In my mother’s eyes

msmorbid — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:52:34 +0000

She’d have dark brown hair and eyes, have a big forehead and nose probably, and she’d speak in fluent English. Have to watch out for allergies too. It runs in the family. I don’t think that girl would know how to speak Filipino till she’s in the first grade. She’d be a naughty little girl, but she’d be a darling. A darling little beauty. That’s what she’d be like. I’d like to call her Haven.

No, I’m not pregnant mind you. It’s just something that’s been getting to me these days. This is about my mother and I, so this might get a little bit personal.

My mother was raised in a strict family in strict times. Her mother (my grandmother) was of Spanish blood and was raised in a Spanish family. Very strict indeed.

She is the eldest of four. She didn’t have time for extracurricular activities in school because she was taking care of her siblings and studying very hard. My mother graduated with honors, Cum Laude if I could remember correctly. She only ever sucked at math.

She wanted to be a doctor or some sort of designer. Only she couldn’t cause she was afraid of blood and her parents didn’t think it was a good course respectively. I think she took Business Administration. It didn’t make her too happy, but it made her a living.

In short, she was successful and very very beautiful. According to my dad, she was the most beautiful in their batch aside from one of her good friends. My mother was the whole package.

She got married on January of 1994, the same year when I was conceived. I was born on November that year, a red, overweight, flat-nosed, ten-pound baby. But she loved me anyway.

I don’t think my parents raised me half as strict as their own parents did. They blamed it on the present. It’s really nice though, knowing that you ended up a pretty good person even after all the crap I’ve been through, and most of said crap being my fault. My mother didn’t have to go through that kind of stuff. She was better than me period. And I’m not being mean or sarcastic about it. I really do mean it. It made me think really.

I was almost sure she’d hate me by now. Only, she doesn’t.

She’s my mother.

She stuck by me through counseling and all. It really is something to be thankful for.

I just usually get the feeling that she’s irked by what I do. Whatever the hell it is I do. And I can’t blame her.

Lately, it’s been getting worse. A lot worse, and I don’t know how to deal with it or if I want to deal with it. I am so afraid to just talk to her.

And that If you become a parent business makes me wanna not have a kid anymore. I might go wrong somewhere and mess up my child’s brain.

My mom never messed up mine. She brought me up right. That’s why when I mess up, I really mess up.

I feel like her problem. That’s all.

What lurks within

msmorbid — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:42:44 +0000

O! beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on.

~William Shakespeare, Othello

Jealousy is an emotion often used as a synonym for the emotion envy, but I have to point out that these two are actually different. Envy is what a person feels when they want something that another person has or hopes that the other person will lose whatever they envious person lacks. In contrast, jealousy is when a person may feel anxiety because they have fear of losing something that he or she possesses to another person. I just wanted to point this out before you read the post. In our English class, we’re taking up one of William Shakespeare’s tragedies, Othello. The story is basically about love, hate, jealousy and betrayal. The antagonist of the story, Iago, basically thrives on the trust of his boss, Othello, in order to destroy him.

One of the masterpiece characters of Shakespeare is Iago, the epitome of true villainy in the literary world. The villain with the most lines in all of Shakespeare’s plays is a perfect example of a person who lacks that conscience which stops or at least serves as a hesitation to people who may want to do the things that he does in the story. But enough about Iago, the main subject of this post is his drive to do these kinds of things.

The wrath of jealousy affects a lot of people. It eats away at your self control until you somehow explode… or not, depends on how you may want to deal with the problem. Although not a lot of people could deal with these problems as masterfully evil as Iago can.

Sometimes jealousy can happen without any reason whatsoever. That in itself maybe the scariest thing about it. It could also be the hardest kind of feeling to pinpoint which makes it all the more dangerous. It will subtly take over, but not a lot of people who experience this emotion will admit to it which will just make it worse for both parties, those parties being the person jealous and the person he gets mad at because he is jealous (see how complicated things could get?). The buildup of these negative emotions will result badly if the people involved decide not to deal with the problem accordingly.

Jealousy could also result from misinterpreted actions done by a person. Let us say that a man and a woman are romantically involved with each other (a perfect example being Othello and Desdemona), and another person comes in, that person posing as a possible threat to one of the people within that romantic relationship. The man (or the woman) may misinterpret small actions by the possible third wheel to their lover, such as a fleeting touch or friendly hug, and so the feeling of anxiety will soon build up to another emotion. This is not exclusive to people in a romantic relationship, but also to good friends who may seem to be veering away because of another person.

Although jealousy may not always be a bad thing. If it’s a protective reasonable kind of jealousy that doesn’t do anyone any harm and in fact may show how much a person cares about you then it could be perfectly fine. It’s just how a person plans to do with the emotion that may matter to it being a normal kind of thing or not.

And that concludes this post.

Oppositions

msmorbid — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:48:17 +0000

Today, I had the pleasure of watching a debate held by the Fourth years. The topic being “Should same-sex marriages be accepted in the Philippines?”

I really am on the side of allowing this and I offered to share some arguments with Josh, one of the seniors who was assigned to the Cons side of the debate, so he’d have some idea on how to counter it. View his post here.

Anyhow, I posted this really long comment to answer all the things he wanted to point out. Here it is:

Here are the possible arguments against what you said respectively, just see if you could defend against them in the debate:

So many other things that humans created have gone against the natural orders of things. Humans have adapted to the ever changing modern technology and different human rights have also changed throughout the years, and all if not most have been a great achievement for mankind. Wouldn’t the acceptance of homosexuals change everyone’s view for the better as well? To be more open minded to different ideas? Changes are NORMAL after all.

How can’t homosexual marriage promote the concept of family? Family is a unit in which love is expressed to each member by each other. Is not crossing the line of social acceptance to simply love another person a good example enough to define the term “love”?

-.- The husband and wife thing isn’t a good argument to begin with Josh

Well, if homosexual marriage were accepted, won’t that mean a few changes in the definition of “family” anyway? So what if someone has 2 fathers, if they know what’s best for you, they will love you and treasure you just the same.

Finally, marriage is a commitment bound by the emotion of love. Love is present regardless of what the person may look like, what their age may be (but being a pedophile is just wrong -.-) as well as their sex. If you cannot find another person like the person you love or cannot picture yourself with anyone other than that person, wouldn’t it be unfair to address this other human being’s request of being able to love. If they respect the sanctity of marriage than it cannot be wrong. They are bound by their faith and isn’t that what the typical Christian couple may want? They may feel discriminated enough by the text in their holy book, but cannot help it. Love is just love.

here you go

I realized how much longer my comment was to his post, and I apologized quickly for may have possibly offending him at some point because of it. Needless to say, he was a good sport about it.

You can check out his post in order to understand it completely. The comment I wrote wasn’t well-written and I apologize for that. I was the most I could say without sounding way too formal for anyone’s taste.

Things I want to point out by the way:

I just wanted to wish the Second years luck on their play tomorrow. Lady Aoi was really hard, I hope they pull it off better than we did.
Happy Birthday Shane!
It’s Sir Glen’s birthday tomorrow, he just pretends like he can’t hear you when you ask him about it -.-
I need to work on my watercolor, I painted something today and it wasn’t that good
I’m not sure if I should post the Yggdrasil logo just yet
Prop 8=HATE; Prop HATE causes pain

That’s all.

Ciao

Simplicity is key

msmorbid — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:26:17 +0000

These are some abstract paintings I worked on. With some consultation from Kuya Emilio, who told me that keeping it simple was the way to go, I was able to come up with these works. They aren’t detailed and whatever, but that’s the concept really.

These were done earlier this year, during the summer while I had art classes with Teacher Jeanne. It was my all time high with watercolor this summer since I had so much time to use. These works are part of the compilation of all the works I did this summer.

I don’t have an explanation for each really, but I will be pointing things out as we go along.

The first two works were done with watercolor and the last one was something I wanted to experiment with. My parents have this inkwell that they never used. I was intrigued since the ink was of Parker pens so I wanted to see if it worked like watercolor did, so I gave it a shot. Turns out it does and here’s the result. It doesn’t stain the brush or anything either.

To be honest, this wasn’t supposed to be anything but a doodle, but my parents liked it so I was happy to post it.

That’s all I guess, I have so many other things to work on.

Ciao

Commissions so far:

Josh Matignas- Blue dragon (basta blue daw XD)
Anna Morales- Elf (please send me some more details alright?)

Materials I used:

Aquarelle Watercolor
Quink Parker Ink
The brush Teacher Jeanne gave me
Royal & Langnickel essentials Watercolor Artist Pad

Just a tad of Experimenting

msmorbid — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:24:19 +0000

I went through a short-lived phase of having a fascination of painting and drawing animals. It’s funny really, I gave up on the proportions of dogs, cat and exceedingly failed at drawing horses. I was able, however, to be successful in some of my works which include Koi fish and an owl.

Without bothering to sketch it out first, I tried to make a simple base color for the pictures and started working from there. These particular paintings were done on May this year, soon after my mom’s birthday. For one of the Koi fish, I used a reference picture from the internet and one reference picture from a nature book for the painting of the owl. The other Koi was of original positioning. Since there were times that the original watercolor painting didn’t look as good as I thought it would be, I somehow cheated by outlining the painting with a tech pen, which wasn’t the original plan. Only one of these paintings turned out to be exactly the way I planned (that one being the one that I didn’t outline).

These are all close-ups of the paintings.

This is the one that I just thought of. The base painting of this hadn’t turned out so well to I decided to go with a different direction. This is the latest one of the three.

This is the first one I did of the three. I did this a day after my mom’s birthday, and the only one that turned out the way I wanted. I didn’t outline this with anything except for darker colors of watercolor paint.

This is my first and only attempt to paint an owl. All the other birds that I tried to paint failed epically, so I decided to stick with this. I only tried to paint an owl because Dana (I mentioned her before) was able to do a fantastic painting of one when we were in grade 7 and I just wanted to see if I could compare to her. Turns out, I can’t T_T But here it is anyway.

I still have to figure out how to draw feathers, one of the biggest challenges that I have ever faced in drawing animals, aside from the musculature of the rest.

That’s all I guess.

Ciao

Materials I used:

Aquarelle Watercolor
The brush, Teacher Jeanne gave me
0.3 tech pen
Royal & Langnickel essentials Watercolor Artist Pad

Edward Scissorhands, Cherries, and one blue Vodka Cruiser

msmorbid — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:04:09 +0000

I rushed around the house, scouring every area for a possible Halloween costume. I gathered up a black dress, black net leggings, boots and a broom. All I needed was a pointy hat. Needless to say, after a few seconds of rethinking how lazy I had no time to not possibly be able to make one, since we didn’t have one, I decided against the idea of being a witch this Halloween. I messed up my cabinet looking for anything to help me out. I got out a sweatshirt and pants. Serial killer was always a simpler way to go. That was only until I realized that I had no creepy mask. Back to the drawing board.

I almost gave up, I really did. That was only until I remembered that I had my costume from a role I played last year. Rokujo*, this Japanese character.

The only thing I had to do was fix my face up. Brushing up loads of powder and carefully tracing my eyes with eyeliner, adding red lipstick and I was done. I tied my hair up, put socks on my feet and slippers, completing the costume composed of a kimono designed blouse and black dress pants. It was tedious looking for everything, but it was fun.

Nicah, one of my close cousins and whose parents were hosting the party, was with me the whole night. We talked about so many things over a blueberry Vodka Cruiser for each of us. The adults were there mind you, why do you think we were allowed only one? XD Anyway, I wasn’t able to eat much because of what I found out a bit later that my sash was on way too tight. We talked in front of their driveway, discussing random stuff, updating each other on what happened to the other during the past week. We laughed together, the Japanese girl and the pirate, until the both of us yearned for something to lie down on. We asked permission to go to bed early because we were tired.

Turns out, we didn’t sleep right away. We continued to chat about more private matters now that the adults were absent. She had brought up a jar of cherries and turned on the TV. While watching Wizards of Waverly Place, we strived to knot the stems of the cherries with our tongues. We tied, a total of four knots each until our fingers were too sticky to be ignored.

It was because I failed to bring a scary movie** like what she asked me to bring, we decided to watch Edward Scissorhands, which she didn’t finish anyway. I was intrigued by the plot line and the role of Johnny Depp, a quiet, incomplete man who’s forced to live with blades for fingers. It was a bittersweet film, awfully bittersweet and slightly disturbing that I had dreams of that sort that night. A mix of surreal yet believable dreams.

I’m in Nicah’s house right now since I wanted to sleepover for the long weekend. I’ve had so much fun so far, even with the lack of Halloween spirit in the area. Just wanted to jot this event down because this is the first time in years that I actually celebrated Halloween.

That’s all.

Ciao

*Rokujo is the character I portrayed in a play called The Lady Aoi, a short adaptation from The tale of Genji, a Japanese piece by Lady Murasaki Shikibu. I acted alongside Vinz Epino, Denise Costes and Trisha Buganan in this play.

** Like The Ring or The Grudge, not like any of the Scary Movie movies, cause those aren’t really scary. Right, like we’d be able to sleep after watching something like that.

Bouquets of Femininity

msmorbid — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 07:21:13 +0000

These are pieces that I did sometime ago. They are original images, the only reference pictures I needed were those of different kinds of flowers. All the rest, the arrangement of the flowers, the choice of colors and the characters were done by myself. I found a lot of pictures like these in the internet, although using different elements in the picture and mostly focused on realism and made by digital art. I used watercolor and tech pen as usual.

I hadn’t planned on doing similar paintings, and in fact the time of when each were done is quite far apart, but when I looked back on the first one, the blue and purple lady, I decided to make another one out of fun. So here it is.

This was done last year, if I can remember correctly. I was so happy it turned out so well, even if I broke a rule that Teacher Jeanne taught me (the don’t use or mix white with anything rule for watercolor paints) and my cousin actually wanted to buy it from me for a good 100 pesos (or was it 200?) but it’s still with me up to now.

The second one was done earlier this year when I was really bored. All that differs from the materials is the paper that I used. This one has really awkward proportions cause I wasn’t able to sketch it out in pencil before I inked it, sorry about that.

Anyway, I’m off to watch Kung Fu Panda

Materials I used:

Aquarelle Watercolor
Best Buy brushes
0.1, 0.5, 0.8 tech pens
For first painting: Canson 200 gsm pad, For second painting: Royal & Langnickel essentials Watercolor Artist Pad

Whatever may come and go

msmorbid — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:23:37 +0000

Everyone seems to be thoroughly delighted in something whether it is a shallow pleasure or not. It’s only when this is taken away from them that they realize how important it’s become, and how they may possibly cannot live without it.

I have been told to not allow myself to succumb to anything that has the capability of making me feel secure or loved because in the end it may just turn out to be based on false pretenses. To me, it is so hard to believe, but when I see other people go through it, I could almost predict the exact series of events that they will have to go through. Do they understand what they’re getting themselves into? Probably not, but who could blame them? I certainly couldn’t, because I’ve been through the exact same thing and I don’t think I can assure myself that it won’t happen again.

For all the experiences I’ve gone through in my life, the only ones that seem truly memorable are the ones that you don’t ever want to happen again, not so much in vice versa. I may try to stop these things from happening again, but the reason but I just can’t help it keeps popping up. It’s almost like a nicotine addiction. You always tell yourself you’re going to quit because you know that it’s just going to make things awful for you, but you just have to have that last stick and you’ll be done. That last stick over and over and over again.

Being a hypocrite is a common sin. I’m one and I’d bet you a hundred bucks that you’ve also been one at least once in your life. Even if this is true however, the term “hypocrite” has become too harsh for the people these days so they just pass off every wrong doing that they commit with repetitive excuses. Now what are we to do now with the rest of society if we can’t even help ourselves?

I’ve talked with Dana about this subject time and time again. It’s just whenever we do talk about it, I never get to explain myself correctly, so I tried organizing my thoughts a bit and decided to write it down. This is a topic that I can’t help but think about every so often and it usually distracts me from what I’m supposed to be doing.

I also wanted to remember these things till I’m older and hopefully still think like I do now, only a little bit more mature. I just might be able to understand this a bit more later as well. Until then, I have some things to think about.

Anyway, this is just a thought that popped up in my head. I just wanted to get it out before I explode. XD

It’s Halloween everyone! A time for costumes and candy! Hopefully the party I wanted to go to doesn’t get canceled because of the storm T_T

I’m gonna look for some more paintings to scan and post here, just look out for them.

Ciao

Sparks of fantastical inspiration

msmorbid — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:28:38 +0000

All the people who could possible know me knows that I want to be an artist someday.

Everything I work for, study for, and pray for as a student, will be summed up to a letter from UP saying that I got accepted to study in their Fine Arts course. I am presently still working for it mind you. I’m still making the most out of the 1 and a half years I have left in high school.

Anyway, whatever I draw or paint is usually done out of total impulse. If I’m suddenly in the mood, I’ll do the damn thing, and I’m not in the mood, I won’t do it properly, hence the title of this post.

During the first 2 years of high school and even earlier than that we’ve been taught how to copy pictures. That has always been the basic exercise for art class during those years. Soon after, we were taught to simply sketch people or objects from real life or have a reference picture to our works, but not quite copy the image entirely. It’s a lesson that has stuck with me all this time and it’s kind of hard to adjust to our present curriculum of 3D work, but I just wanted to focus on the first part of this paragraph.

Earlier on, I’ve reread a couple of books that have been sitting there atop of our shelf that I may have found interesting ages ago. One of which was the Dragonology book that I asked for when I was around 12 years of age. I remember the fantastic sketches and paintings that the book contained and was thrilled to see them again. Not long after, I gathered my palette, watercolor paints, brush, pens, watercolor pad, and then I started to work.

This one is the better one of the two paintings I made. According to the book, it’s called the Draco africanus or the Wyvern.

This one didn’t really turn out the way I planned it, but nonetheless it’s fine. This one is called the Knucker. I totally forgot what the supposed scientific name of this dragon is. Sorry.

So there. I’m also really happy that my dad finally bought a new scanner. It’s been my best friend ever since it got here. I lightly edited the images on the computer with Picnik, a site that does wonders for me cause I don’t have Adobe photo shop. I only edited the lighting of the thing, nothing dramatic I swear.

Well, here’s my first real post. I hope you enjoyed

Materials I used for paintings:

Reeves Watercolor
This brush that Teacher Jeanne gave me, I don’t know what size it is though
0.1, 0.3, 0.5, and 0.8 tech pen
Royal & Langnickel essentials Watercolor Artist Pad

Introduction

msmorbid — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:27:19 +0000

Hey, this is Riana. I’m not really certain if I should come up with a blog entry right now because I’m trying my best to familiarize with the site and it’s features. One of my friends, Alren, recently became obsessed with updating his blog on WordPress so I decided to join in as well because I very much enjoy writing. I have other blogs as well in Multiply and Blogger (which I discontinued, I wasn’t too keen on it in the first place) and since this one doesn’t seem too overpopulated with people I know, I wanted to try and start anew.

So I’m just going to be busy right now editing the layout of my blog and focus on figuring out the buttons on this thing (it took me almost forever to find out how I could change my password).

Bye for now I guess.