STRESS BALLS DON’T WORK

The past few weeks have been crazy - countless interviews, more interviews and running around trade halls with my camera and my trusty Moleskine, pop-up art galleries in the park, functions, launches  and last weekend’s Songkran party – when do I ever sleep?

I have been doing practically the same thing ever since I got out of college a few years back and no, I’m not complaining.

This week’s calendar is starting to fill up and it’s just the third week of the month.  Booked, harassed but who cares when you’re working with an inspiring eco-warrior, GQ Men of the Year (2007) a modern-day Ferdinand Magellan with an environmental slant, author and eco-adventurer all packed into one - David de Rothschild!

My jaw literally dropped – he puts his British banking-heir status to good use when he founded Adventure Ecology, an eco-expedition group that “promotes respect and responsibility for our planet, its environment, species and peoples by developing a greater connection with nature and an understanding of the planet’s greatest challenge: climate change,” according to TakingITGlobal.

De Rothchild’s most recent incredible adventure? A 129-day journey across the Pacific aboard the Plastiki, a catamaran built from 12,500 recycled plastic bottles, to raise awareness of marine pollution. Hah! Now, that's something!

Who said you can’t help the environment and look good at the same time?

Catch him as he shares about his expedition on board the Plastiki on April 20, Saturday 11 AM at the Manila Hotel.

Next stop, the island! *time to lose some errr more weight*

Currently on my playlist: Vondelpark

WHAT I HAD IN MY BAG

What I had in my bag over the weekend at the beach.

Currently playing : Animal by Miike Snow

Miike Snow - "Animal" from Downtown Music on Vimeo.

PLAYING HARRIET THE SPY

Good things really happen when you least expect it. Last weekend after a quick trip to Powerplant and the thrift shop a few blocks from the mall, I found out via tweeter that I won myself a new Moleskine Plain Reporter

(The Moleskine Pocket Reporter has a hard cover that flips opens at the top, characteristic of reporter's notebooks.)

thanks to Avalon.ph, the longest running online shopping website in the Philippines.

After 3 long days…It finally got here!

PAPER LOVE

I always find myself tucked in one corner, pouring though images, doodling and making notes over a cup of warm coffee before hitting the sack.


(My Moleskine, a Rhodia pad from Ant and some random page)


(and some...)

My Moleskine has become the ultimate place for all my ideas and it excites me no matter how the pages turn out.

PATTERNS, DOODLES AND A BUCKET LIST

I only take advantage of real luxury once a year when I fly home down south for the holidays like waking up late with breakfast still on the table, afternoon siestas, having five shirts tailored in three days and lazy weekends spent at the farm.

I'm finally back at work after two weeks of not doing anything and have decided to do a bucket list to welcome the new year ( Hey Hey to 2010!). Here they are:

•Have more weekend brunches with good friends ( SALA and M Café has always been a favorite ever since Lumiere closed shop a few years back)


(Photo from hybebeast)

•Have more clothes tailored

•Learn pattern making from mom ( which I should have when I was home for the
holidays)

•Draw, doodle and do whatever on my Moleskine

•Reward myself with a new bag – probably a customized Goyard St. Louis in black and tan

•RECYCLE



•Travel abroad more often ( Barcelona, Paris, New York, Melbourne, Tokyo, Hong-Kong,Taipei and Georgetown)

•Fly to Zamboanga twice a year

•Go to small group and attend Sunday Service more often

•Paint more and hopefully an exhibit



•Visit sisters in Florida

•LOSE WEIGHT (Yes, I no longer look like a ball – more like the world now)

•Improve spiritual life and honeymoon with God more often

•SAVE (like really save!)

•Get a promotion, a raise and probably be assigned overseas

•Walk more

(other photos from slightly north)

SEVEN FOR CHRISTMAS

Every year I compile one long Christmas gift wish list and end up having only half of the items on my list under my own Christmas tree.

This year, I only managed to pick out a handful. I can’t seem to think of anything to get myself. Is Christmas getting more boring each year?

MY CHRISTMAS WISH LIST
1.Mismo heavy duty, plain-woven canvas and detailing in full grain and
vegetable tanned leather Canvas.

2.Tan Miller Washed Brogue by Paul Smith
3.Call me boring but yes, more flannel, plaids and madras
4.Opening Ceremony desert suede boots in black
5.Magazine subscriptions ( Monocle and Wallpaper)
6.New Moleskine
7.And a box of cupcakes from +wondermilk haha someone has got to courier me a box from Kuala Lumpur

DAILY MOLESKINERIE

I always like to take my own sweet time, working on an idea until I believe is done. I sometimes don't know where I will be without my Moleskine for jotting down observations and doodles. It is the analogue tool I couldn’t live without!


(A page from my Moleskine)

ALL YOU NEED IS A PEN

Going old school has always been my thing and my Moleskine became my weapon on choice ever since I got hold of one a couple of years ago. One thing I love about it is its ruggedness and portability. A bit pricey for a notebook but totally worth the money.

(Today’s purchase - a new notebook and yes, it aint Moleskine. I discovered Monologue just now, a bit cheaper and oh, it has more pages than my old moleskine haha and a copy of Canteen/Issue four.)

It’s also a great venue to jot down ideas, an instant sketch pad or record something interesting that I’ve read or heard and yes, you can carry it around whether at a café on a lazy weekend, on a train or in an airplane.


(Photography by Stephen Elliott)

I also got myself a copy of Canteen, a literary magazine loaded with poetry, art and photography designed to look more like a fine art book than a dusty journal – such a steal for $10. I’m totally loving it!

LAST PAGE SKETCH - MOLESKINE

The fine adjustment, scalpel, infraspinatus
Then,
Champaigne, river, a pencil and some scratch papers

As described by my university literary folio editor ( Ateneo’ 2001)

MOLESKINE DOODLE

I am sitting among my unfinished paintings from my most recent series. In it, I separate my character into colors and superego and let the two fight-over topics such as the future direction of my art. The cycle of my self-love / self loathing desires. As I write, I find my works to be much more compelling. Most of my paintings posted here is an effort to give an image to the character.
---
some doodles from my moleskine sept 27,2007

Mandela and our black little notepads

Two white South African guys seated beside me at EN07 literally laughed like "Hah-hah-hah-hah!" in tandem with one another and then end the Hah-chain with a big "Ohhhhhhhhhh." REPEATEDLY. Over my little black notebook.

South African Boy1 : sweet man, how much did you get it for?
Me : Huh? uhh which one? My bag?
South African Boy1: nope, your notebook.
Me: ohh hahaha around $20 USD, why?
South Africans (took their books out too from their pockets) We've got ours for like $12 USD
Me: What? TOTALLY CHEAP!
( we all started laughing )
South African boy2 : (Laughs) BTW, we're from Capetown. I'm James and he's Stephen....yup, moleskine addicts too.. and you are?
Me: ( Laughs) oh Ram here.
South African Boy2 : From Guam?
South African Boy1 : New Zealand? You Maori?
Me: huh? Nope ( smiles) uhh Manila - Welcome to the Philippines! ( Shows my gray EN07 ID)
( we all just started giggling)
You're guys are not distracting anyone with your solid pale blue poly/cotton top.

Some late doodles - why DOODLE?

Do you doodle? Many people love to scribble away absent-mindedly, and often these doodles can carry a great deal of meaning, and for the artist, can sometimes be the source of inspiration for serious artworks.

Often, its just boredom. People are not wired for doing nothing – with a long prehistory of precarious existence, people need to be constantly engaged in productive action. Laziness is a sure recipe for extinction. Neither are we wired for the purely cerebral activity that so man

y of us are now employed in – we are designed to work with our hands, to scan the horizon with our eyes, and walk long miles. So, we fidget, twitch, fiddle and doodle whenever we are forced to sit still and inactive for any period of time.

Doodling is also an outlet for frustrated artistic expression. The arts in our society have become ‘spectator sports’ reserved for the talented, while the rest of us are too embarrassed to sing (except in the shower), dance (except for some foot-tapping) or draw (except for doodling). These fundamental outlets for creative expression have been stymied by a combination of social pressure (fear of inadequacy) and lack of training (our overfull school curriculums leaving little room for the arts, combined with a flawed view of artistic development as innate and not to be ‘messed with’ by education).
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Doodles from my moleskine, Sept 2007 ( artwork by Raul Ramon Lopez-Vito Bucoy II)

DOODLES FROM MY MOLESKINE

Doodles from my Moleskine journal. ( August 02,2007)