In the Summer of 2021, I bought my first drawing pad after failing to learn how to use my drawing tablet. I decided to take up online courses to learn new skills in creating art and using digital painting techniques. For my first course, I picked "Introduction to Children's Illustration" by Adolfo Serra. It took me a month to finish the course as I was juggling my time for work and business, too. There were four units in the course, first being introduction, learning and sharing about myself as an artist and my influences and inspirations. I created my first self-portait using my drawing pad which is my most recent photo that day.

Self-portrait sketch for my first activity for an online Illustration course. Ang hirap sketch ng face😭 *kill me now* pic.twitter.com/rIN0y6A20T

— Cedie♔ (@cedzabala) June 17, 2021

For the second unit, we learned about the concept of Children's Illustrations. We approach the children's illustration with a selection of books. We pay special attention to the relationship between text and image, the composition and the narrative. As illustrators, we reinterpret stories through images. The text is the starting point. We'll read between the lines and find what's hidden through sketches and mental maps. I chose one of the most popular Filipino children's story, "The Monkey and the Turtle" written by our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal. This is a fable he wrote and illustrated himself, which many also considered him as the first Filipino cartoonist. The story is about a turtle and his mischievous friend, monkey. The story has a lot of illustrated and animated versions, and as I was researching I picked up some details that helped me in coming up with my sketches.

Catching up with my online course on Children's Illustration. In this exercise, I chose a story, created a mental map and sketched initial scenes. I chose the popular Filipino fable by Dr Jose Rizal, "Ang Pagong at ang Matsing" 🐒🐢🍌 pic.twitter.com/ms2Z64upa0

— Cedie♔ (@cedzabala) June 21, 2021

The character design is based on indigenous animals, the Philippine long tailed macaque and the Philippine Sea Turtle, as opposed to the commonly depicted tortoise which can't swim! I decided to give the turtle tortoise legs so it can stand up for illustration purposes. I also gave them personalities. Monkey has a cap worn backwards, showing his rebellious, naughty and bullish look. While turtle looks like a nerd with specs. I made a concept map to guide me in this process. In my sketches, I tried to make different compositions, poses, angles, and even lighting to depict the emotion and action of the story. I found it hard to imagine the composition and poses, so I constantly looked back from other illustrations and even character references of monkeys to help me in the sketching process. I think I did pretty okay, but needs a lot of refinement. But this are just the first few steps.

The third unit is the meatiest part of the course. I learned a lot about different traditional illustrations techniques such as using inks for painting, monotyping and creating collages. It's more about getting your hands dirty and experimenting on different techniques to come up with effects or textures that you can use. Unfortunately, I didn't have the materials to do it myself. For the activity, we have to choose a scene and create a final sketch. For my final illustration, I chose this pivotal scene in my chosen story. The mischievous monkey betrayed his friend and climbed his banana tree and ate all the fruits one night. When the turtle learned about this, he had enough of his tricks so he placed some stingers under the tree. I just love this moment because, for the first time, the turtle is fighting back from his bully.

Then, after watching a very informative series of video demos on inks, brushes, and making collages, I have to make an experimental illustration with my final sketch. I did some changes in the sketch. Matsing is now in a food coma🤣 See next tweet for final illustration🙈 pic.twitter.com/YRc9y43LT1

— Cedie♔ (@cedzabala) June 21, 2021

I chose the POV of the turtle who is secretly installing the sharp thorns while the monkey is busy eating. The composition all points to the monkey which represents his focus on his greed. The next activity is applying the different techniques to create the final illustration. And for the last unit, we have to make final decisions and do the final illustrations. It can be a mixture of everything that we've looked at before or something new combining different techniques. The term mixed technique refers to the process of using two or more artistic techniques together in a single work. We have to choose two other scenes or moments in your story and develop illustrations following the style or technique you have chosen for our first illustration. Here's the first scene that I chose. In the story, monkey and turtle saw a banana tree and decided to split it among themselves. Monkey, who was the first to see it, chose the upper half with the fruits, while turtle got the lower half with only the trunk and roots. Monkey ate all the fruits, giving none to turtle. Both of them planted their half of the tree. Monkey's tree wilted and died, while Turtle's tree, having roots grew and later produced fruits, too. This illustration shows the contrast of the two characters. Monkey is sitting on top of the wilted tree showing his arrogance and dominance, while turtle is under his tree as if he is the source of its nutrients, showing his caring and humble nature. For my second illustration, I recreated my watercolor painting into a digital illustration to be consistent with the style of the first illustration. Although this is a night scene, I used lighter colors in the background than dark colors so it will be more cohesive with the other two drawings. My last drawing shows the ending of the fable. When monkey got angry, he threatened the turtle to throw him at sea or burn him. Turtle shouted not to throw him at the sea for he will drown. Monkey tossed him but turtle surfaced and laughed at monkey. He was a sea turtle, and the sea is his home. Monkey got dumbstrucked and couldn't believe he got fooled by a turtle. And thus my first online course is completed! I learned so much about illustration, and I'm very happy to discover new style and techniques in drawing. I encourage everyone to take up online classes and continue to learn and grow no matter where your passion is. Here's my certificate!

This is my second year in teaching Visual Communication in Ateneo. The dynamics in class are always changing with the different types of students that composes the class. For the first half of the semester, we focused on the History of VisComm and learned about the different period, era and art movements that became influential in today's visual world. We learned the stories and meanings of art works, posters and graphic designs from each era which contributed to our database of knowledge. To quote Aldous Huxley, "the more you see, the more you know."

Hoping that my students learned something from our activities and discussions, I gave a project for their midterm requirements. I've always asked myself "How did they come up with art movements?" What I essentially learned from our lessons is that a movement should have an intention. The Arts and Crafts Movement by William Morris was created in opposition to the Kitsche art that was manufactured by technology. They wanted to bring back the hand made quality of products and rediscover the artists in everyone. Dadaism was created as "anti-art" art movement. So if we were to come up with an art movement, what would it look like? We explored this idea in class and I decided that this will be our midterm project.

We started with brainstorming. I grouped them into small groups and asked each group to come up with the following: a motif, a color palette, a typography style, an inspiration, and a name for the art movement. After the brainstorming, they came up with these ideas:





To determine what our visual style will be, I first tried to see what are the common things that they groups came up with: Minimalism, Grey, Thin, Surreal and Euphoria. This may seem a good combination for an art movement but they weren't happy with we came up with. So to make it fair, we had a votation. Each member may vote one for each category except for their own idea. Finally we came up with another set of visual keywords: Floral/Victorian, Light/Dark Matte, Bold and Surreal/Nightmare, and "Euphoria". Well..that didn't come up better either.haha

Anyways, moving forward we have to take this as a challenge. I divided the class into 2 groups and gave the final instruction to them. They have to develop the "Euphoria" concept and put up an art exhibit. They may only change one of the keywords and they should individually create one poster and one artwork according to their group's visual style.

On the day of the gallery show, we divided the room in two and each group shall exhibit their artworks and posters. After the show each one of them presented their works and the judges gave their critiques and scored them. Here are some photos during the gallery show.

Team 1 getting ready

Pre-show rituals?

Preparing the circus-themed gallery

With the sophomores..

Mandy's final touch of their exhibit

But first...

Last minute preps...

Group 2's final gallery look

Cool installation in the entrance of  Team 1's gallery

Team 1 had a concept of "Circus". Some of their works included the floral theme and circus imagery like clowns and ferris wheels.

With Team 1: EUPHORIA: Circus of Fears

Special thanks to my panelists, Bianca Zamora and Tennyl Canlas

Team Euphobia during the presentation.

Team EUPHOBIA focused on each of their phobias. Their posters shows the name of the phobia and each of their artwork or design had limited colors: white, black, grays and red.

In the end, team EUPHOBIA showed more cohesiveness in terms of visual style. Individually, their artworks and posters were well-researched and presented well. For winning this challenge, I gave each one of them a print of some of my digital illustrations. Kudos also to Team Circus of Fears for the nice setup and cool artworks too. Congratulations to each one of them! I really appreciate your works!

In the end, I realized that creating an Art Movement was not easy. Individually, we have our own preferences and style and that creates conflict and tension. But what makes us are also the people around us. We are influenced by our peers, our family, our culture, school and the media. We must learn to adapt, collaborate with other artists and learn from one another. Critics are always there and it may hurt our egos and pride. But it's part of life. We must see the world in a positive light and accept these critiques constructively in the hopes of improving one's self.

I really enjoyed this activity and I feel contented with what our class has produced. I hope that these future communicators will grow into better visual thinkers and creators. Check out their individual works below. Click on the image to be redirected to their blogs.

This is one of the most liked and top post of the day, a drawing of an artist with a signboard expressing his/her sentiments as a struggling artist. It is really a sad fact that we people in the creative business find hard to make profit out of our talents. Young artists always find themselves hungry at the end of the day cause their works are always "underpaid". People think that it's an easy job for us and they even give a low the value for our work. However, we don't have anyone to blame but ourselves.

Artists are not business people and they can't even give a justifiable price for their works especially when they are just new in the business. They get excited when they get a job. They always think of the final output and forget about the whole amount of effort, time and skill required in the production. Once the final output is delivered, that's the time they give the price. Sometimes, they even make the client decide on how much they will pay. Soon, it becomes a routine and when they become tired and uninspired, they realize that they have done so much and still they don't have that much money.

I, myself, is a struggling artist. I value art so much that i can't give a price to my work. What I value is the client's satisfaction, amazement, happiness, trust and respect. Merging business in the creative industry let me realize how to balance money and work. This is the part where I consider myself as a DESIGNER. For me making art is a personal thing and no one can influence me on what issue to tackle, what colors to choose or how my artwork will look. A true work of art is one that I created by expressing myself as an artist. But unlike artists, designers always consider a lot of factors in creating a work: the budget, time frame, the ideas of the client, your own ideas, the target audience, resources, and a lot more. A designer has a good balance of artistry and business, may it be a graphic designer, fashion designer, interior designer, etc. It's not always easy to learn the business side but when you are committed, you learn how to live without the regrets of wasting your effort and time.

Some say designers are not artists and i think it's their opinion. For me, as a designer I am also an artist because I have the talent and skill in creating a beautiful image. It doesn't matter what technique or medium you use or how expensive your materials are. What matters most is that you are capable of delivering your client's vision without being hungry at the end of the day : ) Just sayin'


Credits: I Dont do ART for Free by 'PearlEden