In this new blog entry, I compare some stuff + learnings.

A love letter to Andrea Cervantes

eloercs:

I wasn’t kidding when I said (so long ago) that Andrea continues to be one of my favourite artists.

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I just… I can’t… what are words… ? DDDDDDDDD:

THANK YOU CREOLE! Also, you inspire me to be better at keeping in touch with people and communicating through design, and you inspire me to feel beautiful even when I’m in the dumps.

I MISS YOU! <3

Adorbs drawing I made for my website. As you can see, I do weird color combinations.

Drop by today, hee hee. :D

From the blog:

New layout on my site! First time using grids from scratch and Stacey App. Show me some love and explore my new site! :D

I work at a packaging company so our wholesale cardboard suppliers sell us some kraft papers occasionally, and I try buying and recycling the leftover older papers that we can’t/don’t use. So… I guess they only sell them by the truckloads? The other store that I know of which sells kraft paper in manageable bulks is Papemelroti, I think you have to call their offices to ask. :)

I’m doing exercises from Andrew Loomis’ book because I am getting rusty, and so I have an excuse to draw something everyday. Right now it’s all “eww no what the hell” but I hope it gets better.

#throwbackthursday: thesis and being super thin in ‘07.

Wow, thanks for that question!

I’ve been reading The Magician’s Book by Laura Miller, and although I’ve read 3 more books after it, I’ve been coming back to it ever since.

Unlike fiction or anthologies that I really like to read, this book sparks some kind of a dialogue between me and the author. The book is more than a criticism of The Chronicles of Narnia and their relevance in recent culture - it’s about growing up with a love-hate personal relationship with Narnia. I am going back and forth through this book because the author and I feel the same way about how important the Chronicles are to our life. They defined some kind of moral code while growing up, and not to mention defined our taste in literature. But at the same time, we are repulsed and offended by its religious message, its stance in feminism and diversity, and a lot of problems we see in them when we grew up.

I’m not sure if you’ve been one, but I’m one of the people who had The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe as the first book they’ve ever read. I love the book because it fueled my imagination (and told me that it was a good thing), and made me feel less alone when times were hard. But then, even though I am raised Catholic and went to Catholic school until high school, I never saw the “Aslan is Jesus” religious message that the book implies until a local Christian theatre troupe adapted it to a musical (the songs were cheesy-awesome btw, listen here). Which was so ironic to me.

If anything, Narnia was my escape from Catholic school, because I was bullied there. Whenever I eat alone in an empty corridor in high school (and this was when I was in my Vampire Chronicles high school phase, mind you), I’ve always wished that Aslan would call me to Narnia so I can leave all the horrible people behind - this is why Jill Pole is my favorite Narnia kid. Since then I became distant from Catholicism, up until today. (Curiously enough, my school didn’t have copies.)

So there are a lot of emotions and a lot of questions that surfaced when I read this book. I want to email Laura Miller, I want to talk to Neil Gaiman, and to the people she interviewed who dealt with this kind of experience. I want to underline most of the book, but most of the time it leads to more questions that aren’t satisfied by the book. But then, it tells me that I too have an experience to discuss and discover, and it’s this element that makes it a wonderful book.

*sorry for the long answer, my feels cannot be contained

My super duper late blog update omg. :D I tried making a simpler layout, I hope it doesn’t turn off everyone. :/

Answering all those questions about the tools I use. :)

So that’s my desk up there, and it’s pretty small to hold all those stuff at once IMHO. There’s the laptop and my tablet, plus books and sketch pads and drawing stuff. I have my basket of notebook stuff with pre-cut kraft paper (I buy it from my office’s supplier), 70 gsm white paper, and some thread. I have a huge cutting mat and a steel ruler.

YES THERE IS A HUGE VINTAGE SEWING MACHINE ON MY DESK. It needs a motor to work properly so all it does for now is to punch holes through my notebooks.

I have paints and other paper stashed in a huge closet, which is bigger than my clothes closet. It’s kind of a problem. DDDD:

Somebody asked about the programs I use and my playlist. I rarely listen to music while working - the things that fire me up are documentaries. I don’t know, I guess these remind me of school, where I was most productive. My regular documentary playlist consists of Monty Python-related/hosted documentaries.