Hobbyista: calligraphy

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One Little Word: DOWNSIZE

Happy New Year!!!

Just wanted to share that I'm doing the One Little Word project this year... I won't be joining Ali Edward's class but I'll be doing it on my own, instead. For those of you who is not familiar with the project, You can read all about it here.

So, here's my One Little Word for 2015...

DOWNSIZE is the word I'll be focusing on this year. The word chose me and I even tried to confirm it.

This year, I'll be focusing on downsizing by removing excess or unnecessary baggages in all aspects of my life. I feel physically, emotionally and mentally drained. My heart is heavy and so is my body, obviously. My mind is cluttered and so is the space around me.

Here are things I'll be working on this year (what I have thought of so far):

Health: Will try my best to shed off some pounds for the obvious reason and also for the sake of my slipped disks.
People: Will try to let goof people who give me heartaches and try not to push myself to those who obviously don't want me in their lives.
Organization: Like what I've mentioned, both my mind and the space around me are cluttered. I'll try to organize my mind by removing unnecessary thoughts and feelings. Also, to help me focus and somehow clear my chaotic mind, I will be doing lots of decluttering and organizing, getting rid of things that I don't really need.
Financial: I'm aiming to be debt free before the year ends and to have saved a little.

I'll be updating this post when I think of new ones to add. At the end of each month, I'll reflect how the word has touched me and will try to post it here. I will also think of a project that I can do to go with this.

How about you, what's your One Little Word?

10 Days of Heartaches

I joined DyosaImma and Fozzy's 10 Days of Heartaches calligraphy challenge on Instagram and I just want to share my works here, too.

I had a hard time with the very first one because it was a while since I last did calligraphy. One thing I learned from this challenge is that practice really does make perfect. Well, in my case, it's not perfect but I can see the improvements. So, I've decided to practice calligraphy frequently if not everyday. I should at least do the drills, right? Also, I've learned that calligraphy need not be expensive. See, mI don't want to buy expensive inks or paints unless I'm doing this professionally. I just buy Indian ink for black and watercolor and poster paint for colors, including metallic ones like gold and silver, and white.

Here are my works with their corresponding song titles and links to YT videos (so you can listen to them). Click photos to view full size.

Day 1: Because I Miss You by Jung Yong Hwa of CNBLUE

Day 2: Eyes, Nose, Lips cover by Tablo X Taeyang

Day 3: Porcelain by Julia Fordham

Day 4: Tonight I Can Write, a poem by Pablo Neruda read by Andy Garcia

Day 5: Everything You Want by Vertical Horizon

Day 6: Sa Kanya by Agot Isidro

Day 7: Illusion by CNBLUE

Day 8: Tell Me on a Sunday by Marti Webb

Day 9: Foolish Games by Jewel

Day 10: Only One Day by SS501

I hope you'll take the time to check out the songs... they're all really nice, even the non-English ones (Filipino, Korean and Japanese). You can also check out my work on Instagram (link in the sidebar) or search for the hashtag #10DaysofHeartaches to see all the participants' works.

For the Love of...

A couple of friends asked me to do some calligraphy for this windsurfing camp in Anilao that we frequent. I hesitated at first because I don't think that my calligraphy is good enough. But they talked me into it and now, I'm very excited to do the project... calligraphy and some paint decorating. Yay!

I Googled for some ideas and here's what I came up with first...

I had a hard time with the waves (took me several tries before I settled with this one), I don't know how to draw waves. Haha! Also, I thought this was not really appropriate for the camp. It's a windsurfing camp and the peeps there catch wind instead of waves (fine... they do sometimes haha). So, I looked for a more appropriate quote and found this one by Isak Dinesen...

I like this one better. What do you think? Now, the question is, will I be able to replicate this on a much much larger scale? I already bought some poster-sized papers for practice.

I really wish this project will push through and that I'll be able to do it. For the love of Anilao! Wish me luck!

The List Project: Names People Call Me

I joined this prompt called The List Project... it's supposed to be a daily prompt for the whole month of October but I obviously couldn't follow the schedule. Haha. It's already the third of the month and I'm only on the first prompt.

I've decided to make this an All About Me project. I will scrap a page for each prompt then compile them in an album later on. I'm really excited about this because it's been a while since I last scrapped. It's about time I make use of the kits I've been hoarding. (Yes, present tense... meaning I'm still doing the hoarding even though I'm not scrapping anymore. Haha!) And I promise to finish this project even if it takes me until the end of the year to do so. (Hopefully not that long. :P)

This new pocket scrapping trend gave me an idea. I've seen people do scrap pages in the 3x4 size. Instead of that, I'm doing it in the standard 4x6 photo size. This way, it'll be easier for me to compile them into an album because it's a standard photo print size. Here's my first list: Names People Call Me

and a second page... (*The Ting Tings' That's Not My Name playing in my head)

I'm thinking of documenting this whole name thing whenever I go to coffee shops, just for the fun of it. Haha! Here's the list, by the way...

If you want to do the prompts, you can join the Facebook group here. The idea is to make your list and share a photo of it on the FB group or Instagram (with the hashtag ‪#‎thelistproject2014). Me, I'll blog about it and share it on my Facebook page.

Brush Calligraphy 101

Here's another super delayed post.

I attended another workshop on the 31st of May, this time it's Brush Calligraphy 101 at the Commune and again by Trade School Manila. The teacher is Paola Esteron of Crafty Kitty. Below is the description of the class

I attempted doing brush calligraphy on my own but it made me feel frustrated. Thanks to Paola, I'm really loving it now. Even though I already know basic calligraphy, I still learned a lot from Paola's workshop like how to hold the brush properly, hand exercises and drills to help loosen up those hand muscles. Paola was a hands-on to teacher and she made sure we were picking up what she's teaching. It also helped that the class was small because she was able to check on each one of us and how we're doing.

Paola made us do some practice drills so we can get used to how to handle the brush. Then we practiced how to paint the letters. We were supposed to practice painting or writing a quote but since we didn't have much time left, we just painted the word ALOHA and had our class picture taken with our works.

Below are photos from the workshop, photos taken by Makee Wilwayco and grabbed from Trade School Manila's Facebook page.

Here are my practice sheets and my "Aloha" and the last photo is our class picture.

Trade School Manila's sites:
http://www.tradeschool.coop/manila/
https://www.facebook.com/TradeSchoolManila

Paola Esteron's sites:
http://instagram.com/paola_koala
http://themightypaocat.carbonmade.com

Practice Makes Perfect

Been practicing my calligraphy and I'm trying out different nibs, too. I asked my best friend to buy me some Hunt nibs from the US but she gifted them to me instead. Weeeee! I asked her to get me the Hunt 56, 99 and 101. Thanks much Jing!!!

I'm also trying out the Hunt 103 and the Zebra Comic G nibs. Each nibs has their own characteristics and I've somehow already made peace with them except for the Hunt 99 and 101. The 99 is too soft and either I run out of ink on my first stroke or you can't distinguish between my upstrokes and downstrokes. The 101 I haven't used much, yet, but I can tell it'll take time for me to get used to it, too, just like the 99.

I also have the Zebra Maru nib but I still need to look for a holder for it because it's smaller than the others. I got a couple of Speedball C style nibs, too. Such a hoarder am I, right? Haha!

Want to take a peek at a couple of my practice sheets? Don't laugh, okay? They're a mess!

I think this one's using the Hunt 101 nib and here's another one, a terrible one, using the Hunt 99:

If you'll notice, they're all lines from song lyrics. I'm planning to do a calligraphy a day project and will use mostly song lyrics. Just figuring when's the good day to start and for how long I'll be doing it. A 100 days maybe? I'll do #100daysofcalligraphy instead of #100daysofhappiness. What do you think?

Sunny Came Home

Sunny Came Home by Shawn Colvin is one of my favorite songs and I was listening to it on repeat when I decided to practice calligraphy a little. Of course, my piece was inspired by the song... my favorite lines in the lyrics...

Please, excuse the imperfections... I'm still trying to learn calligraphy and still trying to find my own style. In case you can't read it clearly (Ha!), here's what it says:

Days go by I'm hypnotized

I'm walking on a wire

I close my eyes and fly out of

my mind into the fire

And look! I used my hand-carved foliage stamp, too. :P

On another note, Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day is already on the 27th this month and I'm still contemplating if I'm going to sign up. I already have a pinhole camera and it's already loaded with a film but I haven't tested it, yet. The first time I tried pinhole photography wasn't very successful and I'm thinking that this time might not be, too. Sigh... but I think I'll still sign up anyway, I just hope I remember to. Haha!

Scribble Workshop

I attended the Scribble Workshop on September 20th at the Vasquez-Madrigal Plaza in Annapolis, Greenhills. The workshop was conducted by Alexis Ventura of Ink Scribbler. She discussed the introduction to calligraphy using a flexible dip pen. It was okay but I was expecting a little bit more. I was expecting at least more instructions about the alphabet like which stroke to draw first, you know, like a diagram with arrows. (Yeah, I’m a kid that needs to be spoon-fed. Haha.) I also think that there were too many students... in my opinion, workshops of this kind should only have 10-12 students max. Anyway, my purpose in attending the workshop was served, which was to jump-start this interest of mine.

The materials provided were worksheets in a folder, pencil, bottle of ink, wooden pen holder and a Hunt nib. Snack was served and there were biscuits and candies scattered on the tables, plus, bottled water was available, too. Tiny cups (for ink and water), tissue paper, wet wipes, cotton buds (for blotting excess ink) were also provided. There were also sample calligraphy pieces on the tables for inspiration.

The workshop was for three hours with bulk of the time spent on nib practices and exercises. I’d love it if it was longer but, of course, I understand that there’s a time limit. Here are some photos from the workshop...