JILL ARWEN POSADAS
  • About Jill
  • Portfolio
    • Available Works >
      • Watercolour
      • Acrylic on Canvas
      • Acrylic+Oil Pastel C
      • Acrylic on Paper
      • Acrylic+Oil Pastel P
      • Acrylic+W Pencil
      • Oil
      • Ink
    • Exhibits
    • Other Works
    • Illustration
    • How to Buy
  • Jillablog
  • Contact

Jillablog

Scroll down to start reading

What makes a thing of beauty a joy forever?

12/27/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture

Some dozen odd years ago I was attending some Asian artists’ conference in Singapore, and I remember asking someone what made something (art) liked by everybody. By ‘everybody’ I meant everyone, everywhere in every time (age, era, century). ‘Like Shakespeare,’ I remember saying. The person I asked remarked laconically, ‘Not everybody likes Shakespeare.’

After a stupefied pause to consider the justice of that remark I attempted to explain, ‘Sure they do. I mean, the guy’s been dead a bazillion years and people still like his stuff.’ It was toward the end of the day at the time and we were on the beach, so, I don’t remember getting an answer back. But to this day, I find myself still asking.

What is it about Will’s stuff that makes people still stage it, watch it, quote it~ or Wolfie’s stuff or stuff from Vinnie, Leo or Remy? Or, closer to (my) home, what is it about the Noli or the Spoliarium (or pretty much anything by Amorsolo) that make them live on today?

Maybe it’s that time of the year ~ you know, when people get all *existentialist* looking back and trying to plan for the year ahead.

It’s just, personally I wonder whether any of my stuff is going to survive me a bazillion years from now. Or (as is the more likely), join the heap of Salieris that lived alongside Wolfie and ultimately disappeared into oblivion. (That actually isn’t fair, I mean they did use Salieri’s music in the first Iron Man movie ^^)

Or, more to the point: Is it worth making anything when you know they’re going to toss it all into the nearest landfill as soon as you become worm food? (Hopefully they at least recycle the wood and glass ~ or even the paper.) Are these questions even worth asking?
​

Read More
0 Comments

4 Inspirational Thingies to Help You Keep Going With Your Art

11/29/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture

How do you keep going when (as half of that early 90s World) put it, you’re out of gas and you need a jacket? And the tyres are flat and the paint’s peeling ~you get the idea.

Obviously I haven’t been brimming with sunshine or handing a fistful of lollipops out to everybody lately ~truth be told I can’t remember the last time I had.

So what does the average monster do when they’ve got no one within easy reach radiating UV rays or spamming sugar on a stick? They look for it on the internet, of course ^^

These pick-me-ups worked for me when I got so low I hit the bottom of the mountainside the Grey Pilgrim smote the ruin of his enemy on.

Just to shake things up a little on the jillablog, you know? And maybe to point the way towards a little sun and something sweet ^^;

Better if you watch rather than take my word for it (cos what’s that worth really, right). But I will be taking some notes (for me as much as for you), and noting how I may not agree with everything these people say or do. But what they said here really helped me a lot <3

Read More
0 Comments

19 Relationships Expressed in Art

10/31/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
I put key relationships I've had with people (and then some) into a blender and this is what I poured out ^^
Seona is a German artist I met in art class who specialises in hyper-realistic oil portraits and whom I somehow managed to stay in touch with after we both *got out of school*.

Recently I discovered she’s begun to explore relationships in her portraits, specifically those between old friends. It reminded me very much of Claudia, this other German artist who painted a picture of a friend of hers who (if I remember correctly) wasn’t her friend, anymore. I think I only saw that canvas of Claudia’s once but I never forgot it.

Read More
0 Comments

Are “delusional artists” really delusional?

9/28/2022

3 Comments

 
Picture

So I’ve always been a fan of boredpanda~ not all of the content on there, you understand, but a whole huge hefty chunk of it ^_^ Not just for things like this ^o^ But understandably for things like this and this and this. Once in a while, I’m lucky enough to catch a video or two from them on Instagram.

So you’ll understand when one day out of nowhere, as I mentioned last month, I’m over our one natural satellite because someone from boredpanda asks if they can interview me for an article. I was happy to oblige because it was something I had rather marked opinions about and that I’d written about before.

You’ll understand again, I hope, when I tell you that I was happy to acquiesce to a request for an interview for a second article about delusional artists. The request came in the middle of the constant whitewater of my day-to-day about a week or so ago, but I couldn’t help answering on the spot.
​

Read More
3 Comments

10 Things You Probably Shouldn’t Say to Artists

8/27/2022

2 Comments

 
Picture

So lately (for heaven knows why) I’ve been boldly going (where no man has gone before) a whole lot. And there’s this scene in that episode full of those adorable furries where the chief engineer says ‘We’re big enough to take a few insults.’ Aren’t we?

Especially when none was intended. ^^

Read More
2 Comments

The Art of Daydreaming

7/30/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
​
I saw a movie once where an artist (a composer, actually) said something about how he wasn’t really in his body anymore. That was because his body ‘was a great disappointment’ to him and that he was just happier to float around in his music.

Daydreaming for me is kind of like that.

I mean, my supermodelesque (not) physique aside, being trapped in this human form has always been irksome to me. So naturally, I guess, nine out of 10 times I’ve had recourse to an admittedly (and perhaps unhealthily) hyperactive fantasy life.

Practically speaking this does come in handy, sometimes.

Read More
0 Comments

Of Blobs and Potatoes

6/27/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Viva le kalabaw! Viva il kalesa!, Detail, 42.75 x 34.25" / 108.585 x 86.995 cm, Acrylic  and Oil Pastel on Paper, 2016
​“Cookie cutter people.”
“Amoebas with hair.”
“Why don’t they have fingers?”

These are a few of things I’ve heard about my work over the long years I’ve depicted what I just call blobs in my art. I remember trying to, explain myself once or twice in a couple of those descriptions of your work that you put in the exhibit proposals you give to a gallery. But I guess I never, you know. Explained myself properly ^_^;

On the cusp of my second exclusively online show, half of which comprises blobs, I thought now might be a good time to, ‘explain’ how and why I draw and paint this way. And since the other half comprises what I just call potatoes, which one might say evolved out of the blobs, I thought I might take the opportunity to explain those, too.

Not that I feel I need to explain anything to anyone, of course. Just on the off chance anyone might be interested or even mildly curious, or something ^o^;
​

Read More
0 Comments

What do you do during your creative downtime?

5/28/2022

4 Comments

 
Picture
Equuleus, 24 x 11.75" / 60.96 x 29.845 cm, Acrylic on Canvas, 2018
Back in a past life (as a copywriter), I’d heard tales of agencies that let their creatives play video games on office time. These agencies had a Playstation on the premises because they encouraged creative downtime.

I understand how it might be tough to rationalise creative downtime for the beancounters and human resource humans. Heck, I remember some of them had trouble enough understanding why the creatives (and some super trooper account execs) needed ‘flexitime’ to pull all-nighters to get ready for a pitch.

Seriously though. Turns out there is a thing to what looks like (but doesn’t actually amount to) ‘slacking off’ in order to, enhance one’s creativity, and even productivity.
​

Read More
4 Comments

How does art become therapy?

4/28/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Rhapsody in Blue, Detail,  30 x 43" / 76.2 x 109.22 cm, Watercolour on Paper, 2006
I’m sure you’ve heard people talk about this ~ about how art isn’t just something they might do for fun, or as a hobby, but something they sort of have to do because, well, it makes them feel better.

I’m no psychology major or anything like that, and I’m not even going to pretend I’m any sort of qualified to talk about trauma or therapy and stuff.

I guess what I’d like to go into in this jillablog post is how art has helped me to, you know. ‘Feel better’ or just get through, I suppose, whatever I needed to get through ~ some, unpleasantness or painful thing.

I’m not sharing any secrets or sordid specifics or anything ~ just sharing some ways my ‘scribbling and bibbling’ has helped me, personally.

Because you see at the outset I actually also had this idea of sharing a few suggestions for how you might do art as therapy, but you have to be certified and stuff to do that and I don’t want to do anything illegal or something.

But maybe my own experiences might give you a glimpse of how it might be helpful in case you or someone you know is looking for something to, you know. Help you feel better ^_^
​

Read More
0 Comments

Why so sensitive? A quick look at artists and sensitivity

3/26/2022

6 Comments

 
Picture
Sammy, Detail, Oil on canvas, 24 x 36” / 60.96 x 91.44 cm, ca 2003
The ‘sensitive artiste’ is a meme, almost, a trope, a joke ~ if I say something along the lines of ‘but it’s true, though’ ~ that just adds liquor to the flambé doesn’t it XD

But anyway, my objectives for writing this post are to maybe
​
1. Help you understand artists more If you’re not an artist (but have to live with one or more of them, or work with them, e.g. you’re an account manager at an ad agency and you have to deal with graphic designers)

2. Help you understand yourself or your fellow artists more if you are an artist (but somehow I get the feeling you already do anyway ^^; )

3. Also maybe help myself / indulge in a little self-therapy (because now that some time has elapsed since I went in for some actual therapy, I now know that no one can help me, actually, except myself).

Because in keeping with the recent trend on the jillablog, this post comes in the wake of what’s happened to me in the past few weeks since the last jillapost.

Ja~in the words of J Worthington Foulfellow, ‘On to the theatre!’ XD
​

Read More
6 Comments
<<Previous

      subscribe to jillanews for blog posts & more

    Subscribe

    Categories

    All
    Artist's Lifestyle
    Conceptualisation
    General Painting Tips
    Jillabout
    Painting Guides

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018

    RSS Feed

About Jill
Portfolio
Jillablog
​
Contact

​Acquire/commission my work on TRiCERA
SUBSCRIBE TO JILLANEWS FOR BLOG POSTS & MORE
Subscribe to Newsletter
  • About Jill
  • Portfolio
    • Available Works >
      • Watercolour
      • Acrylic on Canvas
      • Acrylic+Oil Pastel C
      • Acrylic on Paper
      • Acrylic+Oil Pastel P
      • Acrylic+W Pencil
      • Oil
      • Ink
    • Exhibits
    • Other Works
    • Illustration
    • How to Buy
  • Jillablog
  • Contact