low blood pressure beasts and tattooed sea monsters

It is now lunch break, so I can brave the Beast that is La Salle WiFi and do the art post I wanted to do last night but didn't have the energy for.

My blood pressure for the past few days has been at 90/60. Found myself stumbling with humiliating clumsiness through a maculele session yesterday, and I felt groggy for several hours during the day. I know how to alleviate high blood pressure, but what about low? 

On the other hand, this is the first month in two years I am totally cramp-free. Not a twinge! *dances...slowly...and...sleepily*

In other news, I have had mermaids on the brain. I had a spare bit of canvas board, so I decided to reacquaint myself with the painting habit.

'Face Less'. Oil paint on unprimed canvas...not a great idea. I also got a little lost doing the shadows on the face, as I had no live model or reference.

'This One Looks Kind Of Like My Friend Lyra'. No seriously, I can't stop thinking of that as the title. This is when I switched to acrylic. I like the hair, but was very clumsy with the rest of it, especially the blue shadow.

'Fish Face'. Acrylic. Pretty much gave up on realism for this one, which I think actually helped. I could relax and have fun with her skin and mask.

'Jellyfish'. Acrylic. Fun with light and dark! I don't say 'chiaroscuro', though it's one of my favourite words, because...this isn't it.

You'll notice that none of these have anything that identifies the subjects as mermaids. They're only mermaids because I say they are. I think this is one of the things I most like about art.

And some work in marker, which I like even more, just because I feel much more comfortable and confident in this medium and so I can go to some pretty fun places in terms of technique.

'Yakuza Mermaids'. Faber Castell brush pen markers on Moleskine paper.

quietly go through the door

From The Alchemy, issue 7.

Old Lady: Then I saw that there are doors. And through the doors are rooms of knowledge. Like different rooms in a house.

Each room has a different story happening in it. Like it is a different life. Like you are in a book of doors. 

If you haven't learned everything you were supposed to, you have to go through another door so you can learn more. Or so someone can learn from you.

I passed by many doors and looked through them. It was like I could see into other people's lives. Like each life is a little story happening in this book at the same time. 

I passed by these doors until I came to a door I could not see into. It was closed. I had a great urge to go into this door. But when I tried I could not pass.

And then a voice said that I do not have enough knowledge to pass through that door. I was told that my work in my current room wasn't finished.

And then I woke up in the hospital. I had pulled through the surgery. 

I've had two surgeries since and that has happened every time. I get to the door and I can't pass through. And then I wake up in pain. In this meat suit. In this silly human costume. 

When I wake up, I always think that next time it happens, I hope I have learned enough to pass through the door.

Kabuki: I wonder...

Old Lady: I'm tired.

Kabuki: I wonder if that is what...

Old Lady: I'm taking a nap now.

Kabuki: If that is what my mother went through.

And she was gone. She had passed. She had moved on right before my eyes.

silvertoes

For some reason I've been feeling like Silvertoes all this week. Don't ask me why.

Parokya ni Edgar - Silvertoes...
Transcription and translation by my friend Lyra

Wag ka nang magalala
Hinding, hindi ako inlab sayo
Bakit ba pakiramdam mo pa yata
Lahat kami ay naaakit mo
Don't worry
We're really not in love with you
Why do you feel that
You're charming us all?

Miss, miss, pakitigil lang please
Ang iyong pagpapantasya
Hindi ka na nakakatuwa
Ipapagulpi na kita sa gwardyang may batuta
Miss, miss please stop
Your delusions
You're not funny anymore
I'm gonna have you beaten up by a guard with a bat
AAaaaa...yay yay yah.....

Hindi ko talaga ma-gets kung bakit ka ganyan
Ang feeling mo ay sabik sa iyo ang lahat nang kalalakihan
Sorry, pagpasensyahan mo na
Mali talaga ang iyong inaakala
Lahat kami ay nandidiri sa iyo
Ikaskas mo na sana ang mukha mo sa semento
I don't really get why you're like that
You feel like all the men are panting for you
Sorry, I beg your pardon
What you assume is wrong
We're all disgusted with you
I wish you'd grind your face against the cement (!!!)

Di kami na-tuturn on sa kutis mong kulay champurado
Di kami naaakit sa labi mong garabucho...
O please naman, pakitanggap mo na lang ang katotohanan
Na ganyan ka 'pinanganak
Wag ka nang magpapanggap na ikaw ay isang dalagang ubod ng ganda
Kahit na alam naman natin na ang karakas mo ay ubod ng sama
We're not turned on by your chocolate rice pudding skin (?!?)
We're not attracted to your dung shovel lips (?!?!!!!!!!!)
Please face the truth
That you're just born that way
Don't pretend that you're a staggeringly beautiful maiden
We all know that your appeal is nasty

Siguro nga naman ay may mga mas pangit pa sa yo
Pero at least hindi sila nagpapakyut katulad mo
Nakaka-bad-trip ka, nakakairita tuwing kita'y nakikita
Di ko alam ba't ang laki ng ulo mo
Magingat-ingat ka, baka ikaw ay sagasaan ko
I'm sure there are those uglier than you
But at least they don't pretend to be cute like you do
You are so annoying. You put me in a foul mood when I see you
I don't know why you're head is so swelled up
You better be careful, I might just run you over

Huh. When I look at it in English, it's even more horrible.

outline

More from The Alchemy. Page scan, followed by text.

Observing that we liked to make costumes and create our own identities, my mother taught us a technique that became a revelation to us.

She unrolled a bit of one of her tall rolls of paper. She suggested that one of us lie down on the paper while the other outlined the shape with a marker. What we each had was a perfectly crude approximation of our own small figure.

The idea, my mother said, was to then make a 'Self Portrait' by filling in the shape with any version of our self that we chose or could imagine!

I'm in my late twenties now and the ideas behind these early exercises in creativity and improvision (sic) are used by me every day in my adult life. I realized that the self portrait project was a metaphor for teaching me to create my own life.

The outline is the situation that you are born into. But it is up to you to design it any way that you imagine!

We had to make choices and envision ideas. Then follow through on them. It wasn't just the finished project. It was the process of the problem solving that was the most fun for us.

Your ideas, actions and choices create your life. Your life is your self portrait. Which in turn shapes your identity.

bottles

It's funny how when you've decided to do something for real, and not just fooling yourself or saying 'I really am definitely going to start working on initiating the process of thinking about doing this thing...'

...then you start getting little boosts out of nowhere. It's encouraging.

Anyway, here are the bottle pics that I promised. I like them a lot, but they seem a bit scratchy and I know I'll do better with the next batch, although I intend to do those in ballpoint too. The thing with these bottles is that you really need colour to make them pop, otherwise they're just not as interesting as the originals.

Oh, and another bit from The Alchemy, sans scan for now:

There is no having made it. You are always making it. That is the entire point. The making is where you always want to be. The revelation is the action not the subject.

Hence the label for my art posts...

more alchemical reactions

I don't know how Tori Amos manages to put her finger on exactly how it is I'm feeling when I'm feeling it, but she does. She put out 'The Beekeeper' a few years ago just when I needed it, and the opening song is one of my favourites of all time. The lyrics are almost painfully apt, and the melody is just lovely.

I've been listening to it quite often again over the past week, and I suddenly remembered that another favourite artist of mine--a Japanese illustrator named Aya Kato--did the art for the video. So here it is.

Tori Amos - Sleeps With Butterflies

I've also decided to upload a few pages from The Alchemy, the text of which I've been carrying around in my journal. Text doesn't really convey the feeling of the page though. So here's the one about Positive Doing.

More soon.

doors again

Only posting the best of the batch this time. I have been alarmingly productive in several directions the past few days. I think the energy of the past week is creating some sort of fallout of artistic productivity. Forward, always forward!

I think that's enough doors for a while. I probably have enough for stock graphics, and I was definitely losing focus toward the end. 

I do love drawing inanimate objects though. I've been getting interested in Chinese snuff bottles again, so the next post will probably have my pre-existing drawings of those before I start producing new ones.

one picture is worth combining with a thousand different words

You know what Livejournal has that Blogger, Facebook and Multiply don't? ICONS.

Way back before Livejournal or even the concept of online diary-writing existed, there were books like Terry and Neil's Good Omens and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, which used a device dating back to the medieval practice of illuminated manuscripts: the chapter-heading icon. Illustrations might have been a bit much for these books, but the little pictures that prefaced the chapter were a refreshing break from the walls of grey text, added a touch of interest (and even coolness), and gave you a little hint as to who would be in the next chapter or what might happen. If you saw a quintet of dice, you knew Mat Cauthon was getting himself in trouble again, or if you saw a snake with sunglasses wrapped round a capital letter, you wondered what on earth Anthony Crowley was up to now. (Or in my case, you just squealed 'EEE MAT!' or 'CROWLEY! YAY!' and read eagerly on.)

Icons are great because they're yours, even when someone else made them.* They can convey a general meaning to your friends or readers, while having a much more nuanced (and even different) meaning just for you.

For example, this might mean tea, or it might mean I'm feeling pensive, or maybe I wanted to draw attention to the mild absurdity of a teabag sitting all by itself at a window as if it was lonely or daydreaming. (Or people could attach their own meanings, none of them intended. A friend told me what 'teabagging' was slang for, and I really wish he hadn't.)

So I think I'm going to employ these little pictures from now on. They'll also give readers a clue as to whether I'm saying something they actually want to read, or if it's all babble about Batman and Wonder Woman again.

*in which case you give credit, of course. That said, the teabag photo belongs to Corbis, although I cropped and sized it into an icon. I will credit succeeding icons too. If there's no credit on an icon, it's all mine.

roda sketches

I'm an hour past my bedtime, but just wanted to post these before I went to bed. Everyone took such lovely pics of the BCD Batizado and succeeding days! I couldn't resist doing some quick studies of the roda matches.











These pics are from Ric (Esquicido)'s photos of the Sunday roda at the Lagoon. 5-7 minute sketches, Pilot Sumi brush pen on smooth drawing paper.

the Power

Back from Manila. Most significant part of the haul was something I bought on a whim, the last volume of David Mack's Kabuki. An excerpt:

I come to realise that writing is like physical exercise. What counts is how much you can do after you think you are done.

Then the real challenge begins. If you push through the barriers of your comfort zone, you hit a second wind. It is mostly just showing up and doing it that counts.

Sometimes it is painful. You might want to do something else. And you can think of infinite reasons to stop.

I discover 'The Power of Positive Doing.'

Positive thinking is great. It's a nice first step. But if you don't do the 'Positive Doing', it only takes you so far.

Want to quote a load more, plus post about the great wedding I attended and Avatar and all, but I gots things that need to get done. :)