Joanna Loves Yah

Today is Joanna's birthday and what a wonderful excuse to take portraits! We had a great time having a photowalk around SU campus. Her friend Miles was with us, stylist-slash-director-slash-location scout-slash-motivator. In short, he was her one-man support team.

There were some really good spots around campus that wouldn't normally catch a photographer's eye. I'm really more into the bright spots and the non-cluttered areas. I also gravitate around spots with repeating lines or patterns or solids with dark or light colors.

Joanna was shy and awkward at first but as soon as we warmed up, she got the hang of it. It was a big help that we went to shoot on a Saturday so campus was less crowded. I know that feeling when people are looking at you. I mean, I get shy when people see me taking pictures, how much more if you were the one I'm shooting? So all conditions were in our favor.

These photos are my simple gift to her, for being a dear friend and for being such a kind-hearted human. She deserves to be happy and so much more. It's the least I could give. Happiest birthday, Joey!

Tago Family Portraits [2016]

Rhea and her family have portraits shot every year around Christmastime. It's been their tradition for so many years. They have a different theme each year and for this shoot, they wanted to do the Beatles crossing the road shot.

I love that they brought their furry family member, Yoda. And how they wore all matchy clothes.

We took photos in Silliman campus, along Hibbard Hall, near Silliman Church and the field fronting the SU main library. If I remember correctly, it was a Sunday in the middle of the holiday season so there was almost nobody in campus. Perfect shooting conditions.

A year older [35]

Yesterday, I turned thirty-five. I had mixed feelings while I anticipated this day since the year began. I purposely chose to come home from my vacation so I can be home in time for my birthday, half-knowing I'd be spending it alone.

Over the years, I've never really been exceptionally happy on my birthdays, except in the last two birthdays when I spent it with a special person. This year, he's no longer part of it, which breaks my heart. I miss him every day.

Not a morning person but I got up to watch the sunrise, had regular cake and coffee with a friend at the dorm for breakfast, went for a nature trip with G for the day, late lunch at Escaño and later a simple dinner. Did not get to blow a candle but said a prayer of gratitide.

So thankful for the few people who get me through each day, especially yesterday, for going out of their way to spend time.

It's my first birthday without Facebook and old instagram. I'm learning to take pictures mostly just for the memories to keep. I realize that I still have friends who care and that's all I need to know to continue and keep my head above the water; to manage a smile in photos, until the day that I can rise above and stay there.

It was still a happy birthday after all. (24 April 2018)

Painting on a kraft bookmark using gouache

Bookmarks are simple things we take for granted, but you never really feel how much you need it when you need to mark your progress in a book (a real one with covers and pages and wonderful book smell).

I've also been curious about gouache, mainly because I found some amazing illustrators on Instagram who use gouache as their medium. Gouache is water based paint, much like watercolor, but more opaque. If acrylic and watercolor had a baby, it would be gouache.

So I decided to try its opacity on kraft paper. I would normally have several layers of paint if I had used watercolors but this only got me using a few strokes. Great! I'm loving it already!

The white pen I used to write the quote is by Sakura. It's a great pen. As you will see in the video, it went smoothly in opaque white while I wrote on blue gouache finish.

I did a video while painting this, to add content to my youtube channel. That video is found at the bottom of this post.

Materials for this project are as follows:

- Kraft card (Muse paper Japan, 230g)
- Marie's Gouache Colour
- Silver Black Velvet #8 brush
- Generic #9 brush from Daiso
- Sakura Gelly Roll 08 (White)

I made a second bookmark, on white watercolor paper. I messe it up when I started writing the quote using calligraphy pen, so I cut off about 1cm from the top and rewrote the quote with pigment ink drawing pen.

Painting on a wooden comb

A friend's birthday is coming up. One thing about me is that I like making things and art for my friends. I would say it's my way of giving back, because I'm not the type who usually treats out people for dinner or drinks out.

I was digging through my "creation chest", which is a name I've assigned to my small pile of notebooks, cards, pouches and other handmade and handpainted stuff I did in the past and is waiting for me to put them up again on display.

I purchased these combs as something I thought would be useful one day. Something I could "pretty-fy" and sell when the time and idea comes. And well, I am glad I bought them! I initially planned on just doing florals but it felt lacking when I flipped it and the other side was blank. So I took it easy with the colors and resorted to a greener leafy design on the other side, put a small "K" as initial for her first name.

I haven't used a comb like this but I'm thinking whether she uses it or not, it could serve as a nice decor or souvenir.

I posted a video, speed painting of this comb which I super shortened into three minutes. Actual painting time is about one hour. (Video is at the bottome of this post.)

PS. Some photos will look very huge because I shot them in macro mode.

Painting Bunny Ear Cactus

In the mood for painting and decided to put new content to my Youtube channel. I have kept one where I occasionally post process videos of simple paintings and crafts I've done. I'm going to leave a link to that below, in case you want to check that out.

Here is the finished painting. For this artwork, I used ShinHan watercolors, a no. 3 round brush I bought from Sekaido. It's a generic brush named after the shop but I find it works pretty good. For the paper, I used a Daler Rowney Aquafine 300 gsm col pressed paper. It works ok for some artworks, sometimes I don't like how wet edges look when they're dry. It's 100% cellulose which means it's not cotton. But I like the color and the texture of this paper.

Link to channel

Here is the video of how I painted it!