35th Update

Art Medium and Brands I use

Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Pencil Tin - 36 count (#117536)

Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Pencils provide artists with great versatility of expression when drawing, shading, and painting in watercolors. Rich pigments dissolve completely when blended with a wet brush. These high quality watercolor pencils are offered in 120 colors that are permanent when dry and color matched to all other Faber-Castell lines. (source: http://artgraphic.fabercastell.com)

Color & Co Oil Colours 

Color & Co fine oil painting sets are high quality colours for traditional oil painting. They have a high level of pigmentation, a smooth full bodied consistency, good covering power, uniform consistency, good lightfastness, and good working properties.

• Canvas or canvas board
• Good pigmentation
• Good covering power 

(source: http://bookshop.cqu.edu.au)

REEVES Water Mixable Oil, Colour Set, 12 ml Tube, 24 Tubes

Paint with genuine oil colors without using solvents. Looks, feels, and performs like traditional oil paint. Features a high level of pigmentation, smooth-bodied consistency, and good lightfastness. Colors include: lemon yellow, medium yellow, brilliant red, crimson, phthalo blue, ultramarine, sap green, viridian hue, yellow ochre, burnt umber, ivory black, titanium white, orange, flesh tint, violet, permanent light green, burnt sienna, Payne’s gray, deep yellow, magenta, rose madder, cerulean blue, cobalt blue, and raw umber. (source: http://www.enasco.com)

Winsor & Newton's Artisan Water-Mixable Linseed Oil 

Winsor & Newton's Artisan range of mediums has been specifically designed for use with the Artisan Water-Mixable Oil Paints, allowing you to continue working with the same mediums you would use in oil painting but maintain the ability to use water to thin youroil colour and to clean your brushes and painting equipment. Winsor & Newton's Artisan Water-Mixable Linseed Oil is the main binder used in the manufacturing of Artisan Oil Colours, and adding it as a medium will allow you to reduce the consistency and improve the flow of your oil paints. It is also the most popula rmedium of the Artisan range. (source: http://www.artstore.co.uk)

Marie's Professional Gouache Color

Renowned for their brilliance, opacity and great tinting strength, Marie's Gouache colors is a finely ground, water based paint and ideal for students and artists of all ages. The sets contain most popular colors. Conforms to U.S. health ASTM D4236 and Europe EN-71 standard.12/14/18 color set available. All the tubes are secured in white plastic tray (source: http://www.arttool.com)

Stabilo Carb Othello Pastel Pencil 

This pencil is simply a chalk pastel with a wood casing and can be sharpened to a fine point. It can be dry mixed and blended or by adding water used as watercolour. There are 60 colours. They have high pigmentation, great luminosity and opacity plus brilliant results when used on dark backgrounds. They are easily blendable and completely non-toxic. Wonderfully dry and dusty, just like charcoal, the soft lead will also draw perfectly on delicate paper. Can be bought individually or in robust metal tins. (source: http://www.artshopmaterials.co.uk)

34th Update

27 September 2011 Tuesday

Finally, the electricity is back!

The storm outside is very strong and while I was in the store this afternoon, the wind was actually tossing the signboards, the trees, and the leather covering the jeepney which was being repaired. The wind reinforced the strength of the rain and it pours in many directions. The storm is still raging outside while I’m writing now, and it seems that it will last until tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I’m getting a lot busier these days, arranging stocks and maintaining orderliness in the store, monitoring our records, sales and customers, composing a huge painting, planning, writing, and reviewing a lot. I was sort of neglecting my rose plants because I have so many things to do and tasks to be accomplished, while the month of September is drawing to a close. I’ll probably have my roses caring time by weekend, God-willing. Hopefully, before this month ends, I have already arranged my papers for submission, and am prepared for the examination by the end of the year. I’ve been planning and waiting for this opportunity and I hope and pray that God will give me the chance and the blessings to pursue it. Now, I have something to look forward to achieving in my life and it really makes me a lot happier, determined, and it gives me a lot of energy to work hard and be patient with whatever trials that happen in my life.

The teardrop waltz humming in my ears brings nostalgia memories in me—particularly when I still have my laptop computer. I missed my laptop a lot as it had been my companion when I am alone. It’s been more than a year since it was stolen from me, and I wonder how the thief managed to use it because it’s already non-functioning and he has to spend money just so he can have it repaired. But at least, even though I no longer have a laptop, I am happy and content with what I have in my life. I have many dreams and probably they are also my source of inspiration in my life, I love to learn and pursue new heights, and by God’s leave, He will grant me the strength to achieve them.

It’s a bit late now and I still have to watch a thriller movie, Silence of the Lambs. 

Till next time, with lots of love and creative inspiration, coming from the lovely and weirdo,

Maica.

33rd Update

Yesterday, while I accompanied my parents on shopping on a thrift store, I  spotted a lot of clocks on  display and they looked so colorful, so I thought of  catching them with my phone.

32nd Update

It's finally weekend again, and I can't hardly believe that time runs so fast! It was an especially busy week for me, monitoring our sales, drivers, and making sure that tasks are delegated effectively. At the same time, I'm looking forward to a number of preparations, attending school meeting by Saturday, doing a bit of review on cognitive psychology, and lots of organizing and some house chores for tomorrow. As of now, I'm preparing to rest as the day started early for me, and it's good to practice being an early bird for work, it fosters self-discipline and punctuality.

I already assembled my canvas yesterday, did the sawing, nailing the wood, stretching, adjusting, and attaching the canvas on the stretcher frame, and applying the white base paint. Flipping over my books and magazines, I'm thinking of how my new painting's composition will be. I'm especially glad for the overall work of the Cottage House.and considering a bit of style repetition with regards to the new painting. The canvas measures around 5 ft. x 3 ft. and I'm trying to figure out how it would work if I try it purely on impressionism, graffiti, if I'd still use the Cottage House style, or make it like a dream scenery, or incorporate all those styles into one. What I'm avoiding is the look as if the painting's elements look like a flat-colored illustration book, or the colors would look bland, or the subject matter wouldn't elicit a reaction from the viewer. That's why I prefer to do a bit of planning for this painting. I'm very inspired to paint since I bumped on Coldplay's website and saw that their upcoming album features very colorful and meaningful art. I'm also considering using mixed media method: incorporating neon-colors spray paints with touches of oil paint for textures and details.

There's a lot of catching up to do when it comes to planning a painting like this— the mind is very sensitive to outside disturbances and I have to catch and preserve ALL the incoming ideas and put them all in together so that I can compose and work though the painting continuoulsy with proper focus and steady coming ideas and inspiration. The creative process is difficult to understand and explain, and while the work of art is being done, lots of passion, patience, hard work, and focus as well as creative growth is produced. I hope that this painting will be pretty and meaningful when it's finished. :)

-Maica

31st Update

Review Draft (Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind by Gary Marcus)

Arguing that our minds are not as elegantly designed as we might like to believe, Marcus suggests that the imperfections are the result of evolution's tendency to pile new systems on top of old ones - and those systems don't necessarily always work well together. The end result is a "kluge," a clumsy, cobbled together contraption. In a tour of the essential areas of human experience - memory, belief, decision-making, language - Marcus unveils a fundamentally new way of looking at the evolution of the human mind and sheds light on some of the most mysterious aspects of human nature.

- Kluge, Back Cover

The human mind is a mixture of inconsistencies. It can systematically plan and prepare, but it can also disregard those prepared plans in favor of immediate and short-term gratification. It can store and accurately retrieve memories, but it can also hardly absorb readily available information, and sometimes, memories which can be retrieved at one particular time can also be distorted due to subjectively retained external stimuli. In other words, despite its reliability in certain aspects of information processing and retrieval, it is actually a mixture of complex areas which oftentimes seem to work together in an intertwined manner—rational decisions can be influenced with the subjective preferences of emotions.

The human mind is not infinite in reason, but as the book suggests, it is more of a ‘kluge.’

A kluge is a clumsy or inelegant –yet surprisingly effective solution to a problem. The human mind is a fantastic kluge and it is a quirky yet magnificent product of the entirely blind process of evolution.

It was even compared to a brand of paper feeder which was described as

Accordingly temperamental, subject to frequent breakdowns, and devilishly difficult to repair—but oh so clever! It was possible to do better. It is a great metaphor for our everyday acceptance of the idiosyncrasies of the human mind, imaginably impressive, a lot better than any available alternative. But it’s still flawed, often in ways we scarcely recognize. For the most part, we simply accept our faults—as standard equipment. Recognizing a kluge, such as the human mind, requires thinking outside the box. The best science often comes from understanding not just how things are, but how else they could have been.

Nature is prone to making kluges because it doesn’t care whether its products are perfect or inelegant. If something works, it spreads. If it doesn’t work, it dies out. All else is metaphor.

In other words, the human mind as a kluge, is a product of evolution, if some of its functions don’t work effectively, the better functions stay in place and improve, while newer functions are developed to replace the ineffective ones.

30th Update

The Cottage House (Oil On Canvas) Date Finished : September 10, 2011

29th Update

I'm now back to work. I'm especially re-energized for the past few days after we celebrated the end of the month of Ramadhan, and we went to the beach together with my parents and younger siblings, strolled at the mall, ate yummy food (cake, ice cream, grilled fresh fish, rice, and a lot more). I enjoyed the travel, some picture taking, sightseeing and breath in the fresh sea air, and most of all, I felt a lot lighter now.

After seemingly heavy days for the past year, I had proved to myself that God's promise indeed worked for me, that

"Verily along with every hardship is relief." (Qur'an 94:6)

I learned a lot about myself, about others, about faith, life and wisdom, suffering, redemption, and healing. I prayed and asked God for forgiveness to my sins and shortcomings, and for strength and guidance to help me pass through my trials. I painted and honed my skills in art, I wrote down my hatred and suffering, I made essays, I became focused on my work, I read a lot of books and absorbed every bit of them, and learned ways on how to apply the new-found knowledge and put it into practice. I learned that not all things and people are how we thought they really are, and most of the time, our positive view about them is not always true, a lot of them had me lost my respect and trust for them, and they lied, deceived, manipulated, controlled, and they played with my emotions.

After a serious isolation, study, and self-reflection, I re-learned to gain my lost sense of self and confidence, rationality, wisdom in life, started to work towards my goals, re-invented myself, tossed away defeatist and pessimistic thoughts (I blew off my anger, hatred and frustration through nu metal), gained control of my emotions though common-sense thinking, I developed a clearer view of who I really am as a person, and analyze my thoughts and behavior objectively.

Amid all the trials that I went through, I discovered that God loves me, because when I believed that I could no longer survive, here I am, I became an even stronger person. I learned to overcome my perceived anxieties  and fears and I am more at peace with myself and with the rest of the world. I could not have been stronger like this if God didn't give me this trial. My thinking is clearer and my principles in life and religion are well-defined. I came to appreciate even more, the importance of truth and genuineness to oneself, with ones words, with others, no matter the costs.

I never waste my time and I see to it that every day of my life is spent in worshipping God, doing good, and in being productive. I will never allow myself to to be enslaved with anybody's treatment, perceived bias thoughts, with false flattery and destructive criticism, with circumstances which are beyond my control, and with my emotions and thoughts which prevent my growth to become a better person.

This life is only a trial, we may be deceived with false appearances, statements, words and actions, which may at first seem to be for our well-being, but  when time comes, we realize that what we believed was true was only meant to deceive and manipulate us - because that in reality was how they were meant to be programmed. That's how modernity, consumerism, and technology are being used nowadays. It's a serious and big business to catch the emotions of people, play with them, and use their lives and thoughts for the satisfaction of desires, self-interest, power, money, and lust. And through this observation, I see people falling victims in this trap - the more they lose their grasp in their faith in God, self-awareness, service and kindness to others, the complete way of life that God has guided us with - the more they destroy themselves - they become materialistic, vain, always seeking fame and popularity, just so they can be better suited and belong to an environment and society they always allowed to define them as persons.

To be free is by submitting everything to God and not becoming enslaved with the deceit and lies of this world. This awareness becomes a way for me to strive to do what is good because through goodness and virtue is earning God's pleasure and a hope for a better life in the Hereafter.

28th Update: Going to the Beach at Olongapo, Zambales

The waves are strong and some rain is drizzling. But it was a very wonderful day to spend with family, traveling, and eating yummy food (to mention two cakes, two fresh and grilled yellow-fin tuna and a lot of snacks!).

Meanwhile, I bought a new journal so I can somehow jot down my everyday adventures and daily insights. It's a refreshing new way to get my writing exercises and get organized with my outlook and perspective about things. I bought it over when we dropped by the mall with my parents and siblings, before we traveled to the beach. It's hardbound and it resembles a cute little book. I'm looking forward to writing a lot again! :)