works. (Cutting stickers, adding to plastic packaging, etc.)
Promoting in social media.

But in our current situation, I only do one thing on the first list in one day. Sometimes I take a break if I don’t feel like doing anything. But whenever I accumulate a lot of artworks ready to scan, I try to scan and post-process everything in a day.

My 1 week vacation starts tomorrow. I hope I could be a bit productive with an equal amount of rest. ♥

Feb Komiket 2020 Haul

September 6, 2020October 6, 2020Leave a comment

With every convention, there is always a haul post! February Komiket is no exception. With over 800 artists, it will take a while to browse the whole area. But I think its worth it since you’ll get to discover new artists to love. And with that, below is my humble haul during my 2 days of Komiket. ♥

Mini art print and bookmark from Astro Jimbo. | Dog drink from nicholecruz | Circle sticker from Velbe. I didn’t get the artist name for the Cup noodles. 🙁

Pretty floral stickers from Sarah Cordial Designs

Mini art print from seamountainco

Cutie leche flan pin from Larojo Art (She’s my former officemate’s sister!) | Cat pin from The Offbeat Cat| Penguin pin from Studio Dondon

Sunflower sticker sheet from Sherilyndraws (small world, she’s my officemate’s classmate back in college lol) | Isometric houses sticker sheet from chichilittle | Moon Phases from Tinge of Shine

Aqua sticker from Judy’s friend | Nezuko sticker from Judy-chan | Naughty Ending from Yours Dearly| Bitchin’ glitter sticker from Eira gem

Feb Komiket 2020

August 31, 2020October 6, 20201 Comment

Our artist group, January Makers PH‘s first convention for 2020 was February Komiket, held at SM Megamall Megatrade Hall B.

Our pretty sellers ID! Art by Mervin Malonzo.

We’ve been to Komiket as visitors / buyers numerous times in the past. Last year, we were thinking of joining since we noticed that not all of the artists there were selling comics (although this is encouraged). Some artists were selling original and fan art prints, while some sell their handmade merch. Through some encouragement from our friends, we applied for Feb Komiket 2020 since there’s nothing to lose anyway.

Well, we got our 2 slots! One surprising thing is that they moved venues. From the usual Eton Centris events center, to the bigwig SM Megamall Megatrade Hall. Some of us had prior experience to working with malls, and this one is known for their strict protocols. There were SO many requirements and rules from both the organizers and the mall, we had to thoroughly review and clarify a lot of items through email and attend the exhibitors meeting.

Personally, I like rules. I also like emails since it will leave a paper trail if there are any possible disputes. What I don’t like are: miscommunication, wording, and timing of some announcements.

This was a 2 day event. Warning: picture heavy post ahead!

My side of the table ♥

My usual display of my flower sticker sets.

My display of my individual glossy and pearl stickers. ♥

Clair’s planner stickers! I love the tracker versions. ♥

Clair’s post cards.

Some of her individual stickers. I love the Send noods sticker HAHA.

Hannah’s individual stickers. Since she had fashionable girls, she added men as well.

Some of her cute animal sticker packs.

Her fashion girl stickers. One of these looks like one of our members. Can you guess who? ♥

Monique’s new sticker sheets. I love the morning meals set!

More of her food prints.

Jean’s side of our table.

Shine’s individual stickers. CUTE hedgehog bbs!

She also made new sticker sheets. I got the moon phases. ♥

More of Shine’s individual stickers.

The team. ♥

Thankful to this team. It was a fun experience! Especially our 12 feet long table HAHA. Next up would be my Komiket haul!

The last art tambay before lockdown

August 10, 2020September 16, 20201 Comment

The week after Stickercon, news about the coronavirus appearing in Metro Manila made everyone anxious. On Monday, our office announced that they are looking into the situation and are already planning on moving everyone out soon. The next day, the number of covid cases doubled. Our office then announced that whoever can book a grab at the end of our shift can do so. Wednesday, half of our office were already working from home. I was also forced to move out that day since nobody was coming to work anymore tomorrow. Thus, in a week our office made it possible for everyone to move out and work from home. For myself, I had permission to work at the office of fiance’s family’s resto business.

I thought that was the end of my problem. We even had an art tambay that weekend too lol. Here are the last few days of the outside world and meeting with friends:

Who knew that this would be our last art tambay for now?

Some peony paintings.

And then peony buds.

The week after, the government announced that everything will be on lockdown HAHA. So we had to move my work pc again back to my fiance’s house. We had to re-arrange the room to fit everything in. It was stressful. But it was okay, for now.

Noticed that the chronological order of the blog posts will jumble around now. Oops. Soon to come (hopefully) will be the Komiket and Stickercon posts.

Volunteer for MovedPH

August 9, 2020September 16, 2020Leave a comment

Around November last year, I had the privilege of volunteering for MovEd Org: a non-profit organization that advocates for early childhood education. My friend Aira was the main artist who designed the proposed murals for their classrooms in Navotas. She asked Hannah and I to help in painting the murals. We thought we were supposed to paint a wall each. Nope! Instead, we each got a classroom HAHAHA.

As volunteer artists, we were asked to sketch and translate Aira’s designs to the walls so the volunteers can easily color them. Sort of like a giant coloring book.

Paint ready for today’s mural!

We used the org’s readily available paints. I think the paint was already old since we had a hard time applying it to the wall. So we had to reapply another layer for every flower.

The first layer

First layer for my classroom

A second coat and some progress

The back of the classroom. It was a flower explosion!

Some of the volunteers were from MovEd PH, teachers, parents, and some students as well! It was a community effort to help improve the classrooms in Navotas.

Hannah’s classroom

Progress

Hi Bebs

Aira’s classroom

Huge sunflowers! ♥

It took us the whole day, but we finished all 3 classrooms!

Teacher, bat nakapikit ako?

Because I love sunflowers. (Excuse the bangs lol)

Congrats to Aira for the beautiful design concepts! And thank you to MovEd PH for the opportunity! We had a great time. Thank you for inviting us. ♥

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Aira Denise San Antonio (@airadenisee)

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5Y8Mh4nLwm/

Moving

August 7, 2020August 7, 2020Leave a comment

Two weeks ago, during our birthday celebration art tambay with my close friends, a part of our ceiling in the room collapsed. I was very lucky that it didn’t directly fall on me and it fell sideways. The wooden grid beam that supports the ceiling were eaten by termites, and with a cat visiting our ceiling every other day, we felt that it won’t be so soon that the rest of the ceiling will fall as well. So we decided to move.

We looked for places for rent nearby, found one, paid the reservation fee, and started moving in our stuff last Friday. We bought the important furniture and home stuff during the weekend. It was a buzzer beater event, since this week its MECQ once again in Metro Manila.

Everything was so fast.

Grateful that any questions can be searched online now. We could also shop thru Shopee or Lazada for other remaining things. Food can still be delivered thru Grab.

We’re sort of settling in our new place. Its so peaceful here. Once everything is okay, I’ll blog some more.

But for now, keep safe everyone.