Category Archives: art

Overeducated, undervalued

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Liza Loza, a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis, taught a discussion section for which she was not paid.Credit…Neeta Satam for The New York Times

It’s tough to be in liberal arts in the US, given that there’s an oversupply of PhDs there and not much job options for the academically inclined. I have been reading about this disparity for years that’s why I didn’t pursue a PhD because it seems like there is no need for me to do that—just yet. Although we in developing countries are better positioned than our counterparts in the US because we have job alternatives, plus there is still demand for PhDs in liberal arts since there aren’t enough teachers in colleges and universities with PhDs of value (I’m not talking about masters and PhDs from just anywhere). MBAs, however, are a different issue. There are too many MBAs here that they just obtained from somewhere with little value, just bragging rights even though there’s nothing to brag about it. That’s why it pays to graduate from a top university in a developing country like the Philippines because anything else is negligible in the bigger world. There is little brand recognition from anywhere else.

If I were these PhD candidates/PhD holders in the US, I would transfer to Asia where their degrees hold more value.

I’m speaking as a person who has come from a family of PhDs and the minimum educational attainment is a master’s degree and lived and breathed academic life.

In our sibling chat group where we discussed this NYT article, I told my brother to tell his son (who took the same undergrad course as I did) to work on apprenticeship more since in liberal arts it holds more value. Take courses or acquire additional skills in adjacent fields like fine arts to be more marketable in visual communications. That’s why a former colleague was very smart to take up a second degree at the UP College of Fine Arts (Visual Communication) after finishing her journalism degree while working. Her logos are now carried by startups. It’s better to be multi-skilled in our field. We now have data science + journalism, visual communications/multimedia/technology, and other hybrid disciplines.

For me, it was valuable that I took up a variety of courses in my undergrad so I couldn’t be pigeon-holed in one linear area. I was so thankful I took up edcomm and other social marketing related-subjects that I could use for communications strategy consulting. However, I need half of myself affiliated with an educational institution if I were to get consultancy jobs in this line. Maybe when I quit fulltime journalism.

I’m gonna finish this tonight. Trying on wet-on-wet technique with Kuretake.

Now the pain starts. Art and photo by CallMeCreatio.com

UPDATE

Finally, after so much procrastination. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

This is so satisfying even though using tiny brushes was painful. I think I need to scan this before I frame and give this to my mom. I think she would like the color/s.

My best friend has asked for this.

Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

While my sister-in-law asked for this one for their new townhouse.

Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

I have to dispose some of what I’m making because I’m running out of walls.

But before I could start scanning my old drawings, I must update the OS of this old laptop to the new Ubuntu version. My scanner is so old (Canoscan LIDE 25) that there is no driver for Win 8 or Win 10 that it can only be used with Linux. This scanner is perfectly serviceable and I don’t want to buy a new scanner since I don’t regularly use it.

Acting as tech support again. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Stooopid

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I rushed in buying ETF earlier this week. It was 2 pesos more expensive than today as Nikkei index has registered the biggest fall in 4 weeks on US Fed comments about rate hikes. I had a nagging feeling then that I should wait but I ignored my inner voice and told myself what bad news could we have again? 🙄 How annoying. I could have bought more at today’s price.

The Nikkei lost 1.58 per cent to close at 27,350.30, posting its biggest daily fall since Mar 11.
PHOTO: AFP

Meanwhile, I didn’t get enough sleep as a midnight email from London rocked me. My boss is transferring to another product and she didn’t tell me what was going on. My colleagues and I were running around like headless chickens even until yesterday because our reporting lines were blurred. I could not help my colleague with her request for travel because I was not yet given authority to do so. A lot of things were pending because there was no reporting line authorized under me. I wasn’t even told that my boss was no longer doing editorial work so everything fell on me, without proper compensation yet. A lot of admin work kept piling up on me even though I had no official word that these were already my official duties.

I was so confused this morning. I don’t know what to make of this. Why didn’t she tell me? I kept on adding her in team calls and in email threads when she could have just told me that she doesn’t need to be in there. I was walking on eggshells for months.

I’m thinking of attending art classes and I found an atelier near my house that offers classical drawing and painting lessons. Unfortunately their schedules are not friendly to working people like me.

I figured even if I draw and sketch everyday, I will not make a lot of improvement because the theories are lost on me. If I didn’t buy a Domestika course, I wouldn’t be able to learn about vanishing points.

Unfortunately, this atelier only offers oil painting. Although the same principles could be applied to watercolors, the latter is more finicky and the medium’s immediate permanence on paper makes it unforgiving to novices. I didn’t go for oils because I have asthma and the fumes, especially the thinners, cleaners, and solvents/varnish could trigger an attack. It’s a lot messier, too, and it demands a bigger space when practicing.

Meanwhile

I’m tired. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

I no longer know what to do with this.

I’m going back to my poppy flower.

Practice

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Practice sketch. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

I needed to make this sketch first before making a bigger drawing; it’s like pre-heating the oven when baking.

Initial wash. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

I wanted to try the Kuretake Gansai Tambi on large format landscape drawings. I needed to coax this watercolor so it could at least cooperate with me, especially when doing washes. So it seems like this watercolor can do washes on watercolor paper with thickness of 200 gsm or less. Anything higher than that would make the colors sit still. The sketch of the Stabilo Boss and Pigma Micron was done on a smoother and thinner paper so I was able to spread the color and make it behave like an ordinary watercolor.

Now with on this Canson 200 gsm cold press side of the paper, I could do a bit of wash but it’s still a bit harder to spread and blend the colors.

Binangonan sunset during 2021 CNY. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m still thinking if I should ink this or gamble using the #0 brush to add details. The background trees are still flat and I need to add depth after this dries up. I need to relearn how to add depth to this without having to resort to thicker application of watercolor and make it behave like gouache. Either I layer this with other colors or I use ink.

This is how it would look like if I ink it:

Practice drawing on sketchbook. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m kinda feeling it but this may end up looking like an illustration. Whatever.

At least I feel better now that I have used colors again.

I want to achieve this level of mastery of watercolor:

Art by Winslow Homer

For me to be able to do that, I need to draw every night.

Art by Winslow Homer

I need to sleep first. I’ll add details and depth tomorrow after work.

They can’t afford me

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“I’ll cross the bridge when I get there. But if ever, teaching will be good. I’m a lawyer. But entering government? No way. They can’t afford me,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll fire all of them.” –Liza Araneta-Marcos

Politics.com.ph

Ahh shades of Imelda Marcos. She’s scary.

And yet they don’t want to pay their taxes.

Tax expert Mon Abrea says simple math would have pushed the bill into the stratosphere. Twenty percent interest is slapped on every year the tax is left unpaid. Justice Carpio says the passage of so much time makes a case against the heirs, especially Marcos Jr., of willful refusal to pay. He says there’s a remedy for that.

NPR.org

God save the Philippines from the Marcoses. I can’t blame friends and millions of Filipinos who want to migrate if this idiot wins.

Bongbong Marcos will move the Philippines closer to China

Beijing stands ready to help Marcos family consolidate power over the long term
Alvin Camba
April 5, 2022 17:00 JST

Alvin Camba is assistant professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and a faculty affiliate at the Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University

Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., son of the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, is on track to win the May 9 Philippine elections.

As Bongbong has himself said, he will move to maintain a strong relationship with Beijing while not completely abandoning ties with the West. Beijing likely expects Marcos to disregard the 2016 ruling by an arbitration court in The Hague that rejected Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and kowtow to China on crucial international issues.

The makers of The Kingmaker have made their film about the Marcoses free to view for everybody. Unfortunately, Filipinos are stubborn, especially if their core beliefs are challenged–if they’re corrected.

All my plans for today were wiped out as the weather turned weird. It rained non-stop today, like it’s already August.

Parking area. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Well, it’s a good thing that it rained so Lamesa Dam and Angat Dam can be refilled, if not up to the safe level. This assures us that there will be no water shortage in the coming days…or weeks. The temperature cooled up a bit from 30s down to 26 as of this moment. But because of this weather (and lack of sunlight), I did nothing but sleep. And edit three stories. Do some admin work, touch base with a source, and listen a bit to a webinar. I’m giving myself this day to slack off because—I dunno. I don’t feel like it.

This is my day of letting steam off because of my annoyance with company leadership issues. I couldn’t help my colleague with her job requests because of reporting line issues (vague). It’s really annoying me. It’s already April and there’s nothing definite happening. They couldn’t even give me the proper transition timeline. 🙄

To rid myself of annoyance, I temporarily halted my repetitive curtain sewing and returned to my complicated poppy flower drawing. It’s making me cringe. Either I finish this or I move on to drawing humans.

I suddenly remember my lawyer-artist friend who commented about the girl I was cheated on with by my ex-husband; he said she is not a fine artist but she’s more of an illustrator (they have common friends). That’s why she kept on doing squiggles and abstract graphic arts. I trust this friend because he is a really good fine artist and he has been winning competitions left and right but he chose to be a lawyer because…he wants to earn well. So now he shifted to photography and buying expensive equipment and drones has been his pastime.

So now my question is, what do I want to become? I don’t know. I just draw and paint to express myself. I’m not even good. But it forever frustrates me that I am having a hard time drawing faces or humans for that matter. I need to up the ante. Challenge myself.

Let’s start with this:

Practicing with grid lines. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m not yet brave enough to do full frontal. Probably I’ll do pencil first because I’m more decent with pencils.

Karl

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If there’s a larger than life I personality I want to be friends with, it would be Karl Lagerfeld or Rajiv Surendra.

Karl’s life is interesting—not because of money that came with his life but it doesn’t hurt, no?—but he lived beautifully and he chased intellectualism not just for the sake of it but because he was very curious. Of course he was sort of a snob and he was raised by a ruthless mother but for some reason he loved her dearly. From his stories (published in Vogue and other interviews), his mother sounds like Elton John’s mother (gleaned from the movie Rocketman).

Anyway, I remember one article in Vogue (when I was still a devoted reader) that he spoke several languages and read in French, German, and English. He loved books. He was one of the biggest bibliophiles there is. He collected books and read them all. He was interested in so many things, especially history. His library is one of my dream libraries and I could happily pass my days in there. We can talk about politics, history, philosophy, art—so many things—over tea and biscuits (he eliminated sweets from his diet).

Photo from MyModernMet.com

I also remember his love for wearing Hedi Slimane suits. There was an article in Vogue where he discussed his weariness of flying/airports post 9/11 (how strictly insane and tedious flying became right after 9/11) so he had outfitted several SUVs to be luxurious cabins so he can cross countries in Europe without having to suffer the indignities of stripping your clothes/shoes just authorities can scan you for possible deadly weapons or bombs.

I wish I have his discipline of sketching all the time. He wanted to be a cartoonist, not a fashion designer at first. He figured he could make a better living out of sketching clothes.

I could feel his frustration of wanting to play the piano but this desire to learn it was stamped out by his incorrigible mother. I figured those who leaned towards the arts sometimes find themselves drawn to other art forms as a way to express themselves.

Hmm, the two persons I mentioned above have another thing in common: they’re both gay. I’m good friends with gay men and as I told one gay man in Singapore, I am a fairy princess. I like the company of gay men because they’re interesting and they like my friendship. I had been to gay bars in Manila with K and his friends are fun to be with; we were dancing on the ledge of a bar until the wee hours (this was before I got married).

hand-stitching again. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m back to sewing again as a form of procrastination. I can’t finish the poppy sketch yet since it’s complicated for my bleeding brain (I just finished an article today). I think the curtain panels will be up in the girls’ room by the end of this week.

I’m also teaching a colleague how to survive the China lockdown because he doesn’t know how to cook. His initial lockdowns were in Kuala Lumpur and he was privileged enough not to worry about supplies when he was there. I told him to grab lots of Indomee instant noodles (he’s Chinese Malaysian) and do this:

Lucky Me Pancit Canton by Monde Nissin. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Teaching him what to buy and what to do with them. Gah! I wonder how these people survive all these years by just eating out.

Screenshot from NIkkei Asia

This zero-Covid policy of China has seen a lot of businesses wanting to flee HK. My former APAC boss is now in Manila to escape the draconian policies of HK and give her toddlers a respite from being locked up indoors.

In contrast, Singapore is now allowing people to be maskless if outdoors. My friend-colleague said it’s such a relief especially if she’s taking her walks for her daily exercise. Our new APAC head, who’s based in Seoul, said most people there have been getting Covid that it doesn’t make sense to control movement. So the rest of the world has adopted the living-with-Covid policy and is now opening up borders.

I’m raring to go to the sea.

Maricaban, Batangas. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

This photo was taken when we took the boat from Eagle Point Resort to Maricaban island. The diving was not good but the winds were violent in Sombrero island so we were taken here. Some of these boats took novice scuba divers where we were freediving.

Ahhhh, diving. I really, really missed you.

To cap off the weekend

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Massage via Zennya. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Yey! I finally was able to book a home massage! I had a hard time booking them the past few days because 1) either I was too late; or 2) I was too early. It’s hard to time it because there are times I work way past my shift. I could feel my muscles relaxing a little bit but I think a dip in a hot tub is called for. However, I’m too lazy to drive all the way to Makati and I also don’t want to encounter the weekend crowd.

This is one of the reasons why I want a soaking tub in our future house. Whenever I’m at my mom’s, I hostage her bathroom and I spend an hour soaking in hot water in her tub.

Anyway, I received a message from my sister about the supposedly Leni rally on April 30th. It’s not going to push through. There was a notice from the Makati chapter that it was decided by the national HQ of the campaign that the Grand Metro Manila rally may not be in Makati as they’re still deciding which southern city will host. So those who have reserved hotel rooms can cancel their reservations because the Makati leg may be earlier.

Ehhhh, one reservation I had was a one-bedroom suite in a serviced apartment in Valero and that can be cancelled with refund. However, the one in Salcedo is a studio in another serviced apartment and cannot be refunded. That one is more expensive. So might as well we use that for staycation so the girls can enjoy the pool while I have my massage in the room. We’ll also take the opportunity to stroll and shop at the Salcedo weekend market. It’s such a shame though. The amount I will be spending could been channeled to a weekend in Anilao. Oh well.

This morning I woke up at 7:30 to water my plants before the unforgiving summer sun fries them.

My mini roses are thriving under direct sunlight. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’ve learned now the quirks of my plants. So my roses love direct sunlight as long as they are watered twice a day. My other plants couldn’t take the heat and have dried up. Or others were over-watered/placed in a shaded area when they should be under direct sunlight so they just died, probably of root rot because the soil didn’t drain well/not under direct sunlight. Some plants, I have learned, have to be rotated to catch the morning sun or the others just like the afternoon sun. All trial and error.

Morning glory. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

So all my morning glory that I planted from seeds have sprouted and are growing nicely. They love direct sunlight. This one bloomed this morning and closed again at noon. It chases the morning sunlight (hence the name). It would look lovely when all of my morning glory plants have bloomed.

This inspired me to go to QC Circle again this afternoon and bought more plants. I couldn’t take photos after I finished transplanting my flowers because it was already dark. My mom would be so envious of me when I show her tomorrow my container garden. 😄

I’m back to sewing for the meantime because I needed to repair some masks and I need to finish the curtains. I also couldn’t finish this sketch last night because this damned poppy is too complicated.

Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

It may take me a week before I finish this.

Weekends are something I look forward to nowadays. I used to dread it because weekends meant endless hours of living inside my head, of crying, of hurting. I now take it all in stride. Whenever he enters my head, I remind myself of his betrayal and what an assh*le he is, then I banish all thoughts about him—and continue enjoying my weekend.

The truth really did set me free, albeit it was not an easy road. My entire February was all about trying to stabilize myself again. So I am closing this month of March with a healthier outlook and I hope there are no more curve balls coming my way.