Paint it black

Spring is finally here, and my own personal travel "season" is about to start. Since I'm going to be away often over the next two months, I didn't want to start a new watercolor project (which normally takes a few weeks). So the objective of my last class was to finish something fast. 

My subject of choice: a certain black cat named Rogue. 

Her proportions are a bit wonky, but you'll have to forgive me as I didn't even do a sketch for this one. I pretty much started splashing around with a big brush, as my teacher wishes I would do more often. But I think this captures her cranky/evil look pretty well; it's the one she pulls when she's sleepy and I'm trying to play with her.

It's an interesting exercise to paint black without actually having black in my palette: I used indigo, brown, and a touch of red. I plan to use it as a study for a bigger, more carefully considered portrait of my pet (cat-rait? Pet-rait?). But in the meantime, I have some traveling to do! #excited

Tangerine in my travels

Tangerine Tango won't let me go just yet, it seems. While looking through my archives for photos of my tangerine accessories (featured in my previous post), I found a few striking images from my travels that feature Pantone's Color of the Year for 2012. 

Syringe painting by Fernando Zobel at the Singapore Art Museum

Another work by a Filipino artist (I forget who) at the Singapore Art Museum

At the Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse, Holland

Tangerine tango

Pantone has announced that its Color of the Year for 2012 is Tangerine Tango. I don't know how they decide these things, but consider me on board!

I never liked orange, but my attitude towards the color was transformed with the acquisition of my beloved Balenciaga Arena Covered City bag a few months before I left Singapore in 2010. I've come to realize how many tangerine accessories I've picked up since then. I acquired most of my orange faves last year, making tangerine something of a personal Color of the Year for 2011.  

Clockwise from top left: big plastic beads from Les Puces de St-Ouen in Paris; leather cuff from the Ortakoy Sunday market in Istanbul; T'boli tribal beaded necklace, a find of my Mom's from the Salcedo market in Makati; and of course, my beloved Balenciaga bag (which has since met an unfortunate accident at the evil black end of a Sharpie. Oh, my heart!).

Not quite tangerine, but somewhere in the neighboring vicinity (mandarin, perhaps?), is one of my more... adventurous accessories. I give you the detachable collar, as seen on Man Repeller. 

Between tangerine and mandarin, collar and cuff, bag and beads, I guess this makes me pretty much covered for 2012!

Going green

I'm such a Christmas junkie that I put our home through not one, but two phases of Christmas decorating. I started out with dried and plastic decorations, some of which were brought over with us from Singapore. With a little creativity and red polka-dot ribbon, dried and plastic was fine. 

But the moment December hit, every flower shop on the corner sprouted greens. Christmas greens. Reds and greens, actually, and more. From pine to mistletoe to holly to blackberries, all those things I've only read about in books plus more that I couldn't even name. 

Suddenly, all this abundance of freshness changed my feelings towards plastic. So I redecorated. 

Before and after #1: the wreath on my front door. I started with a rustic-looking bare twig wreath, dressed up with plastic holly and some ribbon. In December, I tied boughs of fresh pine around the form. It looks a little like a shaggy green monster, but I like it. (I have to... I made it!)

Before and after #2: my dining table centerpiece. My Pinay friend Jec gave me a great idea: to fill a rustic-looking tray with candles and pinecones. Two weeks later, I replaced some of the pinecones and with fresh pine and berries. When I cut the pine into smaller pieces, the sap from the branches left an absolutely divine scent on my hands that is nothing—nothing!—like those pine air fresheners we see dangling from the rearview mirror of taxis in Manila.

We hung a real pine wreath in our living room, where it probably sends smug, mocking vibes over to our fake pine Christmas tree. Over the kitchen door went a bunch of various greens and berries that were pre... um, pre-bunched? So all I had to do was tie a nice bow over it and hang it on an S-hook. One last stray bough of pine also got the bow treatment before going up over the door to the balcony. 

And in front of the window, spare pinecones and a large spray of red berries. I wish I knew what these are called, because I just love them. On gloomy days (and there are many), that pop of bright red against the gray outdoors makes me feel a little bit better.

Don't you just love the freshness? I just might never go back to plastic again!

Little red sparkling hood

The color red seems to be everywhere these days. It's taking over buildings and apartments...

... and popping out of bushes. I didn't realize so many of the trees and plants I see around me everyday would suddenly produce these bright red berries come fall. Yes, I'm a fall newbie.

All this red percolating in my subconscious came to a boil one afternoon after watercolor class. As I was walking through the centre of Haarlem, I was drawn to another jolt of red—this time in the form of a big SALE sign at WE, a local high street chain. Inside, I found this red dress with a skinny belt and promptly realized: I don't own a single article of red clothing!

With 50% off everything in the store, it was easy to remedy the situation. So now I have a red dress.

I remember reading somewhere that red and leopard print go together, so it seems my leopard print flats have found a new playmate. But so far my favorite way to wear bright red has been with gray. I've worn it with my gray wool blazer from Uniqlo (above) to go to my weekly ladies' lunch, and with a gray fluffy angora cardigan for a Sunday visit to the zoo. 

I've also found a new use for the bronze beaded fascinator I like to wear with this dress. It turns out a headband is perfect for keeping the hood of my rain jacket in place when it's too windy for an umbrella. 

I got a few odd looks on the street, but I shrugged them off. Sparkling in the rain is worth it!

A pop of (water)color

I'm usually pretty impatient when it comes to making things. If it can't be done in one sitting, I tend to rush it or just give up altogether. So I consider it a big achievement to have spent three consecutive Tuesdays working on a painting for my watercolor class. I finished it last week, left it to dry in my teacher's studio in Haarlem, and finally brought it home!

This is the first painting that I've produced out of this class that I enjoyed doing from start to finish and am really, truly happy with. My first few lessons were a little awkward and unsure; with this work, I feel I've hit my stride and grown in confidence and technique.

I've gotten quite a few compliments from Penny on this, and it's been great to walk into the studio on Tuesday afternoons and find my other classmates—my geriatric barkada, LOL—gathered around my work and talking enthusiastically about it.

My favorite bits are the flowers, naturally. I love how the red flowers really pop, thanks to the contrast of the dark green around it. (I think I'm getting better with contrast!) I did the pink flowers by dipping a rough natural sponge in some green paint and blotting it quickly on a wet, watered-down red wash.

Penny remarked that my style is turning out to be more illustrative than painterly—nothing wrong with that, just a matter of style. To help soften the whole painting, she suggested painting over the stark white background with a quick wash of pale green blurred with lots of water.

Voila, the finished work!

Do you like it? Tell me what you think!

Pale October

Now that I've finally let go of September, it's time to say hello to my first official fall!

Though autumn is known for its bright and fiery palette, I welcomed the start of the season with uncharacteristically muted hues. 

When I spotted this bouquet of pale, almost dusty lavender roses at the corner bloemenwinkel (flower shop), I simply couldn't resist. I've never seen roses this shade before.

Flowers are one of the things I really love about living in Holland. On days that are just totally bleargh, they are a small, but very welcome reminder that here, something new, interesting and different is always—sometimes literally—just around the corner.

A dove's tale

Last weekend, Marlon and I achieved another DIY milestone: painting the living room. This time around, we chose a totally different feel from the bedroom and went for Dove Tale from Farrow & Ball, a lilac-tinged dove gray. 

This time, it went a whole lot faster and smoother. Having lots more space to move around in made a huge difference. We were able to be more systematic and orderly about placing our "drop cloths", which were reused cardboard boxes from Ikea and from our moving in, plus bubble wrap from a couple of furniture deliveries. Marlon had wanted to buy proper drop cloths from Gamma, but when he saw that one was €27, it was easy to sway him to adopt the cheaper more eco-friendly alternative.  

Goodbye boring white walls!

After priming the walls on Saturday morning, we let the primer dry overnight. With Farrow & Ball, primer pa lang, maganda na! That could be the seed of a winning campaign if they ever decide to venture into the Philippine market. 

Excuse the dining room mess. We had to dump everything somewhere.

We finished both coats in a record 5.5 hours, with an hour's lunch break. We had to work a lot faster because streak marks are more obvious with a lighter color. Also, instead of painting the corners first as we did with the bedroom, we painted them last, which turned out to be a wise decision. The paint dried smooth and a lot more even this time around. "We're getting better at this, Mrs. Plazo," said Marlon. 

The night before we painted, I had an anxiety dream that Dove Tale turned out to be a cheap satin bridesmaid kind of lavender that Marlon hated. I still had my doubts while we were diluting the paint, but after the first coat, I decided that I loved it. And by the time we finished the second coat, I was in love... again.

So here's the living room before, with blah flat white walls:

And after, with Dove Tale. Tadaah! I've been obsessing about gray walls for the last few years, so I'm ecstatic to finally have them!

It turned out to be more lilac-tinged in our living room light than the way it looks on the website, which is more brown. I'm envisioning bright yellow accents with touches of purple here and there.

We have quite a few paintings with metallic frames, which I think will work really well against the gray. I'm excited to hang them up.

Marlon thinks it looks yummy. "If we had gone any lighter," he said, "parang sayang lang yung effort natin mag-paint." And a few shades darker would have swallowed up the wine crates and daybed. 

So, the living room is well on its way! We've still got a lot to do, like hang the paintings, put books and other knickknacks inside the crates, buy an easy chair, replace the big floor pillows and add bright throw pillows to perk up the daybed. And the dining room still looks like a war zone. But for now, I'm patting us on the back and enjoying the lovely lilac hue. 

Our cobalt cocoon

A little over two weeks after Marlon and I first moved in, we've transformed our bedroom from this...

To this! Behold the fruit of our DIY labor!

I am in love with the color on our walls. Although the paint job is far from professional, the blue to me is completely swoonworthy. Jonel referred to the color, to my mild horror, as Ateneo blue. I joked to Marlon that we should start calling our bedroom The Blue Eagle Wing.

Then I saw that it was the same blue that both Blogger and Facebook use. I'm sure if I really put my mind to it, I can come up with a dozen companies or brands that use this color. But why would I want to do that when I am already so perfectly happy with it?

The bedroom is about 75% done. The floor lamp and bedside table are temporary—the latter was actually bought for the balcony. I already ordered bedside tables from Gewoon Chic, a great Dutch home webstore that I just discovered, which will be delivered today. Then all we need are bedside lamps, plus a chest of drawers for Marlon's clothes (since I've pretty much taken up most of the closet space).

Oh and speaking of closets... check out Marlon's pride and joy! He is over the moon seeing the results of his assembly job, and so am I.

Having decided on a palette of cobalt blue and white with metallic accents, I made the bed with this white cutwork bedspread from Jaipur, one of the stops on our honeymoon in Rajasthan. It used to be on our daybed in the living room.

We bought half a dozen freaking bedspreads from this one salesman who dazzled us with the whole Bollywood song and dance. He described his wares as "sho shoft, sho fabuloush" sho often that it shtuck—Marlon and I now refer to the bedspreads as fabuloush, as in "We need to wash the fabuloush." I think we were mired in credit card debt for the better part of a year, but we sure had a blast. And now that we have a home worthy of the fabuloush, they've turned out to be some of my most treasured purchases.

At night, with yellow light, the blue loses some of its cobalt zing, but still remains lovely and rich and enveloping.

I thought about repainting my dresser in the same glossy white as the bed, but that would make everything too matchy-matchy. I totally got the matchy-matchy gene from my mother, but I'm doing my best to suppress it. So it will remain a soft matte ivory.

Marlon is as in love with the blue as I am, but says it's made it harder for him to wake up in the mornings. I have no such problem. In fact, since we moved back into the newly repainted bedroom, I've been waking up every morning at 7.30 a.m. to have breakfast with him before he goes off to work. And if you know me, you'll know how abnormal that is for me. Maybe it's the effect of having a home that inspires and excites me... a home that I can't wait to wake up in every day!