The City of Golden Friendship

That's Cagayan de Oro for all you people out there who didn't know(haha, nangaway daw). And that's where I spent the former half of my summer for work. It wasn't all that bad, everything was paid for by the "client"...airfare, accomodations, food and even the materials. Oh, the work I'm talking about here is a painting commission, my very first...hopefully not the last. She (the client)wanted specifically a painting of the view from her mountainside resthouse of the sun setting by the sea of the city. Of course, sunsets being one of my own favorite scenes, I was rather relieved. But for the most part, I was really intimidated by the task simply because she was a rather big art patron and as I've mentioned earlier, I've never really had the experience of selling artworks. But I had to, I could definitely use the money...though that's hardly an incentive, as most psychologists would tell you, money is a not a motivator but a demotivator--> simply meaning, if you know that you are underpaid, then chances are that the quality of your work decreases. But on a normal day, if the boss pays you ooober cash for work, it doesn't necessarily follow that the quality of your work would improve. Anyway...I'm straying from the topic, ehe.

So I start out by first buying the materials and making my own canvas. Then I arrange to have a day of picture taking around the farm/resthouse. It was a very nice place with a very spectacular view indeed...and there were horses! real horses...not the kind that looked like malnourished ponies. And another cool thing was that I actually saw a hawk...it was simply floating...as in floating(hovering) on top of a certain large tree and didn't mind me from the distance. too bad I didn't get a picture of it though...darn!

So I take some pictures of the resthouse, the view and the horses and finally find a nice place to sit and wait for the sunset. It was pretty quiet except for the panting labrador that they had which sat right beside me. It started to drizzle a little later but not before I got to take pictures of the sunset...so pretty much I was done there and headed back to the University of Liceo (that's where I was staying).

The University of Liceo...
This is where my dad basically works, among other things. It's not that big if you're someone from UPD(yabang!hehe)but it's ok. Roughly half of the university grounds though is off limits to the public and students since it's where the private garden, museum and house of the owner(my client) is. The garage is to drool for, having two vintage Jaguars (one of them a convertible I think), a rolls royce(?), two Mercedez Benz cars and a few others...wow! The garden reminds me of a greek garden...only that it's gathered moss through the years. Along the garden path to the museum you pass through 2 large aviarys, one containing a parrot and the other a rather large eagle who's species escape me...but it's colored white and gray. There's a greenhouse of sorts and a large gazebo overlooking the nearby river. It's really quite a place. Then theres the museum, and my dads room is in there so that means thats where I'll be staying too while I'm here. It seems a bit eerie outside the room with all the old paintings and faded photographs and relics hanging around so I stay inside the room most of the time painting and watching the tube.

And so...

So I paint and paint and paint. I'm just suppose to do one but I try to make three at the same time by different intervals to keep the interest going and to prevent myself from getting too frustrated with one particular painting. I end up finishing two sunsets and one watercolor painting of a horse(I'm rather proud of this one). But I'm such a dim-bulb that I forgot to take commemorative photos of the paintings before giving them to the client. Bummer.

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All in all, summer wasn't bad at all though I didn't get to go the beach at all. Got to spend a lot of time with Dad and found out a lot about him...like... he wanted to be a writer. Ha! finally, he kinda admitted to have some kind of frustration, hehe. But he told me of the stories he wrote, and I'd have to say...they weren't bad at all. Huh, who knew? I also got to catch up with my real journal... some thoughts are really just best left private y'know. I just hated the fact that in the span of just two months, I had taken 5 flights altogether...brrrr.

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"Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up."
-James A. Baldwin