If I knew doodling could be this enjoyable, I should’ve done this when I was in high school. That is, organized doodling! It was an idea that a lot of artists have already started. I realized that in order to be good at something, I had to learn to discipline myself. What better way than to start doodling everyday?...
Last Saturday, John Nash died. Russell Crowe portrayed him in the movie, “Beautiful Mind”. I saw the movie a long time ago and I remember how his story moved me. So, I decided to do a caricature as a tribute. I was able to borrow a friend’s Pilot Justus 95, with a spencerian modification done by Mottishaw. I was so...
That’s the name of my new weekly column at ManilaSpeak. It’s a challenge because all these caricatures will be done the old fashioned way – meaning drawn and inked by hand, scanned, colored then posted. So far I am loving it. My first feature was the Senator Grace Poe. Since I started with a presidentiable, I decided to...
Alfred and I have been friends since high school. He was visiting our neighbor when we ended up talking. We both wrote for our own school’s publication and did illustrations. So technically I got a few tips and tricks from his end. We’d meet up once a year to catch up on stories and when the story was too good to wait,...
I was reading entries done by the CSU students on blogster with Rumi in their minds. I decided to look up the poem on “Love is Reckless ” and ended up writing this letter instead…. Dear Papa, When my days would get busy and events start happening almost at the same time, I often looked forward to our lazy Sundays when I...
She is his sunshine. When she walks into the room, his eyes light up and this is mirrored in her eyes when they fall upon him across the room. After years of planning, Alfred, Jean, Billie and I finally got to have that lunch date. As we told our stories, Jean would steal casual glances on Alfred. Her look reflected...
Good old friends are like old shirts – you keep coming back because of the comfort they bring into your life. It doesn’t matter how bad you look or how rotten you feel, old friends don’t care. They’ve seen you through you worst. Alfred and I go waaaaaay back – like high school. He knew me when I was just skin and bones...
During our retreats in high school,we were made to answer questions. According to my parents, it is but normal to have questions since we were at a point when we should be deciding what our roles in life would be. Mainly.. what to take in college. Whatever we did take in college was supposed to ‘set us up’ for the...
This was the first time I ever joined a live-model painting session. It was a learning experience for me. I’ve always wanted to join one, I never had the money nor time. Agos Kulay organizes this every 2 weeks at the Ayala Museum. It is a fantastic way to stretch your skills and imagination. I learned that: Whatever...
Perhaps we’d be talking about the latest showbiz gossip. Sometimes politicians are their own reality show – specially when they commit mistakes and don’t own up to it. Here are two illustrations I’ve done on the latest issues in the news today. The Mayor of Makati, who happens to be the Vice President’s son,...
I love my Pilot Parallel Pen – it can be quite expressive with its lines. As you can see here – the lines range from .5mm to 6mm. In fact it looked like I used a brush in doing these 2-minute sketches. This was done at the Navotas Fishing Port. It was one of those small fishing boats. These two were the Urban...
Children grow up so fast. I know – when they’re whiny and all, you can’t wait for them to grow up so you can talk sense into them. But when you step back and watch them, engrossed in their own world of wonder, you gasp and wish you could tell time to slow down. You want to hold them and listen to their laughter...
I’ve never met her in person. Often times we’d leave comments on a common friend’s post until our posts would regularly appear on each other’s feeds. What I do know is that she’s a photographer and a very good one at that. She was wondering what to give her mom for her birthday, when one of my paintings appeared on her...
Yes, he’s Blogster.com’s resident World Lit. Professor teaching at Chico State University (CSU). In an effort to teach his students more about world culture he also introduces them to blogging with a reasonably mixed community coming from different parts of the globe. It opens his students’ minds to lives, opinions and...
Yes, painting is a practise in patience. I don’t know how a painting will turn out until the very last touch-up. Which is why the results often surprise me. I bought 100 sheets of 390 gsm paper for practise. Watercolor paper is expensive so I scouted around for alternatives. This is Acquarello paper from Prestige Paper...
