Painting sunflowers

Sunflowers are some of my favorite flowers. I love them together with roses! Today, I felt like practicing on flower angles so I'm doing a bunch of sunflower stems facing slightly sideways and facing up to make them look more realistic.

I started with the buri pouch. I drew a bit of guide lines using pencil but I actually really don't like much doing it. I like to paint directly but sometimes there really needs to be a guide so I don't make mistakes in my composition. I am more spontaneous when I paint. It's not really the best practice because usually you'll need to plan out your painting but I dunno, I just really want to skip the sketching most times.

I used the acryl gouache, which dries out pretty quickly so I had to work a little faster while I filmed it. I had some leftover paint so I grabbed a watercolor pad and painted more sunflowers. When I'm working on acrylic or any paint that dries, I feel a lot time pressured and I really hate that. Gladly, this one was done quickly. I like this speckled background style, I think I will be adding this to more future paintings.

Music provided by Argofox: A Himitsu - Adventures
https://youtu.be/8BXNwnxaVQE

Uncertainties

I browse Pinterest especially when I feel uninspired or simply needing to find the words that describe what I feel. Here's one I felt I should write down.

There are days and nights that my anxieties overwhelm me and I find it hard to sleep. Sometimes they are bad enough that they even manifest in my dreams. I'm never a fan of uncertainty and these days, there is a whole lot of it.

In the previous days, I practiced this in prayer. It helps a lot but it takes some effort to fight the worries, as they keep coming back strong. And it needs constant reminding so, I go and stuck it in my fridge.

A year older [37]: Quarantine birthday

Today is special among all birthdays because it falls on a quarantine period. Everything today was most likely expected because there's less likely a chance that I would be going anywhere but home. I always look forward to going outdoors on my birthdays because I am a typical home-buddy. Going somewhere outdoors like hiking or exploring somewhere new is my way of making my birthdays more special than the rest of the days of the year. I just really want to make this day stand out.

I write this as this day comes to an end with a smile on my face. It wasn't bad. It's not as eventful as I would usually hope but it was good, that's the most important thing. My friends sent greetings through text and chat, ordered food for some people in my dorm, got a visit from a friend and spent the rest of the day with family.

Most importantly, I'm so thankful that I got to start my day with God. Because after all, I owe this day and all other days to Him. In the past, I keep reminding myself of the lesson that you will live or feel better if you try to keep being thankful to God, even the smallest things. It will give you a better perspective on things and it should make you appreciate life more, instead of be sad and anxious about a lot of things.

So today, among other things, I am thankful for:

- new beginnings
- family and friends who genuinely care for me and support my endeavors
- the gift of passion and creativity and the joy that it brings to me when I do it
- an able body, mind, heart and spirit to perform my work and duties
- thoughtful words and prayers from others
- bountiful blessings from God, that I am able to acquire things I need and even things I want
- the gift of experiencing God's magnificent creations
- the gift of peace, safety and protection everyday from the virus

A special message and gratitude goes out to a special someone in the past. I will always think fondly of you on days like today and all other days after that. I'll always wish I have a birthday candle to blow every year. There isn't a day I don't think about you and wish I had done things differently. Thank you for all the sweet memories. They are all that I have now. I hope you also thought fondly about me today. I miss you everyday. I miss you always.

Here is something that I picked up from a devotion I listened to the other day. I've always focused on a particular thing in my past that I feel is important to be minimized. It's a challenge for me but I hope I can always remember it:

I am still in the years that ask questions.

04.23.20

First night sky

Night skies are some of my favorite subjects to paint. I'm fascinated by the colors of the galaxies and also because they're easy to do.  This is one of my early works, a full night scene I did on a watercolor notebook spread. It took me a lot of time to achieve the shades of blue. It looked very weird and wrong in the beginning but it turned out ok in the end.

Moleskine watercolor notebook

Reeves student grade watercolors

Quarantine days

I've kept my new nibs for a long time now and I finally decided to use them again. I love the output of pointed nibs better than brush pens but I prefer to use the latter because there's less to clean up after. For this, I used watercolors instead of ink. They work just the same but takes a bit more time because I'm using a paintbrush to take the paint and then transfer it to the nib, as compared to just dipping it in an ink bottle.

Most of us are in the safety of our homes and this is how simple we can help those who are out there serving and helping others. In my community, in my country, some people still can't stay put and stay home. Somehow they don't understand how staying home is the means of how we do teamwork. We can defeat the enemy if we work together. Our enemy is invisible and fast, but it isn’t immortal. It cannot spread if we work together by stopping it from spreading and claiming more precious lives. For those of us who are able to stay home, please do so. . Expressing deep gratitude to all of you who brave each day and go to work in the frontline. #staystrong 🌼🌸 . 

Pointed pen using watercolors

Alphabet Art

This is something I did to combine calligraphy and art. It was quite a fun project and my letter A turned our really well. I'm actually really fond of doing galaxy artworks because the blending of colors are so fascinating and pretty much not so hard to do. 

I'd say it all starts to come together when I added the stars. I'm planning on adding more letters soon!

Purple blooms

This is another practice on flowers, this time I did in purple. In particular, I'm trying to get better at perspective painting of the petals. Sometimes they could face sideways, or slightly facing down. I'd really like to get a better and easier way of painting them.

As I filmed this, I didn't realize the camera was off focus so as you will see in my process video, it's blurred out for the first few seconds.