Support my Sub at Threadless!

First of all, YEAH I NOTICED THAT ALL OF MY OTHER PHOTOS ARE GONE. I wish I can just go cry in the corner and wish all the photos re-appear but that will never happen according to this link: Blogspot Users Lost All Their Photos. Seriously pissed at Google+!

Anyhoo, please score my Threadless design sub and help it get printed! There will be 10 winners for this contest and I am praying that I be one of the 10. I seriously need the prize money to pay for the productions of the Slate Planners for 2012! So, you're not just scoring my sub, you're being very supportive of my business too! Haha :)

Score this design: "Le coeur de Manille!," to help it get printed on Threadless!

"


Salamat!

All the best,
SFM

Random Break~

Hey all!

I made a Tumblr account for all my recent illustrations! I didn't realize I have so few done this year!
I should finish one more before June comes! I should, I should!

Also, I've updated the Planet Slate blog! Look how alive it is now:

I'm gonna work on the layout some more when I find time.


All the best!
SFM


♬ Listening to Coldplay's Death and All His Friends
No I don't want to battle from beginning to end~

A Nebular Escape

'Nebular', An illustration~

 The feeling of sand in between your toes

The sun’s rays touching your toasty skin
The cool breeze that goes through your hair
Take me to the beach, take me!~

TypoGraphic!

The past weekend, I tried to update my portfolio and realized, it is basically non-existent.
I mean, the last few works that I have there are from 2008 (from when I was in art school)!
And so, that weekend, I tried to make something relatively worthy to put in my portfolio. I came up with this:

Read, Dream, Soar~

A month ago, I stumbled upon Isaac Salazar’s book art on flickr and got inspired to do this.
I used one of my most favorite nebula (after The Eagle Nebula), The Orion Nebula as background. Here are the close ups:

Planet Slate Posters ミ★

Here are some of the posters I made for Slate:

Cause Cats Love Fashion Too ♥

Beautiful things captured on beautiful photos can rule my world anytime...and some of those beautiful photos can be seen over at SeaOfShoes.com by Jane Aldridge. It is one of my favorite blogs to read and follow.

A couple of weeks ago, I read about a contest on Jane Aldridge's blog. You are to choose to draw an outfit from any Spring 2011 collection. As I read it, I decided I had to join. I mean, I HAD to because I just saw a really cool outfit that I wanted to draw with a chic cat wearing it...in London! See her at the left part of this page? 

That top with the scarf print is  the brainchild of Marco Zanini, Creative Director for Rochas  Women's RTW Spring 2011 Collection. I love Marco Zanini's designs. Wait, scratch that. I love Marco Zanini! I love his designs. I must be honest though that I haven't heard about him before late this year and I'm in the stage of finding out more about this genius. I'm not really a fashion junkie so that explains a lot on why I don't know a lot about him (so my resolution is: get a lot of help from Vogue.com & Fashionologie! Harhar).

Anyhooo, as for the other entries, I am enjoying browsing through all of them. All the illustrations are so lovely :) I kinda passed my submission late so I'm okay not seeing mine posted on the photo pool. ALL of the entries can be found HERE. 

♬ Listening to The Killers' Goodnight, Travel Well~

Take the Cake!

Have you seen Google’s landing page today?
Look! It’s a Google cake!

Apparently, it’s Google’s birthday today.
Happy 12th Birthday, Google!

I realize that there has always been cake in my life. Every birthday, no misses, there is cake! When I was 12 years old, the lady who took care of us (when my parents were away) baked me a chocolate cake and rainbow cupcakes. The cake topper was a Sailor Venus plastic action figure. I still remember the house smelling so sweet. I even helped spread the icing on and then licked it off the spatula. Oh how I miss home baked goodies!

Anyway, before I linger deep into my love for cake and anything sweet, look what the Google photo reminded me of:

This is an illustration I made for a contest at Design By Humans’ Facebook fan page. The goal was to make a word that is what it is. Does it look good enough to eat? Y/N? :O

Oh, I almost forgot, today is the birthday of one of my best friends in the whole wide world, Jarra! I miss her so much! I hope she gets some good rest and her favorite cake!

Champagne & cakes,
SFM

PS> Click on the Google links and find weird and funny Google-related things! 

♬ Listening to James Morrison’s You GIve Me Something
For every piece of me that wants you
Another piece backs away~

Drawings Weekly: The Old Woman Who Lived In A Bespoke Shoe

Click on me to view a larger version

I was searching Google for handmade shoes the other day and saw this intricate white bespoke shoe. It is to be worn by the bride on her wedding day. Although in my eyes it looked like an elf's, it was still very beautiful. And then for some strange reason,  out of nowhere really, I thought of the old woman who lived in a shoe. Wouldn't it be so grand to live in such a luxurious piece of handmade shoe? Then I remembered that the old woman who lived in a shoe was very much poor and had too many kids and had little food to feed them. I wanted to create my very own illustration of the woman who lived in a shoe but I wanted to make her happy and stay away from the negative story that the child's poem narrates to us. In my illustration, she has 6 kids, a husband, a dog and a cat, a telescope and a very cool inflatable pool that ll the neighbors envy. Isn't it wonderful?

Fly Away On My Zephyr

My artworks at times get a high dose of rainbow shots and  as much as I want it to not look like it has been vomited by a double rainbow, it just looks like it. Below is an example of an artwork I made years back:

Daily Random: Whistle While You Work!

Look at that! The woodland creatures are tyring to measure how long my hair is! Hahaha.

Whistling while I work,
SFM

♬ Listening to Wheels by the Foo Fighters

Smile Like You Mean It~

Save some face, you know you only got one~

Yes, that is my face and my curly hair.
SFM

♬ Listening to Sam's Town & Hot Fuss albums by The Killers ★

You better run for the hills before they burn
Listen to the sound of the world, don't watch it turn
I just want to show you what I know 
And catch you when the current lets you go~

Brain Farts at Eat, Sleep, Draw! ★

If you have Tumblr, then you prolly have been to Eat, Sleep, Draw.

Eat, Sleep, Draw is a site that features hundreds of illustrations, sketches, paintings, drawings and other artworks that are submitted by followers all over the world everyday!

Here's an Eat, Sleep, Draw banner I made that got posted. For some creative outlet, why don't you submit your art and banners? :)

Let the record plaaay!
SFM

♬ Listening to Good Charlotte songs; Dance Floor Anthem & Keep Your Hands Off My Girl. "They said Ahhhhha! But the record keeps playing the same old song"

My Heart Upon My Sleeve, Iago

I was browsing through my old stuff and found a thick pocket book covered in dust. It was Shakespeare's Othello. Though much of the story I have already forgotten, I still remember this one character, a man of villainous veins, a felon written so poetically that I wish I could've crossed paths with him in my past life: Iago. 

I had to look for these lines on the internet as I remember this is the phrase (?) where the title of this entry originated from. Haven't you heard this line in so many pop songs and didn't know it was Shakespeare who coined it?


IAGO:

It is as sure as you are Roderigo,

Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:
In following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end:
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.

In Transit : Braver & Bolder Becomes Me

Movies are like cheat sheets you can get a lot of pick up lines from...or if you're like me, you not only get quotes from them, you live through these movies.

I am inclined to liking films that speak of finding yourself, getting lost through the journey, taking chances - those sorts of cliches. (Cliche? Y/n?)

I suppose, the movies that I fancy speak a lot about things that I want to do in life. At 22, I am at crossroads. I am a lost soul: I am looking for my place in the industry I've decided to work in, I'm in the midst of deciding which career path to take and I am burnt out, high and dry!

I am in dire need of a holiday. I long to get lost, twilight and do things that I love.

While I save up for a vacation, here's a showcase of some of my favorite lines and quotes from some of my most loved movies that I turned into postcards last year:

  Into the Wild (2007), Starring Emile Hirsch

Weekend Wackness : Capsule Dinos!

As you may have noticed (or not), one of the items in my previous illustration is of a swimming dinosaur inside a shot glass.
Wouldn't it be a better place if we had miniature dinosaurs that fit shot glasses?

What I would do to make these babies real even just for an hour~

Forget about those cute micro pigs, adorable teacup puppies and squish-worthy toy dogs.
Say hello to SHOT GLASS DINOS!

A Thumbelina Triceratops!

A Tom Thumb T-Rex (Did you just read Tom as Thom?)

And even a Tinker Velociraptor! (Saw what I did there? Hahaha)

Oh hey, some bad photoshoppping on my end! Haha

Since dinosaurs are like...uhmmm... extinct, my brothers and I bought something close to that: We bought foam dinosaurs in capsules!

All you have to do with the capsules is soak them in hot water and watch them grow (or force them to "grow" by poking the capsule with a toothpick...or a ball point pen if you wish).

Aside from the possible brain damage caused by the ridiculous smell of the melting plastic capsules, the foam dinosaurs turned out okay.

The Capsule Animals Set includes 12 capsules in 4 colors. The set sells for about $1.
WHAT A STEAL, I say, what a steal!

The green one is a Triceratops, the yellow one a Diplodocus, the blue one an Oviraptor, the red one a Utahraptor

One of my favorites is the herbivore dino, the Diplodocus.
She's that yellow one in the center.
It looks so happy and dinosaur-y. Y/y?
I'm naming him Yellow Foam Happy Diplodocus Dinosaur or YFHDD for short.

So anyway, while you absorb the concept of real live shot glass dinos, I'm off to naming all these foam dinos and maybe change YFHDD's name. It may be too long. He might not remember it when I call for him.

Very Cherry Jelly Belly Beans,
SFM

♬  Listening to Runaway Train by Brandon Boyd's Newest Solo Project, The Wild Trapeze Album (What an awesome album! Wonder how many days until mine gets shipped~)

"Seems to be, that being in the middle is starting to get me in trouble
Try to run away, but they have a talent for making trouble seem enjoyable
Oh the more I try to separate, the better it feels to get right in the way
Should I douse the spark or fan the flames
Or merely think of clever things to say?"

Vector Mucho?

This is a portrait I made of Jalon, an extraordinary artist in Spain.

I kinda messed up his visible eye but I still love this portrait~

This is Nil Bartolozzi, an artist in Barcelona~

I love the colors on this one and the lines too.

I guess everyone's picked it up by now that I am as much as a vector illustrator as I am a female. I don’t know exactly what I meant by that but it sounds right, doesn’t it?

The Art of SoulPancake

A few  months back, I discovered a website where I can ask & answer questions, ponder on some talk points and throw my ideas out to a community that would actually come back to me and let me know what they think. It's a very engaging website were conversations are created and simple ideas grow into complex ones. You can find a spectrum of subjects to talk about and explore like art, philosophy, whathaveyous. The site is called SoulPancake. In SoulPancake, no opinions are discriminated and no views are blocked! It's some what motto is : CHEW ON LIFE'S BIG QUESTIONS.

SoulPancake on "What is SoulPancake?": It's a place for you to TALK about your soul and the existence of God. It's a space to ENGAGE in art, philosophy, creativity, truth, and beauty. And ultimately, SoulPancake is a community of people who are digging DEEPER to figure out what it means to be human and to experience this rich, strange, difficult, and awesome journey called life. 

At first, it can be intimidating to join in on conversations and or answer some questions posted, but if you open your mind to the possibility of getting back something in exchange of putting your thoughts out there, you will be a very happy and satisfied camper. 

BabyCakes!

I adore lines. Lines, in my opinion, make my illustrations look less naked. 

A few months ago, I saw a photo of this squish-worthy baby in Tumblr.

It reminded me of Neil Gaiman’s short, Babycakes and so it resulted to the illustration below.

The whole illustration is basically made up of lines and layers and layers of color. I couldn't give justice to this baby's eyes though. They are of a cat's! They're so beautiful.  

I don't know if you get the idea behind the toys I drew in. Closest guess, gets a kiss! Haha.

Babycakes is one of my favorite shorts by Gaiman. It’s about how one day, animals disappeared and in place of them, humans used babies…to eat, to test products on…that kind of creepy. I remember reading this as I listen to Eels' Flyswatter. It's a perfect mix of creepy; song and story! Below this, I've posted a screen shot of the Babycakes artwork done by Jouni Koponen.

You can see and read full Babycakes here.

Cheers!

SFM

♬ Listening to: Monster by The Automatic! & Flyswatter by Eels

☮ Wearing my tan skirt from 6th grade! Haha.

Some Facts About My Toys & My Hair

This is by far my favorite illustration of my 9 year old self (not that I had plenty).
Unlike some of my illustrations, this comes with a background story~