I went back to school to study a lot of the things I was never good at. This quarter was especially challenging since I’ve been doing more drawings from life and architecture. But most of all I strove to overcome my fear of painting and color. It was a struggle, but I have rediscovered my calling when I got into painting with gouache. I have older portrait studies in an entry I did last year.

It was very important for me to devote some of my free time to study painting. I did that through my Travel Portfolio assignments. I took photos and would afterwards use it as reference for color study. Right now I’m not as accurate as I would like, but it excites me that I am becoming less fearful of color.

Something I took from The Peak

Flamingos from Kowloon Park at TST

Some have asked me about my process as well as my feelings on how to use gouache, and I will likely write about it in detail next time. For now I must say this: I love this medium so much. It gives me the versatility of switching between techniques. I can use it as I would use watercolors or render thickly as I would with oils. I feel very free and confident whenever I use it.

If you guys have any particular questions regarding the medium or my work, feel free to send me comments and suggestions for my Gouache entry. I will most likely talk about the differences between gouache and poster paints as well as my exploration studies with paint application.

Hong Kong is home to a lot of special places, but my favorite was always the Chi Lin Nunnery and the garden that is situated on its front step. I went there to pray and sketch as part of my spiritual alone time last Valentines.

I get shoo-ed away by the guards whenever I attempt to draw something that is part of a more popular scenic sight. They don’t want me lingering and spoiling the view for the others who come and go to take photos.

It is frustrating to say the least. So I was stuck doing the smaller more quiet scenes around the park. I washed these with a bit of watercolor.

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I opted to do a sketch or two from photo-reference after my trip. Regardless of all the trouble, I really do love the beautiful bits of detail that I found there.

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Despite having an aversion for environments, I’m starting to develop a fondness for traditional Chinese architecture- perhaps it is in the rhythm of architectural elements, or the use of rounded entrance ways, or even the gentle sweep of the rooftops. Drawing Chinese architecture keeps me engaged and interested enough to keep working on a more technical drawing. This is also a photo-referenced drawing but it is not from the Nunnery. I photographed the reference at the Kowloon Walled City Park.

I’ve been doing my best to get in touch with my love for creating things through these spiritual retreats. There has been too much noise in my brain and it has been hard to focus. Zoning out into a drawing state of mind has been helping me push back my worries for the time being. I hope I can keep up this productivity until I get out of my slump.

I love how Chinese traditions give me a reason to celebrate New Years twice a year. So to commemorate the occasion, I want to share bits and pieces of my Winter Quarter so far here in Hong Kong and also my trip to the Thinkspace exhibition held at Above Second Gallery.

Winter Quarter is especially sentimental to me since a lot of my girlfriends from Manila started their first quarters at SCAD Hong Kong. As a first outing for the weekend we decided to go to SCAD’s First Friday event followed by the trip to the exhibition. Spreading the Manila sass at Sheung Wan.

Kiudo – Acrylic on board by Joao Ruas

Los Angeles based gallery Thinkspace has teamed up with Above Second Gallery in Hong Kong to present ‘LAX / HKG’. This special group exhibition has been curated by Thinkspace to help introduce our roster to Hong Kong. Featuring two new works each from the likes of Amy Sol, Audrey Kawasaki, Brian M. Viveros, Dabs Myla, Esao Andrews, Joao Ruas, Linnea Strid and Yosuke Ueno.

The line up for this exhibition was just excellent. I was especially excited because I’m a big fan of Joao Ruas‘s work.

Honestly never thought that I’d see an Amy Sol or an Audrey Kawasaki in my life time. Was so happy that I got the opportunity to see these and more!

Violent Waves (detail) by Esao Andrews

Given time, I may be able to upload all of the photos from the exhibition into my facebook page. :) I will be sure to mention if it comes up.

When Chinese New Year came along for realsies, I spent my day mostly on my own- relaxing by the beach. There was so much crazy energy after my trip to California and trying to keep up with the backlog of deadlines was very painful. Having the alone time was such a wonderful relief.

I capped the day by eating at a local rice-topping place. Got to draw this while waiting for my food. Tried my hand at giving my sketches washes this time around for some variation. Hopefully the next pieces will keep evolving with more interesting rendering styles and composition.

I do have some sketches lined up on queue that I am excited to share. Travel Portfolio has been such a rewarding class where I get to try things that I normally do not do (like architecture… gosh it’s very difficult to draw buildings and interiors etc). More drawings to come up soon :)

There is something very therapeutic about drawing trees and quiet landscapes. For one, they obviously don’t move- so it gives me more time to figure out what I wanna do with composition. It gives me time to feel around for the nuances of foliage. I feel less saddled with the pressure of drawing everything straight with pen.

So here are a the few special pages I really enjoyed. Please do click on the images for a larger view.

Do click on the images for a larger view. :)

Our class got out of TST station and entered this refreshing place. It’s such a big relief from the congested urban jungle of Hong Kong.

There were also flamingos there! I got really excited and went to sketch them right away.

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My friend Cenga! We are taking the same class together. We found this pathway leading up to the aviary. I was initially interested in drawing up more animals, but I ended up not leaving this spot.

I love the way the tree grew around this urban space. I knew I had to draw it. There were so many lines and details that played with my heart strings.

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I sat on a bench on the side of the walkway and drew the whole panoramic scene. The lineart is done by hand while I post processed the values on photoshop

Here’s a picture of our class! Ignore the unfortunate cameo of my coat sleeve. Before the day ends we reconvene to talk about what we’ve drawn.

It has been so much fun so far! I will be documenting my travels and will be regularly updating every weekend with my sketches and photos. I also have a backlog of artsy events and posts which I hope to update during midweek. Perhaps my 2013 resolution is to make sure that I keep up with my blog regularly! I’ll squeeze in as much time as I can.

I did spend the sick days doing small bits of practice work. I’ve been playing with my oil pastels a bit more to get more experience in handling color.

For Christmas I was so happy to get a large collection of notebooks and things. Stationery items are my weakness! So many pretty things.

One of my most cherished gifts of the season where these amazing earphones- the Spider “realvoice” vertical in-ear headphones. It has completely changed my life and has vastly improved my musical enjoyment. My siblings are audiophiles who have completely inducted me into their circle.

Before I was thoroughly attacked by the germs, I did manage to accomplish one tradition that is close to my heart.

I mention that I spend every Christmas holiday visiting the annual Lantern Parade at the University of the Philippines. I haven’t missed one since I first entered UP 8 years ago. Now, I get to enjoy the festivities as an alumni. It’s always a wonderful feeling to come home to the College of Fine Arts.

This year’s freedom wall. Here’s the wall from 2011.

The theme this year was things that fly! Wish I properly got to photograph everything.

Jack Skellington with his sleigh. I got to see this light up and move when the students got to bring it out to the streets that night.

Flying Fish

Click the photo to see it enlarged. On the bottom right there’s assortment of large insects and a large slipper hovering close. On the left are green war aliens. There is a steampunk airship up top and a group of nymphs and fairies in the middle.

The esteemed faculty as bats and Sir Doi being a badass vampire.

BAT-TUTA HAT <3

This guy- I wouldn’t be half as brilliant as I am now if it weren’t for him. Sir Aman is one of the best creative professors a girl could ever ask for.

Stay classy UPCFA. Never change.

I spent the day with some of my favorite people! I couldn’t take a photo of everyone though which is one of my biggest regrets. It got dark and shady before I knew it!

At some point, the crowds were getting overwhelming and we couldn’t see a thing. But I was more than happy to have spent the night with good company. The latter having been documented as private moments, hidden away in other people’s fezbooks.

Looking forward to a lovely 2013. Thanks for always capping off my year UP.

There’s a lot of busts and portraits this fall quarter. Lots of technical practice since I had a full course load of studio classes. I took two Materials and Techniques classes which had a lot of variety that ranged from pastels to oil painting but the subject matter is mostly portraiture. I also took up a History of Illustration class which proved to be predominantly studio related than it was lecture.

I’ve never really painted before in my life. A lot of people are probably going to complain on this one and site a few of my older work which I have to attribute to digital manipulation. I put together my own hand made painting washes and then manipulate it on to my line art. SURPRISE! So learning wet media has been both humbling and a struggle. The above is my work space when I was working on oils. You can see the final painting here but the picture is kind of crappy since I had to pass it right away :( Anyway this is my friend Ryan Smith and I art directed the photo reference while being assisted by good friends Jesemy Wang and Meggy Kawsek. I’ve also done some live oil portrait painting sessions which I also enjoyed but I don’t have a proper camera to document my work.

One of the pleasant things I’ve managed to get a hold on was Gouache. I LOVE GOUACHE. I was doing all these oil paintings that felt quite unforgiving and then when I applied the same techniques and theory using Gouache, everything starts going smoothly like butter. No words can describe how much I adore this medium.

Another Gouache painting I did for a final. Unfortunately rushed due to several deadlines but I’m glad that I’ve gotten down a degree of delicacy on this. Not bad for five hours.

Documenting all my work has been such a difficult ordeal since I found it taxing to take out my SLR to take good photos and all my cellphone photographs aren’t very good either. I’m already set to purchase a new camera though which would certainly help in future updates. Also it doesn’t help that I’m unhappy with a lot of my work during the quarter. I’m still learning to be a better painter so all this struggle is just a sign of learning.

I’ve also mentioned that I will be writing about other other adventures soon, including but not limited to: 2012 Lantern Parade, James Jean’s Exhibition, and my recent win at Disney Hong Kong ImagiNations  2012 competition. More on those in future updates :)

I’ve always wanted to do a memento mori (or perhaps a set) so when I was invited to make art for the Bloom Arts Festival, I jumped at the chance. Here’s my new artwork “Nectarine” which is for sale tomorrow tonight at the event! I do hope you all could check it out in the flesh. The physical item is an 18 x 18 inch direct print on a hexagon wood piece.

Hope you can all come down to visit the Bloom Arts Festival, which is a currently a collaboration of over 80 (or perhaps 90 at this point) artists, exhibiting September 29 at Cubao X! Admission is free! I’m sad that I can’t be there myself since I’m at Hong Kong at the moment but I shall live vicariously through you would be exhibit goers! Please do go check it out :)

I got featured yesterday (September 14, 2012) on YOUNG Star Philippines as one of Manila’s Best Illustrators of 2012. *my mom took the photo of the print that came out back in the Philippines. Thanks Mom!

It’s been a great honor to be called on by Raymond Ang and Ralph Mendoza from YOUNG Star Philippines for this amazing feature that collected so many talents that I truly admired. Imagine my great joy when I got the chance to meet Tokwa Penaflorida, Soleil Ignacio, Steph Manuel, and Tof Zapanta in person as well when I got to the shoot (so sorry that I couldn’t keep my fangirl on check). Likewise featured are KitKat Pecson, Deane Miguel and Reese Lansangan. I just love how all of our portraits came out!

Great thanks are also due to Gabby Cantero photographed a beauty in me that I never realized I had; and who can ever forget Mollie E. del Rosario who was so pleasant and understanding when she applied my make up.

For the curious, here are the base drawings I was working on for my portrait.

Catching up on life: I’m back at SCAD Hong Kong. I’m incredibly dead busy at the moment but I just felt it so necessary to do this. THANK YOU. A large resounding THANK YOU to everyone who has been so supportive and believed in what I did. And for those who have recently discovered me, thank you for seeing the beauty in what I do. For those who have been there since the beginning, thank you for believing in the beauty that I can do.

Bloom 2012, Poster by Tof Zapanta

Coming up, some previews of my first week in Hong Kong and previews for my work that will be at the Bloom Arts Festival back home which I am yet to finish. But hey! Get excited for the biggest art event of the year. 70+ artists are collaborating in one massive show at Cubao X this coming September 29. Will blog more about these things once time permits next week. Again, much love and appreciation for your support :)