Romantic Black Lace

Before my main topic, first is this: Wow, I have not blogged in so long. To be honest, I've been so busy at work that I haven't had any time to do anything else but work. I haven't been attending classes for my museum studies masters degree and I haven't been able to take care of my artists for my small one-woman-run art agency. 2010 was really a busy year. Apart from planning my wedding, the magazine I work for really just got hectic because of all the revamping we did (for the print version, marketing events, TV, etc.). But the stress paid off--our magazine is at the top of its game and our competitors are scrambling to keep up. We just closed our February 2011 anniversary issue (19th) and we have a big surprise for our readers. All I can say is that we have MULTIPLE covers.

But despite the stress it gives me, my work has its many perks--one of which is keeping me in tune with what's hot in the fashion world. And yesterday I wore to work one of my favorite fall/winter 2011 trends--black lace:

(That's me on the right, wearing a Forever 21 top; on my left is our editorial assistant, Sarah)

Hence, inspired by my wardrobe, I decided to dedicate this post to this romantic-gothic look. Here's another photo of me at my wedding last April 2010 wearing black lace tights (My mother was not pleased that I wore colors other than white to my wedding, but I was never one to really follow convention):

(Black lace tights and red shoes by Zara; wedding dress, fascinator and clutch by Chris Diaz)

And here's another one of me, wearing black lace gloves sourced in Carolina's Lace Shop (given to me by fashion editor Teej Nepomuceno):

(Photo taken by Mai Kaufman at Mega Magazine's September 2010 issue wrap party at Members Only; I'm wearing neckpiece and dress by Chris Diaz for Myth)

Being a new wife, one of my favorite pastimes is looking at design blogs for inspiration for our home. One of my must-have finds are these black lace light bulbs by BrowneHsieh from the company's MothEaten line:

(Photo source: Design*Sponge)

Blogger Candy Dizon posted photos of The Peninsula Manila Hotel's newest resto, Salon De Ning. One of the photos that caught my eye was this one of the these beautiful lace chandeliers:


And, of course, since this is an art blog, I Googled "black lace artwork" and found some really nice creations:

("Black Lace" by Jennifer Poon; watercolor on paper; 64 in x 59 in)

("Black Lace" by KainApophysis)

("Petite Kokeshi" by Caracarmina)

Well, that's it for my first post for the year! Winter season is almost over and already I'm stocking up on colorful neon things for Spring/Summer. Here's a sneak peek of what I've gotten already:


So be ready to see colorful posts soon!!! Ciao for now!

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.