Author: Rio

Art and travel, painting and photography -- these are the things I most enjoy writing about.
art, events,gatherings,occasions, travel, updates, watercolor, youtube

Youtube 100 Subscribers, Master’s Degree, Travels, and Other Updates

by RioLeave a Comment on Youtube 100 Subscribers, Master’s Degree, Travels, and Other Updates

Hello, everyone! It’s been a long time since I last made an update. My family and I went traveling for half a month in the Northwestern region of France last month. We were trying to make the most out of the seemingly very few “sunny” days of summer this year. It has been sooo rainy and windy. It felt more like autumn than summer.

Anyways, I was surprised this morning to find this email from Youtube:

Just when I was about to give up on this channel… hope to find more time for videos soon!

It’s been a long time since I last updated my Youtube art channel. I was surprised to find that I have actually been getting more subscribers. It was such a pleasant surprise. I do hope to be able to post more videos soon. I will try my very best. Although, I am going to be really very, very busy starting next month.

I have actually applied to a Master’s Degree in Artificial Intelligence. I managed to get accepted in the two schools here in France where I have sent my application. I chose the one whose campus is in Paris and Nice. But I’ll be taking live online classes since I live in Toulouse. As you know, my day job is actually IT-related, not the arts. I have decided that I am just going to keep doing art as a hobby, not as a main source of my bread and butter. Maybe someday. Maybe I just might be able to find a happy mix of art and IT, like maybe something along the lines of NFT’s… maybe. But for now, I’d like to focus on Artificial Intelligence coz I believe, there is a lot of opportunities there. The possibilities are infinite. 😉

As for my travels, my family and I went on a Food Trip Road Trip holiday going from Toulouse to the Northwest of France. It was quite tiring, but nevertheless, wonderful trip to celebrate our 10th Wedding Anniversary this year. We saw a lot of nice places and dined in Michelin-starred restaurants. I think I will write more about this in my travel blog.

Continue reading “Youtube 100 Subscribers, Master’s Degree, Travels, and Other Updates” →
art, Piano

Gaano Ko Ikaw Kamahal Piano Cover

by RioLeave a Comment on Gaano Ko Ikaw Kamahal Piano Cover

This classic piece by the great Ernani Cuenco always reminds me of Lola Haide, my landlady back in the dorm in Manila in the early 2000’s. She would play the original version so beautifully on her old German piano almost every morning. It always gets me in a very good mood waking up to this song as my alarm. It is also what inspired me to study the piano. But then I moved out of the country in 2007, so I stopped playing.

I have been self-studying the piano again since the start of this year (2021). The version that I am playing is a shortened and simplified arrangement of Digna Agra Roxas. This piece is probably way above my level but I tried very hard to give it justice with my playing, having practiced more than a month to arrive at this speed. 😁

By the way, the ear cuff I’m wearing in the video thumbnail is that famous Miss Universe (Catriona Gray) ear cuff (replica bought from etsy) inspired by the Philippine flag. I have actually updated the video with a more recent one where I have incorporated the use of the sustain pedal in my practice. I’m not sure if I was doing it correctly, though. I just tried to make some notes sound legato and louder in some parts of the song. Any advice from piano experts out there is very much welcome! 🙂 Also, it’s best to listen to it with a better speaker than the mobile phone or laptop’s internal speaker. Even the iPhone earbuds already make the sound a lot better. 😉 But I do know that I really need to get an acoustic piano if I want to improve… and a teacher. Well, someday… someday.

In the meantime, I thought it’d be fun to play this piece in perfect time to commemorate the 123rd anniversary of Philippine Independence.

Thanks for watching and I do hope you enjoyed listening to this Original Pilipino Music as much as I did.

art, events,gatherings,occasions, Friends, travel, updates, watercolor

Plein Air Watercolor Painting in Gruissan, France

by RioLeave a Comment on Plein Air Watercolor Painting in Gruissan, France

Every year, my artist friends and I would take a short road trip to a nearby village in the South of France for a plein air water color session and to chill.

I was very happy with our choice of location this year — the Plage des Chalets, which is the setting of the movie, “Betty Blue”, or “37.2° le matin” as it is known in France. I’ve heard it is also a location of one of Leonardo di Caprio’s movies, but I couldn’t seem to find which one it is. Let me know in the comments if you know which one.

Anyway, here is a short video of our trip to Plage des Chalets and the pink salt mine (yes, “pink”, that’s right!) of Le salin de l’île Saint-Martin. We had a lovely time there. Hope you enjoy watching! And if you did, please give the “like” and “subscribe” button a hit.

Have a lovely summer weekend! 🙂

art, watercolor

Watercolor Painting Tutorial Beach Scene

by RioLeave a Comment on Watercolor Painting Tutorial Beach Scene

Hello! If you’re like me, who couldn’t wait for summer and is terribly missing the beach, here’s an inspiring and relaxing loose watercolor painting tutorial of a beach scene (a photo I took) in Coron, Palawan, Philippines from 2010.

For this watercolor tutorial / painting demo, I used M. Graham watercolors, the set of five pigments. I like painting with a limited color palette, it keeps everything harmonious, uncluttered and pleasing to the eyes. But don’t be fooled by the term, “limited”. It doesn’t mean that you are using just five colors. If you’re interested on how you can get more out of these five colors by mixing them, you can watch another video that I’ve created just for that.

Watercolor painting is very relaxing and therapeutic. Even if you do not know how to paint, just watching a watercolor painting in process coupled with some chill music, for me, is relaxing enough.

Thanks for watching and please don’t forget to like my videos and hit the subscribe button. Have a great week! 🙂

art, shop, watercolor

Mothers Day Greeting Cards – Watercolor Artwork Prints

by RioLeave a Comment on Mothers Day Greeting Cards – Watercolor Artwork Prints

On the occasion of Mother’s Day, I thought it would be fun to create and sell some watercolor artwork prints for Mother’s Day Greeting cards.

This is my favorite among the cards I’ve created. I had so much fun doing this. I’ve enjoyed how sketchy this painting feels. Click here to buy this card.

These are original watercolor artworks by yours truly, printed on high quality greeting card paper. I have hand-painted these beauties and made some enhancements on Procreate.

This was my first time ever to create Mother’s Day greeting cards and I totally enjoyed it. Hope you like my creations, and if you do, click here to get card on the left, and here to get the one on the right.

If you liked what you see here, do go ahead and visit my shop on zazzle. I think they have a discount going on right now. Also, don’t forget to use the correct domain name (country) where you are located.

Speaking of Mother’s Day cards, if you would like to try to create a simple DIY watercolor Mother’s Day card, I’ve created a Youtube video for it:

Don’t forget to like, comment, subscribe and share, if you liked my video. Thanks and happy painting! 🙂

Thanks for dropping by and have a wonderful weekend! 💕

art, watercolor

Procreate Self-Portrait Speed-painting

by RioLeave a Comment on Procreate Self-Portrait Speed-painting

I bought an iPad Air as a Christmas gift to myself last year, and installed Procreate. This was one of my very first attempts at creating a self-portrait with watercolor effect on Procreate.

The background I used was an actual watercolor on paper artwork that I scanned and incorporated in the digital art. I hope you enjoyed this speedpaint / timelapse video.

Thanks for watching! 🙂

art, watercolor

Loose Watercolor Floral Painting Demo of Wisteria Flowers

by RioLeave a Comment on Loose Watercolor Floral Painting Demo of Wisteria Flowers

Back to regular programming…

Here’s a tutorial / painting demo of a loose watercolor painting of Wisteria flowers using Schmincke Horadam watercolor pigments and Etchr lab’s The Perfect Sketchbook.

If you liked my video, please don’t forget to hit the like button. You may also comment, share and subscribe, by all means.

Thanks and hope you all have a good day! 🙂

art, watercolor

Experimenting With Daniel Smith Watercolor Ground

by RioLeave a Comment on Experimenting With Daniel Smith Watercolor Ground

I’ve always wanted to try painting with watercolor on canvas. I tried to research on how to do this, and apparently, you just need to first apply some watercolor ground on the surface.

And so, here’s a video where I have tried using watercolor ground on wood, paper and canvas…

Prior to this, I have tried the Schmincke watercolor ground, the transparent one. I didn’t really like it so much on the wood surface where I have tried it on. But maybe I will try it again another time on canvas.

So far, though, I was quite satisfied with the outcome of my watercolor painting on the canvas where I have used Daniel Smith’s watercolor ground (Titanium white). The only thing I’m not so crazy about is that the watercolor paint looks slightly more opaque than usual due to the titanium white watercolor ground in the background. It looks less luminous than when applied directly on paper.

I do hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please do give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel if you like this sort of stuff. 🙂

art, events,gatherings,occasions, shop, watercolor

Valentine Cards, etc — New Items on the Online Shop

by RioLeave a Comment on Valentine Cards, etc — New Items on the Online Shop

Having recently acquired the sudden urge to create some new collection of artworks for my online shop, I thought it timely to update my blog to let you all know about it. 😉

And just in time (hopefully, not too late), I have made some Valentine cards with my original watercolor artwork prints. You still have time for the SALE, just use the code SENDLOVE2021 before check-out! 😉

Halo-Halo Valentine Card with a print of my original watercolor artwork

For those who do not know, Halo-Halo is a Filipino dessert. Yes, it’s a dessert, even though most of the random stuff in it wouldn’t count as dessert ingredients for those who do not live in the Philippines, or its neighboring countries.

Philippine Gumamela (Hibiscus) Valentine Card

Made some greeting cards and postcards as well…

Tuyo is a dried fish made in the Philippines. The term, tuyo literally means dry or dried. Most of the time, tuyo is made with a fish called Tawilis or Tulingan. It is a local favorite, which, I’m sure, most Filipinos like myself terribly miss the comfort of savoring (especially the distinct putrid smell 😀 ), most especially during the depressing colder months, like, right now.

And while, I was at it, I have incorporated my artwork on some other cute items such as magnets, stickers, posters, tote bags, clothes, etc. Please click away on the images or captions for more details.

Some of the items in my new artwork collection

I do hope you take the time to visit my shop, and maybe try out an item or two, while you’re at it. 🙂

I hope my Filipino themed products provide the same kind of comfort and sentiment to all the Pinoys / Filipinos out there who are terribly missing all things Pinoy back home.

Happy shopping and Happy Valentine ! 🙂