WIP: The Merlin Conspiracy

Roddy, Grundo, Nick. The goat is somewhere in front of Nick, and I still have to fit Toby and the Izzies. Photo's blurred because my hands were shaky. Gotta finish this! :)

Inspired by "The Merlin Conspiracy" by Diana Wynne Jones

Playing with acrylics

I finally decided to open the set of acrylic paints I bought some months ago. I mostly use watercolor and colored pencils, then digital paint for most of my works (which aren't enough *sigh*).

The first time I ever used acrylics was when I was about nine or ten, when my aunt gave me one of those "paint-by-number" kits. The paint was acrylic, and I remember this not because it was written on the box, but because I remember using the paint on other surfaces including eggshells* and they never washed off.

I didn't have any particular subject in mind, so I just chose the colors and dabbed them on the paper.

One of the first things I read about painting in general is making a wash, so I did that. I like how the blue and the green flow into each other. Everything else was random.



I'm trying to work on learning how to color people. Since my style is mainly manga/anime, that's the color style I'm using. However, I'm trying to work on doing realism, so I hope to veer away from doing anime style when using paint. Not that there's nothing bad about it, but I just want to try and develop a different style.

There's something wrong with this, I know. There's something wrong about the proportions, mostly. I didn't really intend for this to be anything but practice, so I don't mind that it looks bad. Room for improvement, ika nga. I used this as a reference for the pose.



One thing you must remember with acrylics is that unlike watercolor, you can't re-use acrylics once it's dry. With watercolor, just dab them with water and you're good to go. I read this in one of my painting course books but it didn't really register until I brought out my palette and tried to use the colors I already had on. Zilch. The paint was harder than glue left out for 24 hours.

Hence, this last er, work. I did it mainly because I didn't want to waste the paint. I had Burnt Sienna, Lemon Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Sap Green, Viridian, Ultra Blue and Black. The top scene was first done with dabs of Yellow Ochre, with no specific shape in mind. I just took the brush and used up all the paint until somehow, I ended up with that. I think it looks like mountains and field during sunset.

The black wiggly lines was done because I can't seem to fit the black anywhere in the top and bottom scene. The bottom's just random.

I want to buy some gum paint to experiment on next. Its like a mask you brush on your work so that particular part doesn't get any paint on it. When you're ready to work on that, you just peel the mask away.

More practice!

*Eggshells? Yes. I found a book that showed how you can remove the egg's contents without breaking the shell. After I did that, I painted the shell. Needless to say I ate a lot of scrambled eggs during the time I was in this art phase hehe.

5th Annual Sculpture Review

On Saturday, my friend Elise and I, on a whim, passed by the 5th Annual Sculpture Review in Megamall. I saw one familiar name among the list of artists, Agnes Arellano, whom I've heard mention from another artist, Datu Arellano.

"I'm Just A Rambling Man" by Lirio Salvador


"Google Earth" by Michael Cacnio


"Call Center Revolution" by Anna Varona (I like this one. The hands move counter-clockwise)


"Seacock #1" by Tito Estrada (Elise loves the colors)


There's one that I wasn't able to take a picture of, a sculpture of Manila in the future, made out of aluminum. It's mounted on the wall on the right side of the entrance. It's a really clever work.

The exhibit runs until tomorrow.

News: RP team 3rd in art ‘Olympics’

RP team 3rd in art ‘Olympics’

By Vincent Cabreza
Inquirer Northern Luzon

BAGUIO CITY—Not bad for this team of artists whose pleas for funding went largely ignored by politicians and corporations, whose members spent an extra night at a South Korean airport for lack of hotel money, and who had one member briefly detained there for carrying a bloodstained knife.

That’s just “chicken blood” from some previous home-cooked dish, the detainee said, before finally convincing authorities to let him go.

Despite this series of unfortunate events, the Philippine delegation to the 3rd Delphic Games held on the resort island of Jeju, South Korea, gave brilliant performances in what was considered the “Olympics” of the art world.

The 17-member team, mostly composed of Cordillera-based artists, placed third overall out of the 44 countries that competed in the games held on Sept. 9-15.

Ifugao woodcarver Ernesto Dul-ang, 60, bagged the gold medal in sculpture for transforming, under time pressure, a 150-cm block of wood into a human figure pouring water from a pot.

Winning the Lyra Award (a special prize given to collaborative works) was a group of Filipino puppeteers headed by EV Espiritu, who wowed the audience with a shadow play dealing with the environment.

The Delphic Games are all about “peace engendering competition of the arts,” according to German founder J. Christian Kirsch, who drew inspiration from the original Greek competitions of 582 B.C.

The first games were held in December 2000 in Moscow with the participation of 27 countries. The second was held in September 2005 in Kuching, Malaysia, with 21 countries taking part.

The event serves as the artistic counterpart of the Olympic Games, said Divina Bautista, a Filipino co-founder based in Baguio.

Dul-ang was given three days to finish the sculpture and often had difficulty communicating with the Korean organizers whenever he requested equipment to speed up his work.

On the third day, Dul-ang recalled, the statue was still without a face, prompting him to ask the team’s videographer Joel Arthur Tibaldo to be his face model.

Earlier, percussionist Ruel Bimuyag served as Dul-ang’s model for the body, while Baguio-based painter Rishab produced sketches that helped the sculptor come up with the best composition.

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Despite their win, I can't help but feel a bit sad with this piece of news. Here we have a group of really talented artists, but very little support can be found. These are artists who really need backing more than the so called "National Artists" that's been such a hot issue these past few weeks.

I've met Rishab before, during our STS project. He and Jordan Mangosan, who was the topic for our study) each did a portraiture of me when we went to visit them in Tam-Awan Village. I was just kidding when I asked them for a portrait but to my surprise, they were game.

Cordillera artists have a special place in my heart. :)