Strokes of the day

I've been trying to break the routine of drawing girls.

It's always been a part of me. A comfort zone, you could say.

I've got a secret.

I'm trying to stay away from it.

Hopefully, I can resist.

That feeling of my strokes being too messy.

Is it really a feeling? Or a seeing?

I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

I don't want to think about it.

I do what I do the way I always do it.

If I can change that, would it be nicer? 

Or am I taking away something that's me from them? Like a signature? Like my personality?

I'll be posting more artworks here. 

I hope you appreciate them. :)

You can see my other works in Behance.

CARSEM

    Something positive can come out of negative thinking. I've experienced it. All day and all night, all I thought about was the possible criticisms that my illustration will get from my thesis adviser. But after submitting my artwork, I only got one negative feedback! I was so creatively thinking up the negative comments that my adviser will be telling me. I was ready to face the harsh truth that I have to do the illustration over. After all the negative thinking, I was pleasantly surprised by how opposite things turned out. I feel like that was a healthy paranoia. Which reminds me of what transpired in a seminar today. 

  Today, we had our career seminar. It's a talk for graduating students. There were several speakers for every department in our college. As for the Advertising Department, we had the pleasure of listening to Rizza Garcia and Dennis Nierra's insights and advice regarding the advertising industry, our passion, the battle we are currently facing a.k.a. thesis, and many more. I really liked the advice and the tips they gave us for every possible stage in our advertising life.

   Rizza approached it like a child would do, with doodles and handwritten words in her presentation, she presented the perks of being an art director. With funny lines like, "makikilala mo ang pinakapoging lalaki sa balat ng langit at lupa" and "gusto ko lang magdrawing (kahit di ako magaling magdrawing)." She shared the projects she's worked on in the past 2 years of her job as an art director for a famous ad agency. She told us the story on how she found her passion and she gave us a great advice for our own passions: keep the dream alive. And that's what I plan to do!

   On the other hand, Dennis approached it like a game. Starting his presentation with a question: WHAT IF? What if we can go through life like it's just a game? Go to school like we're on a race? Answer an exam with limited life? Then, he gave us an overview of the current and future stages that we might face as an advertising student. Right now, I'm on Stage 19: Thesis boss battle. BOSS BATTLE! For each stage, he gave us advice on how to fight every boss villains. Haha! And my favorite tip from him is probably what I've mentioned on the first paragraph of this post: Have healthy paranoia.

  Before the two aforementioned speakers gave us their talk, a guidance councilor from another college, Ms. Stephanie Lu, also gave us advice for the period after our graduation: applying for jobs, looking for employers, preparing for interviews, etc. And she gave us the sweetest message that day: "you are a masterpiece." So are you! You are God's masterpiece. Use what He gave You to glorify Him and to help others live a better life. :) 

Blurred Vision

Sometimes, life goes by so fast it becomes a blur. I was once subjected to the question, "what's your biggest fear?" And I had to answer using any Queen song. I googled their songs and found a list. In that list, the song that seem to be most apt for me regarding the question is "Blurred Vision," both literally and figuratively.

I have a 20-20 eyesight and I don't want to have to wear glasses. I love reading and surfing the internet. It's such a petty thing, I know. Figuratively, I don't want to loose sight of God's plan for me.  I admit, I often stumble as I go my way towards what He (hopefully) wants for me. Right now, I'm still not sure, but as I write this, I  believe I'm one step closer. From time to time, I try to reflect about what has happened in my life, how things from the past affected where I am now, and how can my actions today can affect my future. It's the pebble in the water effect, or the butterfly effect. As Newton would put it, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I'm truly grateful for everything that's happened in my life so far. All the ups and downs, everything made me closer to God. And that makes me feel like my vision isn't blurred at all. Regarding what I'm doing now, I'm having slight problems. I'm always "pinanghihinaan ng loob" regarding my book illustration project. I'm having a hard time taking criticism and putting it to good use. I just want to get it over with. I know, with God, I can do it. I hope with the hard work and dedication I put in making my thesis, everything will be okay and I'll have clearer vision of what lies ahead. Stumbling and getting up is just part of it all, and I plan to embrace that fact. 

YOLO

I'm not one to stay up all night talking with friends, playing card games, singing along to cheesy songs, and smelling their fart. But last night, that's what I did. That's what we did. With barely an hour's worth of sleep, it wasn't rewarding for my body, but the laugh-out-loud moments were worth it. It was supposed to be a thesis-making all nighter but it dissolved to bonding, teasing, sharing, and having fun. After all, this is our last year in college (hopefully, I'm still praying) and no one remembers the night you got enough sleep. YOLO! Or more appropriately, you're only in college once! (Unless, you want to continue studying after you graduate)

It was a spontaneous gathering leading to the conclusion that "yung hindi pinaplano, yun ang natutuloy/what was not planned, usually pushes through" (not sure if the translation is the best, but you get what I mean). I long for more get togethers like that before I graduate. Hopefully, I can squeeze enough of it and still have time for my book illustration project! [On that note, please pray for me. I need strength and motivation to finish this project. Thank you.]

Get togethers like that always make me grateful. For awesome friends, their ability to make me laugh when I'm not really up for it, yummy food for breakfast, songs you can easily sing along to, getting teary-eyed because of laughter, laughing harder because of a funny-sounding laugh, videos that will remind us how fun it is to be young, that generous friend who treated us with some fries, that friend who always pronounces words wrongly, hilarious photos from last night, doing something fun and productive at the same time, and just for being alive to experience all of that. BIG THANKS TO MY CREATOR, WHO IS TRULY AWESOME! :-)

Be satisfied with His love

There are days when I would just basically lie around and do nothing. By nothing I mean watch TV, visit social networking sites, check my e-mail, eat, day dream. A big cut from the pie chart of what I do all day is probably daydreaming. Moments after I wake up, I daydream about what I would do all day. After getting up from bed, I drink 2 glasses of water during which I contemplate about the things I need to do, if not daydream. After that, I eat a banana, then breakfast. Sit around and watch TV for an hour or two. Doze off for a few minutes by daydreaming. Take a shower. Eat lunch, wash the dishes. Check Facebook, Twitter, and my e-mail. Wander around the interwebs for a few minutes. And when it's siesta time, I take a nap for 1-2 hours. When I wake up, I go online again or eat some merienda. Then dinner is served, I take care of the dishes. After dinner, I have the TV and the computer to spend the night with. It's either I catch up on some shows or go online and write in this thing.

It's a routine. A healthy routine that keeps me sane. I guess it helps with my creativity. I once read an article about routines helping squeeze out your creative juice. That's why I love them. One thing I'm trying to make into a routine is being satisfied. The things I imagine when I daydream are often things that I don't have but I want to have. Most of the time, I'd say I'm just a hopeless romantic when I try to imagine relationships with people I find attractive. I imagine meeting famous people and being friends with them or making them fall in love with me. I've had different spouses, lots of children, and tons of riches in these daydreams. It is fun but it is never satisfying. It doesn't satisfy at all. It just makes me long for the materialistic aspects of life which are not that important. What I have to work on now, is being satisfied with His love. His unfailing love. His love that constantly provides me what I need. His love that is everlasting. His love that is overflowing. I know that His love is all I need, but knowing is just the first step. To do more than that, I have to practice it. I want to feel His glory, His grace, His presence. I want to bathe in it. I want to share it, so others can feel it too.

I want to be satisfied with His love. That's the routine I want to have everyday.

Beauty of risks

I'm about to take a risk regarding my final thesis by changing the main message of my study. Firstly, my study is about a book illustration for the poem, Some Women by Bunny Ty. The poem is about some women's vanity, hence the title. It contains lines about beautification practices of women and lines about underlying actions regarding those practices. The main focus of the study is the exploration of my chosen method which is collage.

Last Thursday, a friend and I went to Bates(an ad agency where I interned last summer), to get some tips and advice from the art directors and designers regarding our thesis. What I thought would be just a simple interview led to a profound realization that the message of the study I'm currently working on is not socially relevant. It may seem relevant for me, since it will benefit me as an artist, but it seems that it doesn't have any significance for our society. The art director I consulted with briefly read the overview of my study, and gave me the advice that I need: to think of a stronger message other than promoting the method of my choice.

Right now, I'm researching more into the market's perception of Filipina beauty. Some say it's our simplicity, others say it's our tanned skin, some would mention our caring personality. But then it all comes down to what would my interpretation be. After all, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
What is Filipina beauty for me, what is my idea of beauty, what is it that I want to convey in my illustrations? I need to answer these questions as soon as I can so that I can move forward with my study. All I can do now is to look for inspiration, to gather the right information, and to hope that this risk I'm about to take will be worth it in the end.

A question to ponder: what is your idea of (Filipina) beauty?

Feel the feelings.

I wish feelings are just meant to be felt. Not explained. I mean, why do you have to explain or understand them? It's a difficult thing to do, to understand and to explain. Why do some people think you have to do it? Saying things like they wish they can explain their feelings. I don't get it.   Why can't you just feel it? 


Last night, I had a conversation with someone about the past. Every time we chat, all conversations seem to lead to it. The past. It's unsettling. It's been 2 years since everything happened and we still talk about it like it was just yesterday. He told me everything. Well, not everything... But I guess, everything I needed to know or everything he wanted me to know. He just decided that it was time to clarify things out. He explained his actions that caused me my very first heartbreak. His explanations lead me to saying that maybe, we weren't meant for each other. Us? Together? Maybe it's just not meant to be. Typing that out made it more real than ever. Tears overflowed after mulling over that statement. That realization broke the dam that was containing the waters of my expectations. I strongly believed that we had a chance. A potential to create something beautiful together. Now, that belief is slowly vanishing, turning to a hope that there's someone else out there that I can create something beautiful with. A conviction that in the end, everything is going to be amazing. In a way, that conversation made me feel refreshed. Refreshed because I finally got the explanation I needed 2 years ago. When I went online that night, I never expected to have a conversation like that. Life is just full of surprises, isn't it? I love it.

Actions explained.
Feelings understood.
It's all good in the hood.

As the philosopher from Ecclesiastes put it, "the end of something is better than its beginning."

Here's to the end of somethings and for better beginnings! To feelings that you don't know how to explain, and feelings that don't need explaining.