Seriously May, I Don't Like You At All

So Happy, Thank You. TSUP!!!

Please pardon this long post. It will be my last one for a long while. I started oil painting again. So, unlike pen and ink which I can whip up in a day, oil painting takes me forever.

It is difficult. I don't know how I should paint, whether I will use the palette knife or brushes. I wasn't sure if I will make my figures angular like I have often done. Drawing continuously and everyday for the past year until last week, I think, my drawing style is creeping into my paintings, those details. I want a lot of details. I did the study for this painting during my lunch hour. It is called Fireflies. Why? It's a woman with a dog, namely Daisy, after all.

Let me explain. It's been over a year since I painted. I feel like I have to make up for all the lost oil painting time. My head has been filled with images that I wanted to execute on canvas but I always found a reason not to paint. Finally I started last week, but those of you who visit me regularly know what happened last week. Finally I had a chance this week. Thanks to Bella's gentle prodding and nudging, I finally opened an oil paint tube... Fireflies will be the painting on the wall in the painting! I am going to paint a painting within a painting! This is a 30"x40" canvas. I hope I will be able to do it.

I also want to include a page from my special all-time favorite book. That will be the book laid open on the foreground of the study. Let me share a few pages from this special book. I am so proud of this book which was a very special gift from a very special person. I think you know her. Do you understand why I am so happy?!!!

Lastly, I just want to share a little secret of mine. I am not that prolific of an oil painter or pen and ink illustrator because my brain is busting with ideas and images that I can easily execute and manipulate. On the contrary, they are difficult to lay down because I can't seem to find the right emotion to come along. Even on the current painting, my study shows that the woman's eyes are closed, yet when I painted her, she has her eyes open wide and bright. I needed some inspiration. So guess what I did? I referred to my old paintings. I looked up Scarlet who is the model of "the greatest awakening.". I also refer to my older paintings, especially if I am painting a series.

The current painting still belongs to "Fiesta Series." All the paintings in this series are interconnected, metaphorically, emotionally, yes, yes I am so emotional when I paint, sometimes I cannot stand myself! Actually, I notice that I have been very emotional lately. I Am blaming drawing and painting for that!!! God! My equilibrium has been punctuated so many times lately. ARRRRGGGGHHHH!!! Anyway, I look at the eyes of my old paintings and I feel a connection. Oh God, artiste-speak, ICK! But really, I do, sorry. That's just the way it is.

These paintings also have a visual connection, but you may have to be a Fiestaware dish lover to understand it. Pearl Grey and Chartreuse are paintings within paintings.

Left to right" Scarlet, Ivory babies, Pearl Grey, Chartreuse

I am trying to stay happy despite circumstances that weigh heavily on my mind and in my heart. My sister has been diagnosed with lung cancer and my father in-law is in the hospital again. Please help me pray for their well-being. Thank you. I may post my painting progress, now and then, maybe not. Have a great summer everybody!

The Unfortunate Gift Of Eternal Slumber

The Unfortunate Gift of Eternal Slumber. Pen and Ink on 9"x12" Bristol Board.

I completed the above drawing many weeks ago but have forgotten about it. I did not seem to have a reason to post it until I have completed my Steam Punk Series. As it is, I have only completed two drawings in the series because the exercise soured with me. As I was drawing, I actually tasted metal in my mouth, the same sensation when when one takes medications with metallic taste side effects. I am afraid of spiders and I definitely had no love for steam punk but this exercise gave me catharsis. In the end it softened me to mechanized, geared and screwed objects lifted from virtual junk, inked into my Bristol Boards. It even endeared me to this image of the venomous, vapid, insidious creature and hypnotized me, almost inducing narcolepsy, as if I have been injected with its venom famed for eternal slumber; not merely torpid, slothful, negligent or dormant state. Will I complete this series? Perhaps.

Luna and Venus

Earth's satellite, the moon , left lower quadrant and the planet Venus, right upper quadrant. A couple of sky shots for my brother who has been impressing me with his own sky watching photos back home. Click to enlarge:

Possibilities

So much ado about nothing yet. Still I have to go through this exercise. I need to make a commitment. That's a start. Last weekend I actually started to paint, but when I bent down to pick up a new set of oil painting brushes, I lost my balance and fell. I found myself in the midst of rolls of Japanese papers, hundreds of micron pen inks that fell to the floor and looked like a Pick-Up-Sticks game, marbles, yes marbles, hundreds of marbles rolling all over the slate floor, canvas upon canvas, backing boards, cans of turpentine and mineral spirits; I could barely lift myself up. Yes, I have fallen and could not get up because I was overwhelmed by art supplies and marbles!!!

Has anybody seen that television show called "Hoarders"? Fear set into my heart. I asked my daughter if she thinks I qualify for the show. She replied, "No" and gently added "...but you can tidy up your painting area a little bit." So that is what I did exactly. Instead of painting, I cleaned up, for sixteen hours!

So I had to postpone actualizing the images in my head. I hope they are still there when I squirt the first tubes of cadmium, cobalt and flake, yes flake white :)

Found these thick 20"x30" sheets of series 500 and 400 Bristol boards behind the love seat, so I set up the other studio easel in drawing table mode.

Oh, the possibilities of a new 30"x40" stretched canvas. If these are the only two projects I finish for the rest of the year, I will be happy.

Have fun creating!

Vacation By Proxy

Okay, I am being lazy. Instead of packing up and jetting off to my birth country, I am hijacking some of my brother's photographs of the many trips and excursions he takes when he goes back to our home province. I also spent the weekend honoring Hestia, so I have no art to share. Ah, my brother has a very interesting perspective. Aside from the regular tourist fare, he sees a lot of things to which I totally relate. In fact, I forgo tourist attractions, I focus for the native scenes. This is along the way to the city on the base of the island's volcano. My brother takes photographs of the clouds and sky for me. I once told him that everyday, we each should take a photo of the sky we see and share them with each other. He agreed and has done it since; I suggested and forgot about it. Ah, I will make up for it soon... In the meantime here are some scenes in the island where I was born, courtesy of my (younger of the two) older brother:

Cloudy today, so can't see the cone very well.

The island where I was born is called Negros. We are on the Occidental side. Oriental and Occidental are divided by a volcanic mountain range called Canlaon or Kanlaon. There are many hills and mountains, as you may have seen on my sister's farm.

More hills. This is very far away from the city where I was born. Incidentally it's name means hill or bump. The one above is just on some farmland.

Pretty clouds.

Rice terraces.

...and more.

Obligatory bamboo shoot :) Hahaha!

Scary bridge...

Swimming in the river, upstream.

Doing laundry on the river, downstream.

A carabao or water buffalo.

Not too worried about not fastening their seat belts. Eh?

A town's Main street.

Notice how one of the lanes has been utilized by the people - drying palay (rice) seeds on the highway.

Thank you, dear Brother! Tsup!!!

Ret In Longing (IF's Soaked)

This is my entry for Illustration Friday's "Soaked" prompt. I prefer its synonym. I am not going to pretend anymore. There is a tinge of sadness in my heart. I long to see my sisters and brothers.

There is an empty space in my heart and I am not going to fool myself into believing that just because I am surrounded by my loving family, my beloved husband and beautiful adoring children, that is enough. My longing cannot be replaced.

I miss my brothers and sisters. I even miss our family grave where my parents' remains lay buried. I miss the home where I grew up. No, I do not want to go back and uproot my family here and live there. I love being an American. I hate the political atmosphere in the Philippines, inherent with corruption and while they staged the first successful People's Revolution, most Filipinos are copacetic, the politicians exploit that trait. My family and friends struggle to make ends meet there and I am too vocal, expressive and pessimistic, I will wither if I lived there. But I love my brothers and sisters, so much it hurts. I miss them terribly so. I have become a masochist.

We have drought down here! bring in the rain!!! Well, not at disastrous levels.

L to R: The Goddesses of disasters: Bagyo-bagyo (Typhoon), Ba'ha (Flood) and Ulan and Monsoon (Rain and Monsoon) Pen and ink on 9"x12" Bristol boards.

Summer. Part of the Seasons Series. Each panel is in Pen and ink on 9"x12" Bristol Board. If you click to enlarge, you may find the Fiesta carafe in every panel.

This morning I woke up to my brothers' delightful post titled "Installing Adobe Flash Player on the Amd64 bit Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal" followed by:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sevenmachines/flash

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install flashplugin64-installer

I would be a liar, a fake and a flake if I told you I understand it. Yet reading his technical posts soothe me like a prayer. Growing up, my brother and I were very close. Not only did I love him, I actually liked him very much. I ferociously watched out for him because he was a gentle and peaceful boy. So I fought off the bullies for him that garnered me the title, Tomboy. I hated being called a tomboy. I just wanted to be called a strong girl.

I found this photo, below, on my brother's Facebook album. This is the front of our parents' home. It is the home where I grew up from age ten until I left for college. It is the place I call home when I say I am going home to the Philippines. There is a gated wall which one can't see because it is completely obliterated by these plants and flowers. The gate is by the electric post.

When I lived there I remember a lush garden inside the walls. That is why I drew these images below, from memory. It is how I remembered my mother's garden. I wonder what kind of memories my children will have when they grow up and when I am gone. I hope they will be happy and loving memories. I hope they will long to come home to the place they call home, wherever it is, it is the place that stirs happiness from within.

Elma, The Mother Hen. Pen and Ink on 9"x12" Bristol Board. Elma and Maes were the original sources of our chickens and eggs when I was growing up.

The Cock, Ma-es. 9"x12" Pigment ink on Bristol Board. A few memories from my childhood: elephant tusk and bird of paradise plants, yellow bells, aka Esperanza, cadena de amor, bamboo, Movie Snap pictured on the photograph image on right lower corner, a roll of photographic negative, banana peel, egg shell (I am learning to walk on eggshells) used to cap the elephant tusk - we thought it made them grow taller and straight. Now I know why my mother did that. I read about the plant characteristic called phototropism. The sensors that influence the plant's ability to grow in the direction of the light are stored in their tips.