Life Update 03.11.2020

Gothic rib-vault ceiling. Photo by Tom Kamenjack.

It's been a while! So, I had no idea that this niche of mine still exists here online. I just spent the last couple of hours reading some of my old blog posts and playing around with a new theme. Maybe I'll revive this sleeping blog. Maybe not. I don't know. It's nostalgic and at the same time like a time capsule, from another me seven years ago.

It's 2020 and a lot has since changed since my last post. I'll go over and fill you in on some of the details in the last "twenteen" decade. Let's see...

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In 2014, I enrolled myself in a 25-week Living Waters program to deal with the struggles I had regarding behavioral addiction problems and false intimacies. The latter half of this year was spent recollecting my broken self. I finished my undergraduate thesis and while waiting for my graduation day, got myself a job in a small architectural firm. I was mostly on the production of contract documents used in construction, with a bit on the schematic and design development for new projects.

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In 2015, I finally graduated from college and got my Bachelor's Degree in Architecture. I left my first design firm and switched on a non-government organization, teaching out-of-school youths marketable and specialized construction skills, while managing projects in the field of heritage conservation --- mostly centuries-old churches built during the Spanish-Colonial period. I spent the next four years here falling further deeply in love with church history, liturgy, and research. I also had a health crisis that will be changing the course of how I view and live my life.

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In 2016, I fell ill around the later half of the year and decided while recovering to spend the rest of the remaining months studying for the upcoming Licensure Examinations. I enrolled myself for review classes, had a great time burying myself for hours and hours studying, made some awesome study buddies and grew my hair to about shoulder-length <laughs>.

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In 2017, I took the Licensure Examinations for Architects (LEA), passed and had myself registered as a full-pledged licensed Architect. It was one of the most surreal time of my life. For my old-time blog visitors, I started this niche to cope with the stress I had in the university as an architecture student. Looking back, I'm not even sure if I wanted to be an architect enough to merit where I am right now. I was truly just going with the flow, to be honest, but I somehow knew it was the right track for me to traverse at the time. Later, I would continue with my job on heritage conservation and would enroll myself for graduate studies to supplement and complement what I had been learning on-field all along. I had a lot of problems with politics in my working culture and environment, but I was getting by. I also started to lose my luscious locks and embraced balding. 

I think it was also around this time where I finally had this sense that I am being called to a life other than the married vocation and the priestly vocation. I was content being single and had regularly attended a weekly group with chastity as its primary goal. The catholic group truly is a gem that had nourished me spiritually and sacramentally through thick and thin. My love for the Mother Church and her heritage --- all her Truth, Goodness, and Beauty --- only grew, as well as my confidence to use my knowledge in architecture and history only for the service of the Church.

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In 2018, while actively working for the NGO and studying for graduate school, the toxic work environment had started to take its toll on me. I reacted by looking for a place elsewhere in the academe and was considered for a part-time position as a lecturer in my old university. As much as I wanted to teach history, I was only given Building Laws and Tropical Architecture, which to my surprise, I had a great time teaching. Tensions in the faculty did not spare me, and while I was doing well and had a sense of satisfaction, juggling three concerns in my head at all times really was too much.

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In 2019, I was at my wit's end. I quit my job in the latter half of the year and stopped going to classes in my graduate school, with no further intention of ever finishing. After a couple of years, chasing one goal after another, and trying to accomplish as much as I can with as little time (I hear people with a ticking time bomb, had this tendency), my passion had grown thin and weary. I figured it was a perfect time to slow down and just enjoy living. I took classes in graphic design and 2D animation while trying to figure things out.

I never stopped loving church history, and liturgy. I never stopped sketching, and making illustrations and reading the Lives of Saints because these creative activities and hobbies have given me life. I have a growing interest in iconography and hagiography (Click here for my DeviantArt Gallery!)

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Fast forward today in 2020, I just started a new job for a small design firm specializing in liturgical and ecclesiastical architecture. For anyone who has been with a start-up company, you know how it is with the birth struggles. Health-wise, I'm doing relatively good (amidst an impending public health crisis aka plague with the COVID-19 and the Novel Corona Virus). The world truly has changed a lot in the last couple of years.

It's funny when I think of myself as a grown man when all I could do right now is crawl back here where it all began. I stopped journaling a few years ago shortly after I stopped blogging. I missed writing and putting my thoughts out here for anyone who cares to dedicate a couple minutes to stop by and read. 

It may look like that I'm holding up pretty good for an average millennial, but with our age marked by uncertainty, all I could really do is to try to live one day at a time, write a piece in the stillness and quiet of my room, and narrate this story to myself. Just to make sense out of my restlessness, even for just a bit.

Update 06.07.12 - Retablo

What's keeping me busy all summer.

Creative Juice #040: Saintly Sketch

I skecthed this while inside the convent. Hehe~ 

St. Ezekiel Moreno, patron saint of cancer patients
and Mary, Our Lady of the Beatitudes :)

Creative Juice #039: Logo Making

My first try in logo-making as a potential commission for a baby products company. Could have utilized a set of more vibrant colors don't you think? I dropped the project a week after because of time constraints. Pffft.

Creative Juice # 037: Product Branding & Layout

I've always wanted to try product branding. I remember it was something I used to do as a boy who often get lost in the imaginative depths of my brain while sketching fast food meals and beverages. A friend from the fine arts realm asked me for help in a crammed exercise that was meant to be done in Photoshop. With her instructions and my beginner's prowess and enthusiasm for layout, here's what became the product of our creative juices. Everything was hastily done, but not bad for my first try in product branding eh? 

Before: The original scanned product wrapper of Cream-O Deluxe.

After: From the brain juice of yours truly: 'Mapapa-ooohhh sa sarap!'

Creative Juice #036: My Rizalian Report

Chapter V - At the University of Santo Tomas (1877-1882)
Sketches done at the back of old pizza boxes :)

Site Review: David Lanham

It was a 'like button' at first sight :) I knew it right then from the moment I saw his familiar name in the somatic icon packs i've been downloading from IconFactory. The icons were what I'd call horrendously irresistible and cute! But it was like brain juice bursting from within the depths of my creative reserve when I saw his sketches and illustrations from his personal site. Giddy!!! Pinch me my creative juices are overflowing :) ahihihi~ Here are samples of his vector art goodness :) 

Creative Juice #035: OdoSketch

Here's my first shot at making a masterpiece in Odosketch - entitled 'Seminarian' :) 

Stumbled upon the site while bloghopping. It's super simple to use and 

I just looove its sketchy aesthetic :) Why not try making yours?

Odosketch seeks to recreate the decidedly non-digital experience of working with a sketchbook. Its papery textures, variety of brushes and intentional imperfections make you forget you're working on a screen.

We also added a playback feature that recreates a drawing from empty canvas to the completed piece animating the drawer's brush strokes (complete with erasures, cross-outs and do overs) and revealing the creative process at work.

ArchInspire #022: SARAT Low-Cost Housing for the Aetas

We crammed another research and design translation. Haha. So here's a preview of our group's work-in-progress in Housing and Human Settlements - a low-cost housing project for the Aeta indigenous community  of Floridablanca, Pampanga. Kept my group busy for the past two days. Forgive the rather sloppy grammar - it's the product of two coffee-saturated sleepless nights :) Tomorrow is 'Indigenous People Sunday!' How timely my post is :)

Creative Juice #034: Pet Name Tags

My friend - the Feisty Feline - approached me regarding the design of name tags that were supposed to be used for pets in their parish's upcoming event on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi - which is the blessing of pets. Below are some of the preliminary layouts I've came up bound for comments and revisions. 

I wanted the tags to reflect the solemnity of the event so for the first batch, I used toned down earth colours - sepia and olive, old Christian illustrations of St. Francis, and even tweaked a photo of a religious brother walking a pack of dogs. But apparently, it came a bit too formal for the occasion which my friend doesn’t really have in mind. So I came up with a second batch that reflects a fun design with the use of Pet Society characters (found over Google Image Search Engine) and a more playful variety of colours. 

Here you can see the influences I've mentioned and the overall creative process I went through:

Solemn and a rather formal approach.

A mash of the traditional graphics and playful Pet Society illustration.

Dominant cartoony illustrations but with a reserved color hue.
(Notice the background I used: it was one of The Creative Dork's illustrations I shamelessly
copy-pasted and cropped without due permission T_T)

Fun and playful cartoons and a color palette
that ironically reminds me of an LGBT advocacy group. Yikes!

Creative Juice #033: Scribbles and Line Art

The last month of August was the month of the renowned Ilocos Heritage Tour in our college. It was said that you can never appreciate the beauty of Philippine Architecture without seeing for yourself some of the best well-preserved structures in the northern city of Vigan in Ilocos Norte. Truly it was one of the most memorable trips I've had so far in my life.

And that is exactly the theme of my creative juice feature for the day. I just remember I had hundreds of photos of that trip from last year. Photo-tweaking with Adobe Photoshop CS5 still remains one of my favorite past time (since last week). I was actually watching a video tutorial of how to turn your photo into a painting when I had a light bulb popped right above my head with one of the steps :) A lot of modifications and explorations later and I came with a final result that looked like a carefully scribbled monochrome art illustration - pretty much like the ones you'll see in the books of Architect George Salvan. I was hyped :)

A souvenir shop in Calle Crisologo

Commercial establishments in Metro Vigan.

The ubiquitous Calesa - a horse-drawn carriage :)

The 17th-century Sta. Monica Church in the town of Sarrat, Ilocos Norte.

Creative Juice #032: Adobe Photoshop Madness

Handling Adobe Photoshop CS5 was pretty hard for someone who has no background with any of its previous versions. But truly I say to you, it was like ‘love at first sight.’ A new optical laser mouse, a Youtube downloader software, and hundreds of video tutorials online - these are the tools that have been very essential for me for the past few days that I've dedicated in truly learning Adobe Photoshop CS5. 

I feel like an oldie for not playing as early enough with the most celebrated photo-editing tool ever invented. But heck, when it comes to squeezing and stimulating those neurons to produce the much desired graphic goodness, nothing is ever too late for such a junkie like me. So here's a couple of my photo-tweaks :) I'll keep this up and my next stop will be Jindu rendering!

(Top) My first try at changing the sky; (Bottom) Better than any oil painting canvas

Hands-on with the new 'refine edge' tool and 'content aware' tool of CS5
and an accidental Twilight-worthy digital make-up discovery.

Creative Juice #031: The City

NYC - Mindrelic Timelapse from Mindrelic on Vimeo.

Awe-inspiring clip filmed at the Big Apple. This one's a reposted entry too. Grabbed it the first second I realized it was a similar video of The Mountain I also reposted a while back.

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I've been down in the dumps for a couple of weeks now but my timely date-slash-fellowship with two girl friends yesterday refreshed my diminishing servings of hope. We crashed another friends home and had a talk-a-thon, ate lunch with some carinderia food, walk-a-thoned at Luneta, window shopped at Robinson's Place Manila, dinner merienda at Shakey's and finally topping off the day with some classic comedy favorite - Kimidora :) I am so looking forward and hyped at our Thursday's indie film marathon XD Yipee!

Creative Juice #29: Acoustical Tonsil Productions, Inc.

Primarily conceived for the visual consummation of the respective celebrity-wannabes featured, here are the latest products of my brain juice: three new albums from a fictionated musical records group, Acoustical Tonsil Productions, Inc., featuring rising stars in the world of Pinoy Pop and OPM – Banine, Papi Bee, and Robiewill. 

A brush from my rusting layout skills and a sprinkle of wit and wordplay from the daily antics of my closest friends in the university gave birth to these promotional posters slash CD cover designs of three hot-new record launching labels. So much for designing for a chief cause of advertisement, I could have sworn most of the titles in the albums are sure-fire parental red flags making no mama in this country a teensy-bit proud. Haha. (The finished images below are all just a product of the author's imagination. The use of any existing legal labels/components/logos in the said works were not intended for promotional purposes).

Banine: Pinay Prosimian Princess

Dinuguang Bopis: A Musical Anthology of Papi B

Robiewill: The Melody of Neneng Serbesa

Project: 'Manila Paper' at Sir Mots

Project: Manila Paper, apparently, is the great Sir Mot's version of Ben Heime's Pencil vs. Camera. It was a brain juice explosion at first sight I just can't help myself from reposting this scrumptious eye-candy. Taken at different ubiquitous places and landmarks around Manila, the project came from the primordial brain soup of conceptual artist slash photographer Raffy Parcon. My favorites are of course the architectural creative shots shown below :) For more of Project: Manila Paper, visit Sir Mot's yummy blog here. All photo credit goes to Sir Mots and his partners in this endeavor :)

Manila City Hall

Manila Cathedral, Intramuros

Sang building to?

Filipino-Chinese Friendship Arc at Binondo, Manila

Site Review: The Online DataBase for Philippine Architecture

Image borrowed from The Resident Architect

To all Filipino Architects, Architecture Students and Philippine Architecture Enthusiasts, here's a promising site that will be a consolidation of free, web-based information and exhibition of notable Philippine Architecture and Architects. (Reblogged from The Resident Architect)


Check their site by clicking this link - www.arkitektura.ph

Creative Juice #028: Year Zero Fashion Show

Stolen Facebook photos of my elementary-crush-turned-super-gorgeous-college-model classmate walking the runway at a UST-CFAD fashion show entitled Black Easter Year Zero last year. LOL. These eye-candy photographs are so worth looking at when stumped by an unwarranted creative block. See, I've always had this thing on men's apparel I'd love to give a shot someday given the chance. I am particularly astounded to see how close and true the finished garments are to the final designer sketches. I'm literally salivating with creative juices right now :D

My most sincere apologies to the owner of these photos, please kindly leave a comment / message for any request to delete the said images.

Shutterbug Wannabe #019: Blurred

Taken during a not-so-long-ago double-date slash celebratory party of my bro with his best mates passing the licensure exams for Civil Engineers. Saw these while doing a clean-up in our hard drive. We had a vocal blast belting our hearts out at Timezone in Trinoma and filled our starving gastro-innards with fine food and a pitcher-full margharita at Gerry's Grill (Sky Garden - SM North). I remembered how irritated we were at our inferior Olympus digital camera. It wasn't only until now I realized what desirable effects it made on some of the photos.

Creative Juice #027: Bonsai Artwork

The digital artwork above is so giving me an idea for my thesis proposal :)
Image borrowed here

Creative Juice #026: World First BioCar

Image borrowed here

World renowned Filipino product designer Kenneth Cobonpue has created the world’s first and only biodegrable car made out of bamboo and rattan called the Phoenix.

Cobonpue is known for his signature designs using natural fibres and materials. The Phoenix is his latest venture in partnership with design apprentice Alberth Birkner which is created using rattan, steel, bamboo and nylon. Showcased for the first time at the “Imagination and Innovation” exhibit at Milan, the Phoenix is a testament of high quality craftsmanship to create an environmental friendly solution to transport.

Cobonpue collects and tinkers with vintage cars and is an ardent car lover. However, his concern for the environment is the true inspiration behind this design. When pressed upon this Cobonpue states that though car manufacturing has been a hi-technology process employing robots and complex processes, maybe all that can be done away by a simple handmade solution.


Read more at Good News Pilipinas