Asia today is very quiet. Only one journo from Australia submitted a story and that’s it. I just spent the day scrolling through artworks and videos on Instagram, trying to learn their techniques so that I would be inspired to make some more paintings and improve myself.

But I am creatively spent. I didn’t realize that you could be drained of creativity if you keep painting everyday. I just wonder how those artists with deadlines make it through….

I had chicken rice in my fridge and heated it up, less work. I am so lazy today; it seems like the stress of the past weeks has not seeped out of me still.

I needed to do something with my hands today but I couldn’t bring myself to paint. So I took the garments to be repaired and sewed. You see, we are a wasteful society and to keep me from throwing garments into the landfill, I have to repair some of them over and over until they can no longer be used as they were intended.

Speaking of working with hands, this video popped up in my feeds on Youtube and now I want to make my own soap. Goat’s milk soap with essential oils sounds heavenly.

Since I have an outdoor space, I can mess around with lye in my utility area downstairs and make these. I’ve been using lye before to unclog the ancient plumbing in our old house (not the apartment) in Quezon City so I’m no stranger to this dangerous chemical.

Another video I’m immersed in right now is how Hermes makes its bags (by Vogue). As a bag hag, this is lovely to watch. I’m in awe of artisans and their craft. While I could not and would not be able to afford an Hermes in this lifetime—a new Birkin costs a minimum of USD 10,500 each while a vintage one costs a minimum of USD 25,000—I still appreciate this video for the craftsmanship and the process of creating these leather goods.

Which brings me to my original intention of enrolling in a bag-making workshop with Soulflower Co. What’s tragic is that their studio used to be within my old neighborhood in QC, in Teachers Village, to be precise…So easy to make time for when I was there. *Sigh* Now I have to drive back all the way there.

I want to do too many things, but I have too little time.

While we’re on the topic of Hermes, this is a fascinating story of how LVMH sneakily tried to wrest Hermes from the founding family—through the global financial crisis. As a business journalist, this is very, very interesting indeed.

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Follow your heart bullshit. I just counseled two friends about careers at the same time on different occasions last week. In the process of eliciting their deep-seated desires and parsing them, I also had some kind of epiphany myself.

I found that I have more trouble making flowers via gouache compared to watercolors. I realized I could easily make this on wet on dry technique with watercolors but on gouache it has to be layers upon layers of alternating colors until you get the tone right.

Invest in more expensive brushes because they pick up color better. Most of my brushes now are the better kind but I still couldn’t bring myself to buy Escoda. Perhaps one of these days.

I would really love to have a studio like this.

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Perhaps I would not be able to work on my day job if I have my own studio.

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I was so exhausted yesterday that I didn’t do anything. Today I just slept the day away as the antihistamine I took knocked me out. My battle with pollens will be a lifetime one because I can’t do anything about the flowers and the trees around me and I am living here permanently. I promised Twin I we were supposed to drive to Caliraya today but I just couldn’t. I needed to sleep.

Let’s start painting.

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I couldn’t even make a decent animé-inspired version of Hitachi Seaside Park. 😶

I should stick to small format gouache paintings for the meantime.

I was at Maginhawa until 12 am because EDSA was horrible, a friend messaged us. He was driving from Greenbelt in Makati to Quezon City. I told L that we can hang out at Bo’s Coffee until 12 midnight and supposedly traffic would be much better by that time.

Nope. SLEX is…😭

Got home at 2 am.

And our friend who was driving from Greenbelt to QC? He never made it to Maginhawa to see us.

I’d better sleep this off. But I had three 12 ml coffee cups today. ☕

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I tried to push the envelope yesterday by attempting to paint another scene last night after producing that starry sea scape in the afternoon. Because I drained my creative juices to the hilt, I ended up with a less than desirable interpretation of my photo of a tree at Hitachi Seaside Park. I stopped and slept.

I said I will sleep and fix it today.

I used an old chipped ceramic plate as a mixing palette because plastic ones get stained and it’s hard to remove the paint that could contaminate my other colors. Since I told myself that I would be continuing this tonight, I didn’t bother cleaning up but it was sooooo wrong. I ended up working on my day job around this mess. And to think I was so busy today editing time-sensitive stories, one of which is a follow-up to our market-moving story two weeks ago. I was editing until 7 pm tonight…

In between edits, my seamstress arrived to make a final fitting for the sofa covers. I needed to have my covers custom made because 1) I want sturdy but comfortable fabrics that are resistant to my cats’ nasty claws; 2) they have to fit perfectly to my sofas for a more elegant look.

Yes call me boring but I had no choice in terms of color because the material that I wanted is not available in other colors. My priority is comfort and strength rather than aesthetics. Once I have more fabric options, I will have another set made for my two sofas. I need two sets because I can’t leave the sofa bare while I have the covers washed.

Meanwhile, I was doodling, practicing on making human figures while I was on a call.

Ok let’s see how my rehabilitation efforts on my disaster of a painting would look like…

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Tree in the sea of nemophila at Hitachi Seaside Park in the style of Van Gogh.

Hitachi for me was like Arles for Van Gogh. I cannot capture its beauty but I can translate on paper how I felt about it.

I can now sleep.

Tomorrow I can try painting á la Studio Ghibli.

I need to drive first to Quezon City for some banking KYC stuff and meet a friend who needed career advice. Actually two friends needed career advice, both asking whether they should stay in journalism or not.

I both told them leave their respective companies now if they’re not growing. It doesn’t matter if it’s still in journalism or not.

I messed up the sky. It was just supposed to be a few “stars” but I sprinkled too much white gouache onto the sky, so there…I can’t undo it since that velvety sky is made up of layers upon layers of different hues of blue.

I’ll just have to make another painting to wash the shame away. 🫠

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I was just mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, searching for gouache paintings/inspiration when the memories function of IG slipped this on my feed, this photo I uploaded on Feb 6, 2022 :

I had already forgotten that two years ago around this time I was so crushed.

I didn’t realize that it has already been two years since my last major breakdown. Two days before this IG post, I received a painting from the ex, which had an opposite effect of what he probably intended. After so much digging that day, I learned about the woman whom he cheated me with. The digital creator wanna-be who didn’t have any other content on her page but selfies, showing off her boobs, and her multi-level marketing whatever (and as a business journo, I know MLMs are scams). A friend asked me seriously, “Is she a transwoman?!” I said, “you’re so baaaaadddd!” He said, “no, really, she looks like a transwoman!” My girls also said the same, on different occasions. 🤣

Another friend said, she looks like comedienne Ai-Ai delas Alas.

I know we shouldn’t put down other women to feel good about ourselves but at that time, what my friends were pointing out was I shouldn’t feel worthless “because you’re waaaaaaaayyyyyy beyond her. Don’t try to measure yourself against her.” Of course, I wasn’t listening at that time. I felt so ugly, fat, and unworthy. For a long time.

I was on medication and was still in therapy that time that’s why I didn’t crash but it was a very, very tough climb from the bottom of the barrel.

To ease the pain, I turned to drawing, to express whatever I had inside. Everybody was asking how I was but words were not enough so I sent them drawings to capture how I was hurting.

Because I had to heal myself, I was able to unearth my old hobby, laying dormant for 25 years.

Should I be thankful for this episode because I began to draw and paint again? Nope, I’m not yet at that stage but I’ve already gone so far in terms of being able to forget significant dates, being able to tell myself that nah, I’m better than her, and that I’m finding more value in myself than what he (the ex) used me for.

As for the art, I’m still so far. Watercolor is much harder to use than gouache. Getting the colors right and making the paint behave as you intended them to behave is extremely hard in watercolor. I mess up so much, like those stars in that painting above, but hey, that’s gouache so…that means I’m also bad at gouache.

But I’ve come far because now I paint not because I hurt, but because I love it.