Coffee Empire

 Cross post from my thychronicles post. :)

Today, I met up with Hannah at Coffee Empire. I was supposed to blog about this place last week when I met up with Ruth, but I unfortunately left my digicam at home! So this time around, I made sure that I brought it with me.

The coffee bar.

Coffee Empire is a third wave coffee shop located at West Avenue corner Examiner street. It is beside Hap Chan, and near Cabalen. According to Google and its wikipedia page: a third wave coffee shop refers to the "current movement to produce high-quality coffee, and consider coffee as an artisanal foodstuff, like wine, rather than a commodity. This involves improvements at all stages of production, from improving coffee plant growing, harvesting, and processing, to stronger relationships between coffee growers, traders, and roasters, to higher quality and fresh roasting, to skilled brewing."

Hannah's Round 1 order

For round 1, we ordered the following: a cappuccino (130php) + oreo cheesecake (140php) for Hannah, and an iced mocha medium brew (150php) + pistachio cake (140php) for me. If you're having problems on ordering, the baristas are always accommodating and will gladly help on choosing the perfect brew for you.

My pistachio cake.

I wrote round 1 because that's what we usually do when we plan on staying at a cafe for around 2 - 4hours. As much as possible we'd like to do 2 rounds as courtesy to the cafes for staying that long. (At least its better than staying the whole day and ordering just one drink, in my opinion.) We also don't use the electrical outlets, as we just lug around our art materials and draw / chat the whole time we're together. Also, if there's an influx of customers in need of seats, we either offer our extra seats or leave the place itself so the next customers could sit. :)

Our table, blurred Hannah's face just because HAHA. She's drawing the header in this photo.

My tools. Inside that green Redondo tin can are my unipins. Translucent tool box with my markers.

I decided to bring Hannah here because this is the nearest coffee shop to my place. The coffee shop also brings in natural light with the use of huge windows, which is perfect for drawing. Lastly, the coffee here is good. Those reasons are good enough to come back here I guess?

Hannah drawing.

Another reason is that I've been bugging her on drawing our header for this blog. (She's drawing the header in one of the pictures, above my toolbox pic.) She was actually putting on the finishing touches earlier. As for me, I'm just drawing/coloring whatever I had that time, switching artworks due to indecisiveness HAHA. 

Me drawing / forcing Hannah to take my picture HAHAHA.

What I'm drawing above.

For round 2, we ordered the following: an iced mocha light brew (150php) for Hannah as she liked my previous order, and a cold brew (sumatra bean, I think - 160php) for me. 

After finishing some of our artworks, we finally decided to leave due to hunger. We went next door to Hap Chan for dinner. It's been a while since we last saw each other, I wish we could do this more often like we used to in the past ~ (And hopefully, together with the whole thychronicles team). But since that seems impossible, I guess every meeting with friends counts as something special? NAKS HAHAHA.♥

The Child of Light

The Child of Light fanart. Also submitted in my deviantart account.

Hello again. Sorry for not updating! I made a blog with my friends, you can check it out here. I'm trying (again) to be active online. Maybe cross-post some posts I made at our group blog, and maybe update my deviantart and tumblr from time to time as well. I need some routine in my life hahaha. 

I made this fanart with markers and very light lineweights. I'm trying to emulate my friend's style on this one. Unfortunately, my stubborn messy style took over HAHA. Oh well. It looks okay to me!

Applause / Allergy

 Uh... hi. This piece is inspired from Lady Gaga's new single "Applause" / upcoming album "Artpop". So excited! This does not look like Lady Gaga at all! Just made a quick sketch so I could copy the makeup style with watercolor. When I finished this piece I was sooo satisfied with my work. Days later: meh. Hahaha.

I was supposed to upload a different artwork but I threw it away. Why? I'm apparently allergic to chalk and charcoal! My eyes and hands were itchy and I kept on sneezing, ugh. I tried doing another artwork using oil pastels : NOPE. Still allergic (or maybe because of the dust? I used my 10 year old oil pastel set). Oh well~ I miss using my messy art materials. Maybe I should do this everyday so I could relax. Hmm.

Mother.

    
Sorry for not updating.
I've been practicing realistic style since last year. Any improvements? Maybe. 
I don't draw as much as I would like anymore.
Reasons? No time, boredom, busy with review and board exams (I passed btw~).
Now looking for a job related to my course.
I'm still thinking if I should update this blog more. (or not).
Mmm.

A drawing for a friend whom we call mother. Reference: her fb profile picture.
Posted it on deviantart.   

That's all for now I guess? 

Terra

Terra Branford from FF6

An art trade with a friend of mine. She requested Terra from FF6. I used bockingford paper and prang watercolor set for this one. I also used my etude house nail polish for the sparkly areas HAHAHA. Hmmm... still not satisfied with it. I want to retouch the hair some more, create a background, add more details on the details, etc. Sigh. I would always look at the `finished` piece and say "Ah, looks good, pwede na to!" then after a while I would go "wtf is this sh*t!? It must be improved!".

Anyway. Here's Terra on my deviantart

Scanning

Good Morning? I just woke up haha. Since I've left the workforce a couple of days ago I've been lazy so I decided to scan my doodles. (Also the fact that I'm on my pc now instead of my laptop). Sooooooo, yea.

Manila Ocean Park

(mmm, seahorse)

We went to Manila Ocean Park the other day. Commuting there was actually an adventure itself. Went on 2 trains and a long walk in Rizal Park to Manila Ocean Park. The last time I went to MOP was 2 years ago. It was inspiring and I could see that they were really trying their best for the conservation of the marine life there. The signs regarding the fishes were readable and really...informative. Now? It seems that there are less fishes than 2 years ago, I wonder why? Some fishes which were shown on the signs were also not present in the said aquarium. I also noticed that some of the signs are not readable now.

(Shark napping?)

Besides, the only reason we went here was because of their summer promo! Which included the trip to antartica / penguin exhibit. I was really excited on seeing penguins for the first time! Penguin is my favorite animal ♥

PENGUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN.

We also took pictures with them for 400php♥. Expensive yes but really worth it for me to see them up close and feed them ♥. After the exhibit, we had dinner at Makan Makan. Interesting place! Not a lot of customers though, due to the interior design and ~feel~ of the place? Hmm. Beautiful view of Manila Bay + delicious food + violin/guitar ensemble + with Ram = worth walking from Rizal Park to M.O.P. ♥

Teh Tarik !

The interior design of Makan Makan. It was supposed to look like an asian street market of some sort.

Sorry for the awful writing and thank you for reading!