Night Owl

It's past midnight and I'm still awake. So, I thought I'd dedicate a post to one of nature's magnificent night creatures. Hoo! Hoo! (trying to hoot like an owl...)

Below is a postcard design by a friend and one of the talented young visual artists that I help manage, Nikki Abaya. If you'd like to see other postcard designs by her, I posted them in my Multiply site. Click on this link to see the album. Nikki also has a Deviant Art page you can check out. Click on this link.



Here's another pretty owl artwork I stumbled upon. It's a painting by Hadley Hutton. See more of her beautiful paintings in her website, hadleyhutton.com.



I searched Flickr for a nice photo of an owl and saw this adorable snapshot by Stephen van der Mark. He entitled it, "Happy Snow Owl." Click on the link to view the page.



While blog surfing, I came across a post by a fashion blogger (forgot her name) about Enid Collins' vintage wooden box bags. I remember that one of the bags had a colorful owl design. Since I couldn't track down the link to this blogger's post, I thought I'd search Flickr again for photos of that bag. I found one in Glumpire's photostream. This one that I posted here isn't the design that I saw, but it's a beautiful Enid Collins bag just the same. Visit Glumpire's Flickr site to see her album containing more of Enid Collins' wooden box bags.



This below, if you can imagine it, is a measuring tape! It's made out of felt with a pull tab that looks like a mushroom. Cute, isn't it? I found this in Feltmate!'s Flickr photostream. Here's the link.


And finally, I end my post with a Simpsonized version of Nite Owl. You'll find more of these Simpsonized famous characters in springfieldpunx.blogspot.com.

P.S. I have not seen Watchmen the movie. Sigh...

A-ha!

I was scouring the Internet for a tutorial on how to make digital photos look vintage and I stumbled upon the motherlode of vintage/retro design how-tos: allgraphicdesign.com. I scrolled down the list of tutorials and found one on how to make a vintage collage using Photoshop. Coolness! Now I can make one of those cool vintage postcards I posted earlier! They won't be handmade, but at least they'll look it. Click on link to read the tutorial.


By the way, here's a "retro-fied" version of a photo I took just a few days ago. I followed this blogger's instructions on using Picasa to make photos look vintage, then I added textures using Photoshop like this other blogger instructed. What do you think?


Here's the original photo:

Collating Collages

I found these awesome collages by Boubou Teatime. Don't you just love their dreamy, vintage vibe? Makes me feel like I'm back in the 70s or something. And that's my favorite decade! Although, I was born in 1979. Hahaha! At least I made it (though, barely) to the 70s.

You should check out Boubou Teatime's blog: http://boubouteatime.blogspot.com. I love how she made her blog look like an actual, handwritten personal journal. I wish that I could be crafty like her...




Not to be outdone by foreign talent, I want to share with you also some pretty handmade collage postcards by a Filipino artist I met through Multiply. Sorry, but I forgot her name. It has been a while since I last communicated with her. Here are her websites where you'll see all her designs: http://artefact.multiply.com and http://apt70.deviantart.com.

"Sailing the Seven Seas"

"Walking on Sunshine"

"The Machine"

Artefact's "The Machine" reminds me of Richard Hamilton's famous pop art collage, "Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?"

Color Pop!

Here's another Photoshopping project I did on a photo of my brother's girlfriend, Carla. My brother was about to commission a graphic design company to make an Andy Warholesque photo of his girlfriend, but I told him I'd make it for free...out of sheer sibling love. Aw... I don't remember exactly what I did here, but I do recall that the flowers in the background was made using a special brush tool.

Inspired at Work

This is my art wall at the office. Whenever I'm faced with an article that's overbearingly frustrating to copyedit, I look at this wall and daydream of being at the beach, digging my toes in the sand, feeling the warmth of the summer sun and guzzling down a bottle of ice cold San Miguel beer (Light, please!).

Clockwise from top left:
1) printout of a page scanned from British Vogue;
2) Horace the cat, which I "adopted"--rather bought for 300 pesos--from Bru;
3) pulp fiction book covers made into postcards that my boyfriend and I purchased in Seattle back in 2004;
4) my name card on which I doodled a caricature of myself; and
5) ballpen on acrylic drawing given to me by a good friend, Alan Po

The giraffe reminds of when I used to live in Nairobi, Kenya.
Oh, good times...

Badass Moss

Today I was browsing through the December 2008 issue of Mega Magazine and saw the feature we did on multi-award winning Filipino artist/illustrator Jason Moss. I randomly met Jason around August of last year through a classmate of mine in graduate school. We had lunch, talked about vulgar topics like "rimming" (how we got to discussing those things, I don't remember) and generally enjoyed each other's company. I liked him so much that even though I hadn't seen his works then, I already asked him if we could feature him in Mega. This photo of him that you see here was taken at Mega's studio by photographer Paola Aseron.

To show you just what a tremendously amazing artist Jason is, I asked our editorial assistant Irish Degala to dig up from our archives the CD of photos of Jason's artworks. The featured artworks below make up barely point-five percent of everything he has done...so far.

From his 2003 exhibit entitled, "Moss Motel"

Body Language
From his 2004 exhibit entitled, "Headstands," held at the Crucible Gallery


Right Brain Salute
From his 2005 exhibit entitled, "Six Fairy Tale Deaths"


Settle for Friendship
From his 2005 exhibit entitled, "Six Fairy Tale Deaths"

From his 2008 exhibit entitled, "Mute Skin"

A spread from Jason's sketchbook entitled, "Famous."
Jason has completed a lot of these sketchbooks,
which he showed me when I visited his home
for a late night drink with his friends.

Tilt Thinker
ink on paper; 36.5 x 44 cm
A birthday gift from Jason to me. Love it!

See more of Jason's works by visiting www.weloveintimidation.com/jasonmoss and mosscake.deviantart.com.

Meet Conrad

Full name? William Conrad A. Javier
Birthday? October 2, 1983
Occupation? graphic designer/illustrator/musician/proprietor/lover
Describe your art style in one sentence. Heavily influenced by pop surrealism, street art and children's book art.
Usual tools. pencil, a variety of pens, Prang watercolor, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for my digital works
Biggest influence. Pol Medina, Jr. Growing up, I learned how to draw by copying from a lot of comic books, mostly from Pol's Pugad Baboy series.
Name one thing an artist shouldn't be without. Sleep.
Website. blitzpop.multiply.com

"Keep Fishing"
watercolor and ink on watercolor paper

"What Dreams Are Made Of"
watercolor and ink on watercolor paper

"Mute Kaboom"
watercolor and ink on watercolor paper

Rosy Day

I am all about roses today.

Don't you just adore this collage by John Murphy? I first saw this photo in another blog and was absolutely smitten by its quirkiness.

How about this Steven Sprouse pochette for Louis Vuitton? (photo lifted off disneyrollergirl's blog)


I didn't like anything vintage before, but as I got older, I found myself liking all things "shabby chic." I hated that show before and thought Rachel Ashwell was a complete bore. But now... I'm liking her designs! Anyway, one of the things I'm beginning to love are vintage botanical prints. I like this print because it shows several types of roses.


I also recently discovered this online vintage store called Etsy. I'm really loving this wig/hat box. I could sure use it to store my baubles! Buy it for me, somebody, please... ;-)

Photoshop Addict

I love Photoshop. I'm not a pro at it, but I do make use of the few, simple techniques that I know. For instance, using multiple layers. Here are some of examples of the Photoshopping I've done using this simple technique.

This drawing below is the original. It's supposed to be a self-portrait. As you can see, even at doodling I'm not so good.
Because I wasn't happy with my drawing, I turned to Photoshop to fix my "hair." I love downloading fabric and wallpaper patterns online so I made use of the designs that I got. This is what I ended up with:
Here's another variation:
Below is another alteration I did on a photo of me and my boyfriend. I used the "crayon" filter on it as well.


Here's the original photo:


So, whaddayathink?

I'm a-bloggin' now!

Congratulations! You're reading my first blog post. Woohoo!

Let's see... where to start...

Hi! My name is Lacar. Welcome to my blog, Magasining.

Magasining is a portmanteau of two Filipino words: magasin and sining. Magasin means magazine, while sining means art. So, put it together (drum roll...) and you get "art magazine"! Duh. Haha.

The name Magasining was originally created back in 2005. Aside from being a portmanteau of two Filipino words, it is as well the merging of my two passions--art and writing.

So, as I'm sure you have deduced, this blog is about art--and mostly about Filipino art. You see, I also moonlight as an art manager to young upcoming Filipino artists. Through this blog, I want to introduce them to you and show you what they can do.

To tell you the truth, I'm a frustrated artist. I love art, but I can't create it. That's why I'll just stick to writing about it and helping out my artist-friends. Believe me, I've tried creating art, but there's just a strong disconnect between my "wanting" to be an artist and "being" one. Case in point: this painting that you see here that spells the word "love." (yes, that's my spider-veined hobbit foot at the bottom) This painting is not an original design. I saw a photo of it online several years ago and decided to recreate it. Seriously, I have no original thought when it comes to art. I'm a copycat. But then again, as one of my professors at the University of the Philippines once said, "There is no originality in art. Art is an abstraction of something else--whether it's someone else's art, a life experience, an emotion, etc." I must admit I felt a little better about my art when she said that. However...doesn't being an artist entail technique? And I definitely don't have that. (fishing for compliments here...haha)

Well, okay, okay! Done with the rambling now. I've introduced myself and that should be enough. Let's do some real art bloggin'!