13th Update

Finally, I was able to finish my third oil painting. I added the last details last Sunday and the piece is waiting to dry before I spray-paint it with lacquer. Here's how it partly looks like.  

I'll probably wait for three weeks before the paint is completely dry so I can paint the last coat of lacquer and have it framed (if I have enough money on the pocket). As of this time, I am very excited to start the fourth painting and I wonder what will be the subject like. I'll be needing new canvass cloth or maybe recycle the old cloth that I used before. i am very excited. :D

By the way, my little young brother said that the painting is ugly. What do you think?

12th Update

Art is a rather expensive pursuit, but I consider it as an important everyday activity. It allows me to express though drawings and paintings the things I’d rather not express verbally and it makes me happy and in touch with my yearnings to see peace, beauty, color, and order in the world I live in. I am as well, very drawn and specific in seeing details in everything, so when I observe another work of art, or do something which is mine, I pay very special attention to the details.

As of this time, I am finishing my third oil painting but still I haven’t had an idea on how to put the final details on the composition. In addition, I also need a bottle of linseed oil because the oil pigments that I’m using are highly concentrated and linseed oil will make the pigments stick well to the surface and is also important for all the colors to blend together and easy to manage. I’ve been rummaging for weeks on an art store trying to find the cheaper brand of linseed oil that I’m using, but as of now, there are still no stocks available, while the other store has another more expensive brand which I can’t afford. I managed to simply hand-paint the grass, leaves, and stone pathways which occupied the center-space of the composition, and although they are well painted in terms of surface area, they looked a bit dull and two-dimensional. I have to work on improving techniques, especially in using brushes with oil pigments, color mixing and efficiency, proper perspective rendering, shadows and lighting, and the overall skill of painting itself. I believe that oil painting is very pricey and it needs a lot of focus, practice and time—but the results are very rewarding, seeing a finished beautiful work of art that reminds me of a work done with lots of passion and full of personal meanings.

While on the other hand, I’m enjoying the watercolor medium as well and compared to using oils, watercolors allow me to give extra emphasis on the finer details of drawing and painting. I have greater control and flexibility because the watercolor pencils that I’m using have pointed tips which allow me to compose well-detailed drawings, and I can also blend colors well by brushing the colored surfaces with water using a fine tipped brush. Just like oil, watercolor paintings also need to be done with proper focus and care so that the finished pieces will be beautiful. Aside from watercolor and oil, I also have a gouache color set which I used on one particular piece. Gouache is also much like watercolor, but compared to the latter, gouache is more opaque and it cannot be blended by color glazing, unlike watercolor. Gouache produce very lively and vivid colors depending on the amount of water mixed. I also like it because it is more affordable since it only requires water as its mixing agent. I only used it once, so I also have to work on improving painting on this medium. 

- Maica

11 June 2011

I’m starting to be confident with my techniques even though I believe that I still have a lot to learn and a long way to go in this process.

11th Update

It was a bright and sunny day and as soon as we opened the shop, I headed straight to Angeles Electric Corporation to pay our shop’s electric bills. The streets are busy with people walking to and fro and vehicles rushing past another.

As I walked my way, observing sights,  I was shocked and delighted to see large blooms of roses being sold! It was a really a dream come true, and I rushed to ask the lady selling them, how much does each plant cost, and she told me that each cost seventy-five pesos. And so, after paying the electric bills, I hurriedly went back to the rose shop and asked for a red rose plant with healthy growth. As I chose from one plant to another, I noticed that all of them grow from a healthy mother plant. I first chose a red rose, which was combined with a white rose, so it was actually two plants in one pot. After that, I chose a pink rose with buds waiting to bloom. I paid for three plants for the price of two. God willing, I’ll come back this Friday to buy another pair with those salmon colored and white tinged ones! I’m so excited! Rainy days are coming by and the weather will be good for my new roses!

10th Update

Hello blog! I took a stroll at the mall and I decided to try out this coffee shop, and here's what I tasted, a frapuccino green tea topped with cream and a slice of banana cake. It was slightly expensive, but worth it. :)

9th Update

Roses under the sun!

This Sunday lunchtime, I spotted my potted roses with their leaves and blooms reflecting the sunlight. I was washing my clothes and cooking and I thought of taking a snapshot of two blooms and they looked very cute, much like a couple indeed!.

8th Update

Here are some of the works that I had been doing these past few days. Some of them are still works on progress, while others are waiting to be mounted on glass frames. The transformers watercolor illustration is an item that I initially planned to submit on Mike Shinoda's transformers artwork contest.

7thUpdate

Hello Monday! This is the start of a brand new week, just trying to catch up, and give another update. Here's a brand new gouache paint set I bought yesterday. :)

6th Update

Hopefully, this would be the start of my long-awaited project since college days. God had given me a lot of time these days to plan this upcoming study, it's been three years since I really wanted to explore creativity, so here's the rough draft of my paper. I'll be needing lots of journal articles and books for this subject and I'm very excited to start writing and studying again! :)  

*(and I included a list of my needed things these days - just another way of keeping myself organized and planning ahead of time)

5th Update

 

4th Update

God had taken you away from me. Goodbye Boris. Thank you. I will miss you.

- Love, Maica

3rd Update

For the longest time, I have always viewed people to be individuals, as having the capacities to think, to surpass limitations, to achieve intellectual refinement, and to contribute ideas and inventions for the benefit of making this world a better place...and then a catastrophe hit me.

Beyond my ideals, I learned that there are people who should never be trusted, people who are not always willing to be good. I can't believe that they would still choose to stick to being liars and hypocrites, to their perversion and promiscuity and how they would constantly manipulate others for the sake of satisfying their own desires. I never thought that I will be subjected to that kind of situation - that there will be people who will not see me as an individual, but simply as a gendered object and a brainless robot confined within the dictated roles of an immoral society. It remains as a very sad truth when all the while, I believed in the eradication of sexual stereotypes. I will never allow myself to be under the mercy of their own programmed biases and scrutiny.

In my own hands, I will do my best to fight those immoral people - they, who spread their stink, lying, deceiving, manipulating people, stealing what is not theirs, exploiting women, and destroying the innocence of faultless children. 

I am coming back to my old self. I am by myself, but I am strong. I am an observer, a student, an individual who strives to achieve excellence. I am apart and I am against this stinking immorality and deception.

God willing, God will never leave me, He will always guide me and will protect me in this journey.

2nd Update

I'm quite busy and haven't got too much time to have prolonged sleep. As soon as I finished dinner and washed the plates, I want to take rest and grab a book while I wait for my eyes to close. It's the normal, everyday routine of my life since. After a day of work, I need an all-time-for-myself to rest, think about the day, and plan for the next day's activities.

I also bring Boris, my white Persian cat everyday when I go to work and bond with him if there aren't too many distractions and customers. I groom him and feed him well so he'll grow up fast. The only problem that I have is how to teach him how to put his dirt on litter box. It is quite a chore for me to clean his dirt and even though I hate the thought of of panicking over little things, I feel a bit pressured when everyone in the house explodes when they smell my cat's dirt - whether they see it on the dining area, below the staircases, or behind the sofa. So hopefully, he'll learn how to properly clean his dirt as he grows up. As often as I can, I want to give him a bath, as his coat gets thicker now, and I plan of buying a comb, catnip sachet and lots of Whiskas^® (the supply is running short as of this time). 

I'm also glad to have my A Thousand Suns album from Linkin Park, the third in the row of my LP collection. I noticed that every track has a form of continuity and as the album progresses, I have a certain feeling that a story  is being told - though this time, in more abstract terms - motifs that delve deeper into a cycle of life - truth most often denied or repressed altogether. Loss, pain, regret, revenge, redemption, and victory in the end. That's certainly how a collective progresses - just as an individual transcends a particular battle in life - and then goes on forward to wage onto the next war field - each progression makes a warrior "a tough act to follow.". 

A track from the album is featured on the upcoming movie, Transformers: Dark of The Moon. The somber intro and the anthemic flow of the track, 'Iridescent', enhances the storyline effect. I'm excited for this LP project, and they actually did the soundtracks for the first two films, Transformers 1 and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

I'm coming home to what I've always been since I was a child and sticking to my own principles - that is, I will keep on the fight, this time, with steadiness and a headstrong bravery.

Whereas before, I allowed my enemies to define me, the brave warrior will never allow that to happen again. I will never have second thoughts to lash out at anyone - whoever he or she is, in case he or she will dare cross the limits of insulting, degrading, or defining me as a person. and I will slap that person or wage a planned attack against those group of people - straight in the face so there will be no next time of personally degrading me. I will teach them lessons they will never forget.

This Is A Brand New Start

Finally, after three months, I'm starting to blog again, or in other better terms, to write.

On a lighter note, I'm glad to write that I'm looking forward to a number of plans. I'm saving up to go back to school again, God-willing. I'm planning to pursue and attend Medical school or obtain my Masters in Clinical Psychology. In the meantime, I'm helping my parents manage our auto shop business. I also have a lot of spare time to make oil paintings and watercolor sketches, read books and make my library grow, tend my potted garden and take care of my three rose plants and two climbing trees, spend time with family, travel and visit places, stroll on city malls, take care of my new Persian cat, Boris; and be consistently happy and live contentedly with life. And most importantly, I have all the time to worship God, pray, repent, and be thankful for the blessings and trials that I underwent that made me a stronger person.

These past two years gave me great lessons that will serve as my guideposts through life. I may not be able to elaborate them, but one of the most important principles that underscores the rest of my victories is to be true to oneself and to the rest of the world. Truth - no matter how painful the consequences it may lead this life - should be a part of the the principles that life should be lived with. Never again will I care to be accepted or rejected by anyone or anything - as long as I uphold this to myself, I will win this war in the end.

This is my journey.

- Maica