Times Change

Hello everyone!

I already started with my lessons for the incoming freshman architecture student. We are doing good so far. We're tackling architectural drafting in pencil and, pen and ink; freehand drawing in pencil and, pen and ink; and, watercolor and mixed-media rendering. Later on, we'll have perspective drawing (both the guesstimate and technical method), scale model making, and lastly, introduction to history and design. All in one-and-a-half months. *inhale*

Tomorrow, there will be another student, and this one's an interior design sophomore who's having difficulty catching up with the technical drawings part of the course. She's good, she's intelligent, but she's just beginning to learn technical drawing skills, and college is too fast for real beginners whose professor tells her she needs to improve her work without telling her how or why, or at least, recommending any book she could pore over to understand the subject. According to her, she recognizes that her technical drawings are not at all up to par with what's acceptable in the college... especially at the end of freshman year, but she doesn't know how to achieve that.

Each of them has her own set of lessons that would be more specific to each of their needs.

I never thought I'd see the day that college students will pay for tutorials as many do for elementary and high school students. It both amuses and disturbs me a bit. And in case you're wondering how am I teaching them, I'm a professional architect and taught architectural drafting for five years, and art class for elementary students for another three years.

And my Paris scrapbook took a backseat. Again.

In the Meantime...

I am preparing a sort of syllabus for introduction to Architecture.

My friends' daughter is going to college this school year and going to take Bachelor of Science in Architecture in one of the good universities in the country. She doesn't want to go in ignorant as to what she'd face there academically that's why she expressed interest in being tutored in that direction. We don't have senior high school yet for that to be possible for her to do and get credits for.

Her mom came to me and asked me if I could provide her with some introductory lessons. Here's the thing that makes it funny: the kid's father, also a good friend, is an architect, a very prolific one at that, and has an established firm of his own. I don't think he has the patience to teach, though, even if he knows more than I do in practical terms since he's the one who does the actual designing and building.

After reviewing what I came up with, it looks like it's going to cover the first two years of her major subjects. I think that would be enough to boost her confidence in joining a herd of students who came from more well-known private schools in the metro... we all know it's a thing for people from the province (from those abroad, that phrase is something like 'from the country') like us to prove ourselves. (Personally, I just didn't care back then, except for that time I was in a calculus class filled with students who graduated from PSHS when I cried buckets of tears and blood because it was hard for me but so, so easy for them, but I digress.)

So, tomorrow, I'm going to meet with her who I've known since she was in kindergarten. It's going to be a tight schedule until school opens in August if we would follow my suggestion. We would need to talk this over so we could agree on a more workable schedule together.

After that, it's the Weekend Arts & Crafts Workshop in August. Yay!

This Is A Miracle!

Hello again. I'm done with the Algiers album! Yay! I'd like to share the first page of the Paris album. Like the titles in the other album, this is also handcut.



And this one, this is what my Cricut is always good for: shapes for journaling blocks, because that is a lot of circles and ovals to cut by hand!

After 84 Years...

Hello everyone! Cookies for those who'd be able to guess the reference for the title. If you're in the Philippines, I'll send you something.

Anyway, the weekend Arts & Crafts Workshop is going to push through. I'm still trying to figure some things out. It's going to probably start sometime in August.

In the meantime, after almost two years, I'm finally able to start with these scrapbooks of our trip to Algiers, Algeria and Paris, France in October 2013. Like everyone else, I'd love to do it in 12" x 12" format, but alas! Like always, I was intimidated and overwhelmed even before I start. I said to myself, with not a small amount of bleeping words to mention here for general audience, I'd just make a couple of 8" x 8" bound by rings. I'd do the books myself.

And here they are. They're not finished yet, but I'm currently working on them. (No. They're not just on my table to remind me to work on them. I'm actually, really working on them. Ha!)

I wrote the words by hand; cut some titles by hand; and did some high school-level kind of letter cutting. I have a Cricut but somehow, I'm not happy with the letters that it gives me. They felt so impersonal. I used them for journaling cards, though. The pages are as simple as can be. I don't want to further overwhelm myself and give up after working on one page, so I just did this.



The one on top is our Algiers trip for the Festival International de la Bande Dessinee d'Alger. My husband was a guest and he gave a talk about Philippine Komiks.



I handcut the Algeria word. I like that it's in my handwriting.

Same goes for Algiers here.

These are how most of the pages are: pictures, words and pieces of paper as embellishments... if you can even call them that.

And of course, pocket! There needs to be a pocket for the souvenirs we collected.

I'm not done with the Algiers book, but the photos for the Paris book are all in there, as well as the souvenirs in its own pocket. I should be done with these babies at the end of June, because there are lots of projects to do yet. One frustrating thing about doing crafts and being motivated is, you really can't rush things so you can move on to the next project. You have to finish it!

See you all around for the Paris book!