Project 52: Weeks 12 to 16

Frailty. March started off with me helping a good friend fulfill her new year’s resolution — to lose weight. So the theme of the first half of the month pretty much revolved around goading her into eating right and getting plenty of exercise. While my drawing has nothing to do with getting fit, it does depict a very thin and fragile woman. The idea stemmed from my numerous conversations with my friend regarding body weight perceptions as she went on a diet that required her to cut down on carbs and restricted her meat consumption to just chicken and fish — an incredibly difficult feat because we LOVE food. I guess I now have a whole new-found respect for people who strictly adhere to a certain diet and really commit to it. I originally named this “Anorexia” but decided to settle for “Frailty” instead, since the latter is more apt.

Week 12: Frailty

Moon Worship. I have always paid attention to the moon’s waxing and waning, and the particular full moon on the week of March 29 got me to draw this. I was driving home from grabbing a quick coffee when I noticed the huge moon tinged with a faint orange. While continuing to work on a painting that same night, I decided to watch “Practical Magic” for the umpteenth time, which happens to be my all-time favorite romcom. Sally Owen’s romaticizing the moon in her letter to her sister Gillian combined with the beautiful image of the moon I saw prompted me to come up with this.

“Sometimes I feel like there’s a hole inside of me, an emptiness that at times seems to burn. I think if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean. The moon tonight, there’s a circle around it. Sign of trouble not far behind. I have this dream of being whole. Of not going to sleep each night, wanting. But still sometimes, when the wind is warm or the crickets sing, I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for. I just want someone to love me. I want to be seen. I don’t know. Maybe I had my happiness. I don’t want to believe it but, there is no man, Gilly. Only that moon.”

The result: Three Wiccans under a full moon. Cue in Toploader’s “Dancing in the Moonlight.”

Week 13: Moon Worship

Wallflower. The week I drew this, I was craving for a Hainanese chicken fix at Wee Nam Kee. And this was inspired by a wallpaper in that said restaurant. Craving satisfied, weekly drawing assignment accomplished.

Week 14: Wallflower

Leona and Castora. This was a requested drawing by my friend Emiliana Kampilan, the artist behind the web comic Dead Balagtas. If you haven’t heard of it, I urge you to check it out. It has been listed in Spot.ph’s 5 New Komiks Artists Worth Following with its retelling of events in Philippine history backed with insight and intelligent humor. Anyway, Emiliana asked me to draw her favorite heroine, Leona Florentino, in time for the latter’s natal day last April 19.

A brief background: Leona Florentino is the Mother of Filipino Female Literature and (essentially) Feminism. A statue of hers sits proudly at the center of the historic town of Vigan in Ilocos Sur, her hometown.

“Her poems, which are widely quoted, were characterized by their originality of thought and elegance of expression on topics such as the glory of Filipino womanhood, and the romanticism of her nation.

According to her biography: ‘Passages from her works were quoted profusely in the theaters, in daily conversation and by suitors seeking the favors of their fair ladies.’

It was the same poems she dedicated to her fellow Ilocanos that were exhibited in the Exposicion General de Filipinas in Madrid in 1887 and in the International Exposicion in Paris in 1889. It won fame for the Philippines and her works were included in the Encyclopedia Internationale des Oeuvres des Femmes (International Encyclopedia of Women’s Works) in 1889.” Read more here.

Castora, on the other hand, is Leona’s wine seller and muse. Most of the latter’s love poems were dedicated to her. So in celebration of the Ilocana heroine’s birthday, I decided to draw her in a gentle moment with her unattainable Castora.

Week 15: Leona and Castora

Sierva Maria. In honor of one of my favorite authors, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Drawn a couple of days after his death, this is based on his book “Of Love and Other Demons,” which, aside from being my favorite next to “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” has a wonderful cover art I consider one of the most beautiful ones I’ve seen. The cover features the protagonist Sierva Maria holding a bunch of white flowers almost entangled in her cascading copper locks, arms covered with beaded bracelets.

Week 16: Sierva Maria

“When I stand and contemplate my fate and see the path along which you have led me, I reach my end, for artless I surrendered to one who is my undoing and my end.” — Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Of Love and Other Demons

Project 52: Weeks 1 to 3

Back in 2012, I attempted doing a Project 365, which I wasn’t able to complete. I was going steady from January until mid-February, then my production decreased until I was only able to make around 1 to 2 drawings per week – most of which, especially the ones I made after February weren’t even inked or finished. I stopped trying to produce anything for the project in early October.

So this year, I got inspired by Gab to do a Project 52 – one drawing a week – something that is definitely more doable. Since I started a week late, I decided to just include my finished drawing from October 2012 for Week 1 so that this whole project would be a sort of continuation. I’m still keeping a couple of rules — that the images shouldn’t take too long to think about and working on a drawing shouldn’t consume much of the time I should be spending for studio work. In a nutshell, this is to be a breather from painting on large canvases, and a springboard for concepts I might further develop and eventually render as paintings. Plus, this should get me to blog more frequently.

Week 1: Lavender Roses

My work for Week 2 was originally drawn on the afternoon of the 7th of October 2012, just before I left for Phnom Penh. I was running late for my flight that day. I decided to complete this to take up where I left off, thus, finishing this last January 10. You may view what the unfinished piece looked like here.

Week 2: Don’t Look Back

Fresh from watching 47 Ronin, my drawing for Week 3 was a girl in a kabuto. It’s no coincidence that this and the one from the previous week are both Japanese-themed. You know how in some arcade games they’d show your character all bloodied and bruised while a countdown ticks on ’til Game Over? This one is somewhat my “Insert coin and press P1 to continue” drawing. This is my way of saying, “Game on! I’ll finish this project this time around.”

Week 3: Girl in a Kabuto

Cranes and Art Prints

The Crane Wife
61cm x 91.4cm
Acrylic on canvas

Faery tales and myths from different cultures have always been my main sources of inspiration for my works, may it be for paintings and illustrations or conceptual photos. This particular piece was exhibited at an all-women artists show called “Dream, Paper, Dream” on March 2011 at Vinyl on Vinyl, the opening of which coincided with last year’s International Women’s Day. The only requirement was that we incorporate an origami crane in our work, thus, I decided to come up with a painting based on an old Japanese folk tale of The Crane Wife with five paper cranes suspended from the top of the canvas.

The tale tells of a poor young man who wished for a wife to spend the rest of his days happily with. In another version of this story, the man is a lonely sail maker who lived on a hilltop high above the sea, and he would spend his days watching cranes resting and flying on the salt marsh below his house. In any case, he found an injured crane in the woods one autumn evening. Being a kind soul, he tended to its wounds until it was well enough to fly with the other cranes.

A few days after he set it free, a beautiful woman came knocking on his door, and they fell in love and were married over time. But because the young man was poor, he began to run out of money to feed them both. His wife offered that she would weave a fine piece of cloth that they could sell for a handsome price. She also requested that a workroom be built on the condition that her husband should promise never to watch her weave. True enough, she produced wondrous pieces of cloth of unmatched quality that they were able to sell for prices that allowed them to live comfortably. No longer able to contain his curiosity one day, the young man broke his promise and peeked in. Instead of his wife, he saw a crane plucking its own feathers and weaving them into the loom. Having been revealed, the crane wife flew away and never returned, leaving behind a half finished cloth as a reminder of the time they had together.

I painted the crane wife dressed in an intricately embroidered red kimono holding a cloth she has woven. While the actual painting has already been sold, I am selling my first edition archival giclee print of it on AVA.ph along with prints of 11 more of my works.
Recently, I have been receiving inquiries about my art prints, so this post should be able to answer those questions. I am currently under an exclusive contract with AVA.ph until early November, so purchases will have to made through them. Do check out my available works by visiting my AVA.ph shop, and buy yourself a print if you fancy my work. 🙂