Some random stuff

HELLO!

My boyfriend's little sister's son is half Peruvian. They call him little Inca. For his 1st birthday gift I made his mom this portrait since I am a broke art student. I really hoped she'd like it and she did =). It's the baby in his signature tongue-out pose with an Incan helmet on.

Maria Clara was the heroine of Rizal's Noli Me Tangere. As a Filipina w/ Spanish origins, I'm creating 5 paintings based on the Maria Clara dress. They will be sold at a Cultural Bazaar on Sunday with 25% proceeds going to my church children's program. They focus on the lacey panuelo and baro, the matching gorgeous accessories, the embroidered and paneled saya & the strawflower native to the Philippines. This piece in this picture is not completed as of now.

Here is one of the flyers of set I designed really quick for the event, with pictures from when I use to teach the children.

I'm also trying to start up a children's/baby's tshirt online store. It will be managed by spreadshirt and it will provide pocket change for me. I use to have a women's shirt line, but now that I've got better Illustrator skills, I'm relaunching this new store.

I have a long list of ideas! Here are some graphics I'm playing with:

http://rockmebaby.spreadshirt.com/

A hectic quarter just ended for me a few days ago! Now I have a 3-week break. I will then be entering my 4th to last quarter. Through all the energy drinks, memorization, obsessive kerning, persnickety rag-correction, angry brainstorming, botched print jobs and sleep deprivation, I'm actually super satisfied with lessons I've learned and the sometimes horrible ways I had to learn them. Overachieving never lets me down in the end.

The other day, as my teacher and renowned creative director of a leading design firm looked over a final for another class. In that over class, the teacher is more experimental. The notoriously expert teacher I like to call the "Big Guns" of our department staff was polite to say he liked how honest and conceptually strong the work is. But he indirectly paid me the best compliment I've gotten to date by comparing my means of presentation to his overachieving tendencies as a student. It was strangely flattering to think Big Guns had seen himself in me at some point!

I really have been working super hard out of fierce competition with peers and myself. It's frustrating coming up with just Bs sometimes in Big Gun's classes but his ability to push me actually makes my work a lot better than it would've been, in the end. I use to get a 4.0 but since he and a new dean entered the staff I've been falling to 3.5 and above though I work hard. After getting president's list so much, it doesn't feel the same getting less than a 4.0 even after butt-busting work. But no matter what I shall treat myself to frozen yogurt!!!!

Even my marketing class -which was super left-brained for me-I got a portfolio piece. For my Experimental type class, I am thrilled that all the teachers with different design styles like my final. Lastly, I'm happy that I got a few portfolio pieces from my corporate communications class. On the last day of class, when I was done with all my work and my boyfriend was embarrassing me on my webcam by showing my classmates his nipple, Big Guns came over and told me he was going to hang my work in the hall. I've had work in the halls almost every term in the first year of my schooling but having it up now -when it's become so hard to compete for the small graphic design wall realty- is encouraging.

On a different note, I'd be happy to do corporate design for a brand I love after school is done. It is a goal for me to sometime soon get a 2nd internship (this time I hope it's paid) and build my portfolio to be more impressive. I have also decided that for the first years as a designer I will also take classes to help me transition to a grad program by the age of 28. I want to go into either the highly competitive field of medical illustration or the promising field of art therapy.

This break has consisted of a lot of confused relaxation. It's always odd going from "Hell Week" to a nice break. Painting, naps, reading, InNOut at the park at night, reuniting with my Starbucks usual order and my bestie, a walk at Landpark... I'd say the break's off to a great start!