FELIZ NAVIDAD Y BON NADAL

Next to shopping and a shot or two of Jeiger, there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.



Mi abuelito used to tell me and my hermana this when we were little, "Esta noche es Noche-Buena, Y no Es noche de dormir" which means "Tonight is the good night and it is not meant for sleeping!"

Natural high, YES! I couldn’t stop myself from singing, “cascabel cascabel, suena cascabel, este dia en trineo vamos a pasear, Navidad Navidad hoy es Navidad, es un dia de Alegria Y felicidad!!!!”

ON MENSWEAR AND 30 MODEL SET CARDS LATER

It has been a week since I last posted.

Friday, The unofficial end of my week. NOT! Three tropical typhoons, 30 model set cards and a stampede of workload after, I am still at my desk trying to figure out how this online time entry works.



On the brighter side, my day was punctuated by a copy of the broadsheet my friend sent via courier with the article I wrote a few weeks back on menswear and getting it right. Hah!

I still have another article due y mi día no ha terminado todavía! Can someone get me a glass of martini!

Anyone?

FELIZ NAVIDAD!

Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo to everyone from Buddha Banana and no, I'm not in Tijuana - just south of the border haha



Little Christmas Tree
Promise you will be
Nobody else's little Christmas tree
I'll make you sparkle, just you wait and see
My little Christmas tree

AM NO ABERCROMBIE & FITCH GUY BUT I WEAR WEAJUNS AND SHORT SHORTS

I remember mom would make me wear pink, khaki and plaid when I was little and pulled it off quite nicely. Shirts and shorts mostly from Lacose, Le Tigre and her all time 80’s favorite Collezione – yes, that store along J. Bocobo street in Ermita.

My parents believed in traditional clothing and viewed it not as a style but as clothes worn for generations. Suddenly, I have gone back in time when I used to borrow dads Weejuns to school and wear my Tretorns to church. I never gave up and it has been my uniform since god knows when.

Growing up down south, my summers were usually spent waking up early, hitting the fairway at eight in the morning with cousins and sometimes with my dad when I was 9 and ending the day hitting a few buckets at the driving range.





Vincent Schoepfer's Gossip Boy S/S 2010

The past few days, I have been frequently checking out Vincent Schoepfer’s Gossip Boy collection for S/S 2010. His collection simply embraces the dapper philosophy of waistcoats, henleys, prints and bow-ties creating a modern uniform of travel.

BUY CURIOUS

Photo credit:projectmanila.com

I really enjoy my shopping, so much that I was bleeding internally ( yes, I didn’t shop when I was in La Bella Zamboanga) during my two weeks vacation down south and therapy has been suggested by my mom on occasion. But even I have to step up and say something.

It’s January and summer has sprung? Look around – seersucker, Bermudas and bright “hello sunshine” clothes have already hit the stores. Hello! I just took our Christmas tree down today.

I’m used to summer clothes coming out late February, early March … but mid-January? It gets earlier and earlier every year. The heat hasn’t even made his prediction for summer yet, but that doesn’t stop the retail world. My head is spinning with the season’s trends coming and going faster than I can hide the new stuff. I’m getting tired of being rushed to buy something before I actually need it. When I buy clothes, I like to wear them right away. Besides, who knows if I’ll still like them in two months.
(I love my red socks)

Seersuckers and madras have been out for two weeks in some stores and it’s freezing ( what’s up with manilas weather?). I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to start thinking about showing off my hairy legs just yet.

Honestly, I think the retail world would make far more money if it sold the merchandise when it’s in demand. Nevertheless, I took the bait. I ventured into Rustans, to take a peak, do some research, not to buy anything. “I don’t need anything” (that’s the speech I usually give to myself). Of course, two pullovers and a pair of lace-ups later (all for less than php____), and score!

How can I feel guilty at these prices?

Every shop had ridiculous sales going on ( DotDotDot, Rustans, ZARA, Tyler, Etc.), making room for all the new merchandise. I couldn’t just walk by a 70% off sale.
Although it’s still a little early for me to think about wearing Bermudas and the beach, it turned out to be a super-retail bargain day.

FEATURED SKETCH ON STYLESALVAGE

I came across ‘Style Salvage’ last October 14, a London based style blog conveyed by the idea to spread the madness brought about by many years of discussion (ie obsessive analysis) with regards to how men (should) dress, had this challenge that I thought might be cool to revive my old Moleskine. I was blog surfing earlier just right after work and boom, the sketch I submitted got published! Pretty cool huh. Visit stylesalvage at http://stylesalvage.blogspot.com

(My featured sketch at stylesalvage)

MORITA OIL AND ACRYLIC ON CANVAS SERIES 8X12

In ‘morita’, an extended series of my acrylic and oil paintings on canvas, nonobjective female abstraction and representational color play merge and intersect. New perceptions and associations derive from combining these two formidable visual forces. The idioms often form an unexpectedly satisfying equilibrium. In other instances, polarity creates tension between the diverse approaches.

( Morita series 8X12. I should start painting on a bigger canvas again)

The series ‘morita’ was initiated in August 2007 and I continue its development. It is a fertile and compelling challenge to use distinct traditions in new ways. Juxtaposition and convergence generate results that are visually and conceptually powerful, lyrical, subtle, restrained or flamboyant. As disparate forms converge, exciting and surprising results emerge.

Although ‘morita’ has not yet been exhibited, I look forward to showing selected examples of the fifteen painting series in the near future.

Here’s a sampling - the spacing is all wrong, but it will look something like this on exhibit.

The whole thing will display at about a wall.

Note: 3 out of the 6 series aint done yet

GROWING-UP PREPPY DOWN SOUTH

I was brought up by mom and dad wearing preppy clothes and I always went back to them. Preppy is the easiest way to dress. When in doubt, wear a crisp white or pastel dress shirt, a v-neck sweater and a pair of dark salvage jeans or pull out your favorite pique shirt ( think Lacoste, le Tigre) – it’s foolproof . Mom even dressed me up with classic collezione (That old boutique in Bacobo St. near UN Avenue) and madras shorts to a party when I was 6, topsider look huh? I prefer east coast style, but in Manila weather, you almost want to wear khaki cargo shorts and a t-shirt just because it’s way damn humid.

(Photo credit - www.sheknowsbest.com)

INK DOODLE 8X10

One of the ink versions I am currently working on for my exhibit using a technique I am currently trying to develop. I will be posting more oil and acrylic doodles soon.

PROJECT DOODLE

This is a drawings done for Pia’s personal project. There will be more weekend doodles coming soon using a technique I am currently trying to develop and I'm excited to see where it takes me.

Weekend advil attack

Let me wrap this weekend up right. I need to get my mind off everything and just have some fun. The past two weeks has been so busy that I hardly have known my own name. Yesterday was a much better day, hopefully today continues to be better. I think I’ll be most thrilled when my sleeping pattern goes back to normal, some sanity for myself wouldn’t hurt either. I’m sticking my head in the sand as to avoid any extra drama in my life. I am an open book, I don't get embarrassed and for sure not shy at all. All this buzz is giving me a headache. I need my bottle of advil back!

( Bored and blogging, a cup of coffee and the view of EDSA from my peep hole)

ON RETAIL AND VINTAGE BIKES

If only mom allowed me to leave for the US for my easter 3 week design and pattern making scholarship at PSD,NY Last year, everything’s sweeter now.

Anywaay – I’m still keeping the FAITH!

( What I'm wearing : Shirt from Hanes, Jacket from E-bay, Jeans from Viktors, lace-ups from Tyler)

I daydream about working as boutique owner at a place like Barcelona or probably Soho. It's the kind of job I think I could be really good at, though I'm sure the pay is crap, but I still daydream, it sure is a goal-attainable dream. (At least, not with my overpriced tiny pad.)

I don’t want to drive a car, I don’t like cars (weird huh) I am contended being a passenger, yeah – just a passenger. I have simple dreams. I just want to own a Bike, a vintage bike. I dream of going to work in shorts, espadrilles and a well tailored dress shirt.

I'm starting to think that sadness is like a bad infection that can take root and turn lots of things to rot around you. It seems to be hanging on some people’s life right now, like a spot on the floor that can't be scrubbed out. I am definitely not the type.

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.
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some doodles from my moleskine sept 27,2007

WHO WEARS SHORT SHORTS - 2

Well I do, and now it is PINK!

Yesterday, I scared the hell out of my cousins by showing up for lunch in preppy pink country club shorts with my gigantically blistered heel literally oozing out over my white leather lace-ups. I sat down and held my legs out so everyone could see how completely massive my entire legs have become with the crazy water retention I've been experiencing for the past few weeks. I can push around on my calves and feel the puffiness in them, and the big muscle aches strangely, as though I've been burning up hours in some kick-butt aerobics step class. I know, rationally, that my gigantic feet and calves are just swollen, but damn, they look hideous. At least in flip-flops. I'm thinking my friends and cousins might not be able to stand the horror either.
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Picture taken at a condominium helipad somewhere along Manila Bay, June 6 2008

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)

MY ART

( L-R , TOP Practice sketch / vintage top - Ink on Paper , practice sketch 2 - Ink on construction paper, Crayola on Styro BOTTOM Watercolor on Paper, Black and White Photos 1 & 2 )

( L-R , TOP Pagpukaw - Ink , watercolor, charcoal on Paper , practice sketch 2 - Ink on construction paper BOTTOM craypas on board Paper - entree )