When my hands felt very light, I realized that it easily follows what my brain commands it to do. A gentle, flowing line there, a hint of a shadow, a hard curve at the corner and a generous flow of veinlike lines to complete the details of whatever it is I’m working on.
There are of course, some really bad days when my hands would feel very stiff and my line becomes very heavy. My drawing would have some hard edges and my fingers wouldn’t budge. They will just stay suspended somewhere in the middle of the paper, and stubbornly refuse to follow what my brain is telling them to do.
So whenever this feeling of “lightness” comes to my fingers, my hands would automatically grope for any pen, pencil and paper or notebook that I might be holding at that exact moment.
I was drinking coffee at Coffee Nations in Bali Lane while waiting for my friend, Camille, to join me for dinner. At that time, I was reading the book, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and I was using this postcard from Vogue Magazine as a bookmark.

This feeling of “lightness” seized my hands and I found myself copying Cate Blanchett’s portrait. The goal is not to exactly copy what my eyes can see from the printed photo, but to distinguish the lines, shadows and shapes that is visible to my eyes, and in the process, stamp these visions into my paper. I find comfort and fulfillment in relying on my senses to be sensitive to some light and shadows here and there. Drawing and doodling really gives me a kind of primitive happiness.
This is another doodle that I created while hanging out for dinner in a nearby McDonald’s. I don’t want to go home early so I decided to exercise my little [...]

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Growing up and watching The Neverending Story, Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, the idea of “other worlds” and “fantasia” have always inspired me as a child.
Some of these ideas have been even fed to me unconsciously by my parents, uncles and aunties. My childhood has been filled with Philippine folk tales of nuno sa punso, diwata and Ibong Adarna, so its not surprising that this fascination would extend until my adult life.

Recently, I’ve been reading this book by Linda Ravenscroft, “How To Draw and Paint Fairyland”. Linda provides some very useful insights into creating and inventing fairies and fairy environment.
I haven’t really had the time yet to create a real “fairy artwork”, but I was able to create some very rough sketches:

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Footnote:
*nuno sa punso – Philippine ghoul or dwarf in Philippine mythology
*Diwata – are similar to Western fairies or nymphs, possessing supernatural powers. Diwatas are avatars of Nature, which, as an active and potent force, may either bring good or evil, blessings or curses to people. – wikipilipinas.com
*Ibong Adarna – a magnificent and colourful mythical bird with magical powers whose beautiful singing voice can lull any creature to sleep and turn them into stones with its droppings.

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I’m a very visual person.
I understand things clearly through drawing. Whenever my mind gets muddled by abstract problems or the most mundane of things, I think through drawing.
I enjoy the mindless abandon that I feel whenever I create doodles. Milton Glaser is indeed right about “Drawing Is Thinking”.
Aaron and I still have more than a year ahead of us before our BIG DAY. 
I’ve been doing a lot of “thinking” lately.
Seems like I’ve been hit by the wedding bug…

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These days, Crayosa seems to be having the time of her life. I’ve seen her drift from one online web design gallery to another. I’ve spotted her on other people’s blogs, other site’s aggregators and rank lists.
Last July 22nd, just one month after being featured in CSS Mania, I was really surprised when A Crayon’s Life was featured in Smashing Magazine, under the title: “50 New Beautiful Blog Designs”. I know that my website is still a work in progress and there are still a lot that needs to be done to improve my website, but nevertheless, I’m really honoured to be mentioned in one of the famous online magazine for web professionals.

Thanks to Smashing Magazine, Crayosa has found her entryway into the vast abyss of the cyberworld.
My google analytics reported visits from 52 countries with top visits from my homeland, The Philippines, followed by The United States, Singapore, United Kingdom and South Korea, respectively.
Two interesting country names appeared on the list and had me searching for them in Wikipedia. Forgive me about my inadequate knowledge of the world map and geography but I’m really not familiar with these two countries: Moldova and Serbia.
I found out that these two countries hold a very rich history in Europe. According to Wikipedia:
Serbia is a country located in both Central and Southeastern Europe, with its history dating back to the reign of Alexander the Great. Moldova, on the other hand,  is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south. In antiquity, the territory of the present day country was part of Dacia, then fell under the influence of the Roman Empire.
Talking about Crayosa jetsetting into cyberworld.  :)
According to URL fan (http://www.urlfan.com), Crayonslife Ranks #146388out of 3,783,534 websites (as of Sept. 10, 2009) [...]

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I have finished reading Isabel Allende’s “House of the Spirits” last June and I’m still recovering from all the visual stimulations that this novel have awaken in me. The particular part of my brain that absorbs, process, interprets and stores up all the visual information that I get from reading literature have been quite overwhelmed by its sheer ability to overcome the senses and flood the imagination.
I can only describe my reaction to this literature by a whole montage of images forming inside this vault inside my mind. Images of three strong women, Clara, Blanca and Alba are trying to get out of that vault. These strong, larger-than-life characters are forcing their way out of that box to stamp themselves into my watercolour papers and make them my own works of art.
One of my former “art director/boss” from one of my past jobs describe me as someone who “lacks imagination”. Maybe I should believe him and try to improve on my “imagination quotient”.
I’ll post my works here when this project is completed.
The particular part of my brain that absorbs, process, interprets and stores up all the visual information that I get from reading literature have been activated again.
I’m currently hooked up on Haruki Murakami’s Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
Maybe another character would form in that vault inside my brain, and like the three strong women from House Of The Spirits, this character would also want to jump right into my watercolour paper to be immortalized as part of my own art collection.
Now I’m beginning to fear that this is going to be a saga of my never-ending and ambitious list of things and projects to do.

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