RR Tip: Choosing Color

For Jem,

Color choice is very important in visual as well as in emotional appeal of a space. By space, I'm talking about canvass, webplatform, room, clothes, style, etc.

It's pretty easy to get carried away with color choices.

This is not to say that a super colorful space is ugly--just that it can get pretty unappealing, a bit much, overwhelming, etc. depending on context.

There are many color theories and theorists available out there.

One particular German theorist believe that we can predict whether a particular color palette will be generally liked or unliked according to a mathematical theory.

There's a chromatic scale in music and the chromatic scale exists in the color as well.

And getting a good grasp on all of that can be time-consuming.

So here's Rubbishriot's quick tip in choosing colors:

1. Decide what you're trying to say or what your trying to achieve.

2. Decide who your general audience is. Are they health professionals, children, CEO's, rockstars or an ethnic group?

3. If you are technological inclined, or have a problem choosing color, use this really cool site:

http://www.colorotate.org/

4. Don't spend too much time thinking about one single color--whether it's red, blue, white. There are other factors to consider to maximize the impact of one color. One single color by itself is one single color and it only matters in contrast with the space, lighting and the surrounding colors/patterns. So take that all into consideration when choosing a color.

Take a look at the colorful photos.

This is Real American style, perfect for some settings/ inpiration for kids books, party costumes.

Only a very very select few (e.g. Lady Gaga) can pull this off in a formal Dinner party.

Same principle applies in choosing color for any type of space. Think context.

Love,

RR

Stranger in the Casino

I was scanning the bookshelf and saw in the corner an unused, unread book that I hang on to called "Winning Texas Hold Em"

This book brings me back good memories.

A few years ago, I briefly dated a graffiti kid named Robot for one week. He tried to swindle me of some hard-earned cash because I broke up with him.

Following the break-up someone came into the apartment while I was asleep and stole $1000 from me,

which was to be my deposit for my new apartment in Brooklyn.

I felt utterly crushed. Completely friendless and luckless in a new city.

So my would-be rescuer from loneliness and despair came in the form of a professional Texas-Hold-Em Poker player. Well, I say "professional" because that was how he earned his living (but I don't know if he really was any good).

I had hesitations to play poker because I'm the good girl type.

But he came down from Boston stayed in my apartment (sleeping in the couch, in the living room) for several days at a time. He spent quite a considerable time teaching me how to play Poker.

I kept insisting I prefer chess, recalling the need to avoid the gambling streak in my family that often leads to penury.

But he brought me several presents of art books and my first taste of home-baked lemon pie which

I thought was really sweet. So I felt obligated to be attentive to the poker lesson.

I had a sneaking suspicion all this effort was to convince me to be the Poker player adventuring partner/girlfriend. But I'm kind of slow in switching boyfriends, preferring to obsess about old ones until I get my fill of the emo/sad/sappy phase. Not that I spent any time obsessing about Robot! No! He wasn't worth it! But I had other heart matters to sort out.

One Friday night, while the poker player beau was visiting, we found $100 bill by the subway.

He says, that's our lucky sign. We have to test my new poker playing skills!

I thought about the long lonely weekend ahead in a new city, if I told this guy to go on without me.

So I made the decision to jump onto his car and off we went to the nearby glittering convergence of casinos in Atlantic City.

In the Borgata, we picked out the $2 table so I can learn the hang of the game slowly.

He kept looking over my shoulder, telling me this and that and this and that.

Which was really sweet but kindof annoying.

I steadily, steadily lost money.

He put up another hundred for ante. And I kept losing.

At around four in the morning, I wished that he would just leave me alone.

I'm sure on his part he probably was thinking he was with the village idiot.

In frustration, he got up for an extended break to go to the bathroom.

Alright I thought, it's time to regain some sense of coolness.

I scanned the table saw some hardcore players guaging my style and I couldn't help but feel defenseless.

One guy after I folded three times in row, labeled me as the mark and tried to push me out of the table with some insults.

Sneering he said, "What are you, some kind of a church girl?"

I felt a little embarassed, because, little did he know, Yep, I was some kind of homegrown church girl.

But knowing this, the insult just didn't stick. So on the game went.

I felt like that dorky kid who kept trying to hang out with xtreme bikers but still has training wheels on.

Finally, down to my last $20, some Korean guy sits beside me at the deserted chair. He told me he just lost $30k and he was down to his last couple of hundred. He looked manic happy. REALLY MANIC HAPPY. He kept trying to bet it all, but the table had a limit--it was a $2 dollar table.

Frustrated the manic guy smiled, got up and threw all his chips my way. He says in a thick Korean accent, "you now win ok?"

My jaw dropped.

Ok. It was my lucky night.

I now win, ok.

I began raising my bet and actually used my ability to read people that I learned from bartending. Pretty simple to spot those who were faking a good hand.

In my last round, I had king quad.

Don't ask me how it happened, but it happened.

Tried to bet all--but it was a limit table.

When my friend returned, I called it a night.

It was time to go for a refreshing walk at the boardwalk at 5 am and see the sunrise.

He looked stunned.

I had regained all the money he lost, plus more.

Eh, not bad for a church girl ?/village idiot/girl on training wheels, huh? :)

It was a beautiful sunrise and aside from the cracked-up hoes on the boardwalk, it was just lovely.

We spent the day getting lost returning in the maze that is NYC highway.

Despite my winnings, I still had no desire to become a poker vagabond.

So my friend stopped visiting me and told me he was breaking up with me,

even though, we never really dated. Not even kissed. Or held hands.

Well, I still think about the lucky times when I look at my art books and Winning texas hold-em and send him winning wishes, love and fun, whereever poker playing adventure took him.

stories from Rubbishriot

transcribed and written by JBoncales

RR Tip: Different ways of creating a Mural

Before choosing a process to make a mural, first decide on what type of mural it is.

Is it Impressionistic, Realistic or Urban style of Mural?

Then first plan out the background, the Focal Points, the Foreground and the Details, step-by-step and in that order. Then choose your colors wisely.

Here are a few list of process of getting images to the wall:

CLASSIC MURAL

Fresco--The earliest form of Mural making and examples of this method can be seen throughout the ancient world and the Renaissance era.

Types are:

a. Buon Fresco--on wet plaster (things can get messy and uniform colors are difficult

to achieve

b. Secco Fresco--when the plaster dries, then the artist paints using tempera, glue

or oil

c. Mezzo Fresco--when the plaster is in the in-between stages of wet and dry. Used

by Raphael and Michaelangelo to create depth in the eyes of subject

MODERN MURAL

Just get that image onto the wall through the following ways:

1. Projector--using a projector to blow up the image onto the wall and begin painting accordingly

2. Drawing Grid--Draw grids on the image to be painted and draw corresponding grids onto the wall in order to accurately depict the image

Have you seen a mural where it's so colorful that you know the artist didn't plan the whole thing out? Those cheesy types of murals that exhaust your eyes? Colors are very important to the mural so plan it out! Do us all a favor and please limit your color palette.

1-Paint by number murals--This is where the colors are decided ahead of time by numbers and the images are sectioned out and numbered on the wall.

2-Freehand method-- again, please limit the palette and tone down the colors. What looks like a very light color, when applied to a vast space often becomes overwhelming.

TECHNOLOGICAL METHOD/ 21st CENTURY URBAN MURALS

There are different ways of getting the wall covered with images using technology. Here's a few ways that Rubbishriot Productions have tested (not necessarily approved).

1. Decal Method--This is a type of method you've probably seen on hot-rod automobiles. But often used by urban artists to transfer image on the wall. The image transfer is made on plastic, cloth, paper, or ceramic substrate and moved to another surface by heat or by water. Different variations include water-slide, water-dip or vinyl peel-and-stick (stickers).

2. Stencils--another popular method used by urban artists. Using Adobe Photoshop or some type of software, a black and white image is made. Then either the white or the black portion is cut-out, then painted over. This is also a method used by interior designers to place elegant designs on the wall instead of opting for the ugly wall paper.

3. Frescography--this is the newest method for producing murals digitally on paper, canvas, glass or tiles, invented in 1998 by German muralist Rainer Maria Latzke. You can actually get the Michaelangelo mural on your ceiling by getting it printed on a wall paper then pasting it on your ceiling.

So many ways to do your murals and to do your walls. So it's very important to choose the best method that fits your style, budget, and time constraints, if you plan to do it yourself. Or simply hire a professional.

www.rubbishriot.com

My need for adrenaline

Check out what kept me from painting in Boracay, Philippines.

http://youtu.be/_pcIzAaLA2A

Fresh from Rubbishriot's atelier, oil on canvass 8"x12". Silent auction is now open bid starts at $125. (Think Gift). Email me privately at rubbishriot@gmail.com or contact me here via FB to make an offer. Please feel free to share. Thank you.

This is dedicated to Haley. The first baby of my childhood friend, Hannah. Haley, who is premature, is currently growing in an incubator in the Philippines. This painting is at auction, with the starting bid of $125. All proceeds, minus the cost of S&H, contribute towards the baby fund, to help defray the hospital cost.

sketch of family life in the PI (part 1)

Life in the Philippines, you'll find that the women are very modest. Even when going swimming they wear shirt and shorts. Generally, women no matter how poor, average 6- 12 children and the family life remains idyllic with the older siblings taking care of the younger ones.

The religious element of my life is given from birth, being a preacher's daughter.

The struggle between Catholics and Protestants that has ravaged Europe for hundreds

of years is still going on politically and theologically in the Philippines which is 97% Roman Catholic. The church also made a stance worldwide preventing easy accessibility to the tools for family planning, increasing the risk of death from sexual promiscuity and sex labor.

I've made a satirical film about sexuality and religion in my film The Barely Private Show (TBPS), but because I'm waiting for the right moment to release the film publicly,

I've opted to give you a glimpse of the ideas behind TBPS through hand sketches instead.

My father, warned that my naked drawings would be unwelcome to the Filipino population, that naked religious figures are offensive. I reminded him that Michaelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci all draw from religious and classical texts and draw naked images. The classical form they employed portrays fat and voluptuous women devoid of sexuality, but the form I used attempts to reflect a muted version of the hyper-sexual mode of today's society

Painting in the Philippines--er, not

I started my artistic journey in one of the most gorgeous islands in the Philippines--Boracay.

I brought all of my canvass and oil paint with me. In fact, it was so heavy that I had to pay over the weight limit on the domestic flight.

Boracay, I thought was the best place to start painting. It was so gorgeous.

I began looking for wood to set up into panels so I can start making painting surface. (There are no driftwood surface worth painting on unless I paint on a coconut shell and I certainly didn't want to take coconut shells home with me). The hardware store only sold huge lumber and panels for construction of a home and there isn't a Lowe's Hardware that would cut wood according to customer specification. Since there were so many activities to choose from, including 13 kiteboarding schools, diving, sailing, I lost my desire to pursue cutting wood for the purpose of painting.

However, I kept a lookout for other painters and galleries.

For an island so rich in natural resources, so full of life and activities, I only met a few painters and no galleries. These local painters were very talented, making hand-painted T-shirts that said Boracay for next to nothing prices.

So, having only one week in Boracay and plenty of days in my grandmother's mangrove beach and house surrounded by rice farms, I decided to wait to paint when I get to Panay Island.

When I got to Panay, I was bombarded with thousands of mosquitos and heat and rain and heat and rain. So seeing that oil painting al fresco was out of the question, I explored the possibility of making a movie--a horror movie of all things. The stories of incanto, witches, aswang, shapeshifters, ghosts began. My cousins, all 30 of them were excited at the thought of being part of a movie. Everyone told me about their own personal experience with the supernatural. Being of a skeptical/scientific nature, I laughed the stories off.

We were excitedly talking about the horror movie, and I took a break from the discussion to get more anti-mosquito cream from my parents room. When I went into the room, I noticed my mom shivering. I was a little surprised, since we were in tropical heat. I covered her and immediately realized she was burning up with fever. Oh dear god, did the mosquitos ravaged my mother and brought her malaria and dengue? Or did the local ghosts come to exact a prize for our lack of respect to the stories of old.

I wasn't sure what happened, but my grandmother took the situation into her hands. She comes in the room takes one of my mother's dresses and took it to the local quack doctor.

They smoked her dress with garlic and ginger and chanted spells over fire. I didn't see the ritual, just the scent of herbs on the dress. Over the next few days, my mother was sickly and bedridden, and everyone whispered a haunting.

Despite her condition and somnolence, during her waking hours, she insisted on leaving Panay. I went with her to Manila where she slowly recovered and saw her off as she flew back to USA.

When I returned to Panay, there was no more talk of making a horror movie.

I settled myself to enjoying Christmas festivities and determined to paint when I return to America.

Currently a 5' x 3' foot canvass ready for painting is resting on the wall in front of me.