Inking. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
The paper of this sketchbook absorbs color instead of half-repelling it so that’s why the watercolors bleed. I couldn’t make it behave the way I want it so layering is difficult. The gray on jaune didn’t blend so it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Ah well, this is a practice notebook anyway. It’s ok if my sketches are bad. I need to fill up 20 sketchbooks before I improve. 😏
Maybe I could try sketching Manila Cathedral now or Fort Santiago.
Today is a public holiday and I’m not supposed to work but I did. I had an interview with this firm that the Singapore PR I blogged about the other day was promoting. It was a hard interview because I tried poking from different angles and I’m not able to penetrate his wall so I couldn’t get what I wanted. I don’t know if I just wasted everybody’s time since there is no actionable angle I could write about 😒
This left me exhausted. Hard to interview lawyers if they’re not drunk. 🫠
I want to visit an art gallery or watch somebody create art so I can be inspired and restore my mojo. Creativity can be drained and I tell you I’m so dry. I’m running on empty now.
You see, I used to cover her at the Philippine Competition Commission when she was still a commissioner there. She was one of my favorite commissioners to put on a hot seat during press conferences (the other one is Comm Joey Bernabe). I used to love covering both of them and she once told me that I keep them on their toes whenever I attend their presscons. She was really good and made sense. Her specialization at the UP School of Economics was health economics—everything that concerns private healthcare funding, universal healthcare, public health finance, etc.
Then she ran for congress.
She’s now swallowed by the system (or maybe there was a corrupt politician hiding in her all along) and has co-authored the bill that would create the Marcos slush fund a.k.a. the 1MDB 2.0.
What are sovereign wealth funds? These are created by states so that their excess reserves can go somewhere more productive instead of sitting in the national treasury. What states have excess funds in an age of budget deficits? Oil countries. Malaysia, Norway, Kuwait and other Middle Eastern states.
A Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) is a state-owned investment fund or entity that is commonly established from:
Balance of payments surpluses
Official foreign currency operations
The proceeds of privatizations
Governmental transfer payments
Fiscal surpluses
And/or receipts resulting from resource exports
And as a public finance and macroeconomy reporter of 8+ years, let me tell you this:
We used to log BOP surpluses but that changes month on month. I used to do magic and produce news articles just from a table of national current accounts (oh the pain of writing BOP stories)…. BUT it’s more frequent that the numbers are in ( ).
We privatize government assets because we are always short on cash.
We didn’t have fiscal surpluses. We never balanced our budget and the smallest budget deficit that finance reporters of my time recorded was PHP 60bn (if I remember it right) and that was before the global financial crisis. Arroyo had to backpedal on the zero-deficit plan because by 2008 our economy went shit.
Receipts from resource exports? We don’t have OIL AND GAS to export, unlike the countries I mentioned above. Our mineral resources aren’t generating enough receipts for us to create an SWF. Indonesia has coal and nickel, while we have the low-grade variety of these minerals.
(Not well versed in govt forex operations and transfer payments as source of funds for SWF so I won’t touch on those).
Tapos obsessed na obsessed tong gobyernong to magtayo ng SWF, kala mo may excess funds tayo. HOYYYYYYYYYY we have always operated on a deficit. Kapal ng mukha netong mga to!
HOY STELLA! Slush fund ng Marcoses ang tinutulak mo. Di kami bobo.
To calm me down, I resorted to sketching this scene at the Singapore Botanical Gardens before I started editing today.
Started with globs of color. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
This government is driving me nuts.
I bought more frames when I was at the Mall of Asia/Ikea. Just because. If I produce a decent sketch or painting of something, maybe I can frame it and give it as a gift.
My hoard. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
And I bought a wok as a gift to my cousin who wanted a paella pan (but I couldn’t find it.
Wok not too heavy so it’s good for flipping fried rice or stir fry vegetables. Photo by CallMeCreation.comOf course, Kimchi just had to sit on it. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Cubao. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
My mom stayed with me overnight because she is attending the ordination of priests at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Cubao. One of the new priests is a family friend.
Just like anything that has something to do with the Catholic Church, the ceremony is ornate and full of pomp. And loooong. So is the church itself.
So here I am, 2 hrs into the ceremony, outside the church and sketching my way out of boredom.
Looking for better angles. Photo by CallMeCreation.com I have all the time for the details… Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com The details are testing my patience. The sun is beating down on me. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
It’s drizzling now so I’ll just finish this later. At least the entire pencil sketching is done on-site. 🤣
Where shall I bring my mom after this…
After church, we went to SM MOA so that my mom 1) can buy new underwear (her excuse to go to a mall); and go to St. Paul’s to buy her 4 volumes of 2023 prayer books. Along the way, we encountered a guitar center. Twin I is saving up for an acoustic guitar.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
And I thought I found the perfect guitar for her. Not too big, sounds ok and has an inlet on the side to plug it into an amplifier.
The black one looks so cool. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
After ticking off everything in my mom’s checklist, we drove to my hometown.
My granite countertop. Photo by CallMeCreation.comEntire wall/s and under the counter will be installed with cabinets. Photo by CallMeCreation.com It’s a tiny kitchen by normal home standards but it’s bigger than my current one in my apartment. Photo by CallMeCreation.com One of my kitchen cabinets. Better build (wood laminate) compared to Ikea’s MDF. Photo by CallMeCreation.com No tiles yet in my bathroom but I see now the concrete niche for shampoos and soap. Photo by CallMeCreation.com This is where the TV will be hung. My contractor said he will build shelves around the post to make it disappear. Good. I have too many books. Photo by CallMeCreation.com It’s blurry but this closet is tall. I modeled it after the Ikea Pax I designed online. Photo by CallMeCreation.com My huge bedroom window. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
The welding works will be done in January so my stainless steel staircase, water reservoir tower, and fire exit platform will be made. February will just be cabinet works and finishing like painting and installation of shelves. By that time I can pull out my books from my apartment so I can put them in the shelves. That way I would know if I need to install more.
So here we are in this stage where my girls want to hang with their friends more than with me. I’m a cool mom so I had been driving them to places where they meet up with friends.
Trampoline playground at Ayala Feliz. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
So this afternoon I drove them to Ayala Malls Feliz in Pasig along Marcos Highway. I loaded their Timezone cards and left them there while they waited for their friends.
I went around a bit but shopping isn’t really my sport so I just went to a foot massage place and did a 70-min session, which was just so-so. Then I just waited for the girls at Agave, the Mexican restaurant in front of Timezone and had this:
Churros and hot chocolate. Photo by CallMeCreation.com I did some finishing touches to this but I’m still unhappy. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com So I am remaking it for someone who liked the first sketch. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Still half-way through but tthe light is already fading.
I think my astigmatism or myopia has gotten worse. I feel a dull pain pounding behind my left eye, which is radiating now to my forehead and crown.
Another visit to the optometrist is in order. 😑
And oh, I found a random guy playing beautifully on my dream piano.
It was raining when I was walking around Botanical Gardens. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Woman, why are you walking all around Botanical Gardens when it’s raining?!
Ah well, I needed to see trees. I’ve been sick physically so I needed something to revive me. So I spent the morning at the Gardens to sketch. I don’t want to stay indoors on my day-off. 🙄
Searching for the nearest spot I could station myself. Photo by CallMeCreation.com So it was not only me who was crazy. Even the birdwatchers didn’t let the rain deter them from their hobby. Photo by CallMeCreation.com While they’re taking their pictures, I was making a picture. Photo by CallMeCreation.com I didn’t finish this because I got hungry and I suddenly wanted to go to the onsen at Kallang Wave Mall. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
I grew impatient while doing the background that I messed it up. I was already hungry, wet, and I felt that I’m starting to have colds again.
So off I went to Yunomori Onsen, which first I tried in 2018. I was staying at a hotel in Kallang at that time and I walked from my hotel to Kallang Riverside Park and then walked along Nicholls then I ended up in Singapore Stadium. Basically, I just followed the river. I was aching all over when I reached Kallang Wave Mall, which I found by accident. Lo and behold, like mana from heaven, there was the onsen to chase away my aches.
Reception at Yunomori Onsen. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
So this afternoon, I had lunch at Old Street—well, I still considered it as lunch even though it was already 2 pm. Then I went to the onsen to cure my colds and aching body. I stayed in the hot baths for an hour before taking a break from cooking myself.
I took this photo to show my girls. Photo by CallMeCreation.com I tried to nap. Ah well… Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Spent another 45 mins in the hot tubs and went at the ground level to choose where my friend and I would have dinner.
I wanted something local. Photo by CallMeCreation.com After dinner, L and I walked along the river to burn off the calories. She’s thinner than me and yet she’s the one more concerned about the calories we stuffed our faces with. 😑 Photo by CallMeCreation.com We walked around while talking about so many random things. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
We parted at the Stadium MRT station at past 11 pm; she was going home to her studio at Paya Lebar while I go to Dhoby Ghaut.
Almond Blossom. Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890), Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, February 1890. He painted this with love for his nephew and namesake.
I was just vaguely aware of Vincent van Gogh’s life and was more familiar with his paintings.
Until tonight.
I read up on him the entire night (for some reason) and learned about his loving relationship with his younger brother, Theo. I felt his struggle with his mental health and his desperate need to paint because that was the only way to quiet his spirit and ease anxiety and depression (oh how painful it would have been without modern medicine!).
His anxiety deepened as he felt his dependence on Theo’s generosity is weighing on the future of his nephew–his namesake–and Theo’s wife.
He knew he was not getting better. He could no longer contain the pain.
Gun to his chest.
His brother died heartbroken six months after Vincent died of gunshot wounds.
Although I may never know how a bipolar felt, I could understand his need to paint and paint to draw out the pain from his body. As if painting numbs you. As if that’s the only way to silence the raging emotions within you, the pain of emptiness that envelopes you.
I wanted to cry for Vincent. It wasn’t his fault he was sick like that.
The last time I drew and painted was when I was 17.
Until I had an “episode” (as my doctor called it) in February this year—when I received J’s painting and had learned about the the truth that I didn’t want to discover—I have never produced something passable as art. It’s that pain of hollowness, that depression, that inexplicable feeling of wanting to be free from something unseen that drove my pencil and brush. Only my hands could express all of those because my keyboard suddenly became bereft of words.
This was a product of my need to draw my heart in a different way. I could not express the pain I had at that time so this came into being. I became a writer who could no longer produce words. That’s how bad it was. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com I drew this because I had no words to give friends who asked how I was. This was my easiest answer. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.comI painted this when I was 15, inspired by Van Gogh’s cypress trees and some landscape painting of Arles. Because I was feeling his emotions through his brush strokes. It resonated with me. I must have been feeling something strong at that time when I did this. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
Now I understand What you tried to say to me How you suffered for your sanity And how you tried to set them free They would not listen, they did not know how Perhaps they’ll listen now
For they could not love you But still your love was true And when no hope was left in sight On that starry, starry night
