Breaking the Summer Fever
It’s getting hot out there! And here at BNP, we decided to raise the heat level a notch higher by trying some sizzling moves to help us become fitter this scorching season. Our weapon of choice? Dancing. Saturday saw us in an unfamiliar dance studio we rented out where we traded our pencils, and graphic tablets for our rubber shoes and some waist scarves(for a bit of belly dancing). ^_^ But of course, we can’t just head straight to the fun part without going through the basics, so we warmed up the floor by doing some exercises first. After some snapping noises from bones suddenly woken from a deep slumber, we were finally able to start what we went there for. Dancing has never been the strong point of some of us. But still, for this session, we gamely accepted the challenge of coming up with our own modern jazz dance routine. We initially thought that it would take us an entire day to devise some basic moves, but we surprised ourselves when we were able to pull it off in half a day – each contributing ideas with unexpected zeal. Finally, after everyone has demonstrated their suggestions, we ended the day with a complete routine – and some additional hip snap move in belly dancing....
read moreDigital T-Shirt Printing
Shopping for clothes can be a challenge at times. Even if money is not an issue for you, looking for the perfect design can still take considerable time and effort unless you’re lucky enough to find something you fell in love with at first sight. Not all of us are usually that lucky, though, so that’s a bummer, right? Nope! There’s actually no reason to fret because if you don’t like the designs that your favorite retail stores or boutiques offer, you can always print your own. How? Through digital t-shirt printing. Why don’t you try to gather the following materials so we can give it a try? Materials Needed: Heat Press (you can also use a flat iron if you don’t have one) Heat Transfer Paper (one for white fabrics and one for colored ones) T-shirt to print on (could be old or new, it depends on you) Tracing wheel/scissors/cutter (either of the three will do) Pigment or dye ink Printer Computer Teflon Printing Your Design Before we can start printing, we’re going to need a design first. If you have some drawing skills, you can draw your own design on paper then upload it to your computer by using a scanner. If you can draw your design directly on your computer, that would be even better. You can then color it digitally through image editing programs like MS Paint, Adobe Photoshop, or GIMP to name a few. If you’re not very fond of drawing, you can search and buy royalty-free images at stock image libraries like ClipartOf.com or you can purchase one from our stock illustrations. Also, if you’re going to use a white shirt for printing, you would need to invert the design the same way images appear on a mirror. There would be no need to change anything if you’ll be using a black one. Once you’re done with your design, get a heat transfer paper (don’t forget to use the appropriate paper for the right color of fabric), and put it on the paper tray of the printer. Before you print your design, replace your regular ink with pigment ink first. After you’re done changing it, hit the print button and wait for your design to be printed. If you don’t have the necessary equipment for this right in your own home, you can go to a computer rental shop and ask them if they can print it for you (some shops also do image editing for customers for a fee). Just remember to bring a heat transfer paper and pigment ink with you as you cannot use ordinary paper or ink for digital t-shirt printing. After your design has been printed on the heat transfer paper, cut around the edges of the design until no background is left. Next, peel the sticky part of the heat transfer paper from its base and stick it on your shirt. This is only applicable for colored shirts. If you’re using a white shirt, there’s no need to peel it anymore. Just press it against the cloth. Prepare the heat press after that. If you don’t have one or you don’t know someone who does, you can use a flat iron instead. When you have your heat press ready, locate the temperature regulator and set the temperature to 180 degrees and the timer to 30 seconds. Just a note, though, this temperature is what worked for us. However, different fabrics have different resistance to heat, so you might have to experience a bit which temperature would be best for your shirt. If you don’t want to run...
read moreFashion Illustration for 2011
Can you smell that? Yup! The scent of summer – or spring depending on which part of the world you are in – is in the air. You know what that means, right? It’s time to welcome a new wave of fashion trends. We’re not transforming into some fashion guru or runway expert if that’s what you’re thinking. We just think it’s time to update our imaginary wardrobes with a little magazine browsing and web surfing to give our illustrations a trendier and fresher look. So, what’s hot for 2011? Summer-inspired dresses for one. Last year saw the reign of the comfy professional look. You know the one sported by ladies on the go wearing smart blazers paired with skimpy shorts, giving off a smart, but casual look. This year seems to want to retain that comfortable feel, although with a more classic and feminine vibe. Enter long flowing dresses with soft fabrics and attention-grabbing colors. With their thin material, they don’t only allow your skin a chance to breathe in the summer heat, its natural contour also offers ease of movement – a good fit for people who are not fond of moving around during the unbearably hot months. Fabrics that have striped prints are also making a comeback. Of course, the classic black and white stripes still tops the list, but bolder color combinations are catching up real fast. Skirts seem to be getting more favored over shorts this year too, and the distressed denim style is moving aside to give way to soft, layered designs. Braided bags, studded shoes, oversized jewelries, belts, scarves, and other accessories are holding on to their rightful places in high end boutiques and retail stores as well. All in all, the first quarter of 2011 seems to be all about contrast. Contrast between volume and natural contour and contrast between femininity and boldness – just like the contrasting feel of the burning summer heat and the cooling effect of seawater on your...
read moreLearning Japanese
Konnichiwa minna-san! Nope. You did not visit the wrong site, and yes, that was a different language (which means “Hello, everyone!” by the way). Say konnichiwa to Nihongo*, because for this week, we’ll be having a Japanese class – or at least something close to it. Oh, in case you were wondering what has gotten into our minds to make us want to study Japanese all of a sudden, the answer is no, we have not been taking anything we should not be taking. J We have just been anime fans for some time now and we thought it would probably be fun to learn a bit of the language to help us get a clearer picture of what the characters are saying when the English subtitles can’t be bothered to show up, not to mention help us understand what the theme songs that we have been singing along to mean all along. Now that we’ve got that part clear, let’s start with the lesson and discuss: Japanese Greetings There are three basic Japanese greetings. First is “Ohayou gozaimasu” which means “good morning,” “Konnichiwa” which can either translate to “Hello” or “Good afternoon” and “Konbanwa” which means “Good evening.” You can also say “Oyasumi” which means “good night,” if you are about to wrap up your day. Introducing Yourself Meeting people for the first time almost always require you to introduce yourself, so if you find yourself in a similar situation, these sentences may come handy for you: “Konnichiwa, watashi no namae wa (insert your name here) desu” (Hello, my name is (insert name here) or “Konnichiwa, watashi wa (insert name here) desu. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.**” (Hello, I am <insert name here>. Nice to meet you) ________________________________________________________________ *Nihongo came from “Nihon” which is the native name ofJapanand “go” which means language. It means language of the people ofJapan ** Yoroshiku onegaishimasu can have a number of meanings. Sometimes it’s translated to “Nice to meet you,” sometimes to “Please treat me well” and sometimes to “I’m looking forward to having a good (working) relationship with you. All three are something you might say when meeting new people for the first time, especially people you will eventually be working with. _____________________________________________________________ Honorifics Japanese people have a strong social hierarchy system, and this reflects on the way they speak and address the people they interact with. Deviating from the standards you are expected to follow will be considered rude and offensive, so you’ll have to familiarize yourself with them if you don’t want to leave the wrong impression. A way to start this is by learning Japanese honorifics*. There are plenty of Japanese honorifics for just about every setting; however, a good number of them are rarely used, if not totally obsolete by now, so we’ll be discussing the more common ones here. First we have “san.” San is like the Japanese counterpart of the English Mr. Ms. or Mrs. It is usually attached to the last name of the person you are addressing if your relationship is strictly limited to business matters. For example, you have a co-worker named John Smith. Since your interaction with John doesn’t extend beyond the office, you are expected to address him as Smith-sanor Smith John-san (Japanese say their names last name first followed by the given name) Similarly, Jane Doe would be called “Doe-san” or “Doe Jane-san.” Calling either of the two by their first names would be considered too presumptuous, unless John or Jane themselves insist on being called by their first names. Second is “chan.” Chan is often attached to the first name of a female you are on friendly terms with. This may either apply to a female who is younger than you...
read moreCharcoal Drawing
There are some things that never get old even with the passing of time. Fads will come and go, but there will always be something to appreciate about them and charcoal drawing is one of those. For this, we’re going to need the following: Sketch pad Cotton buds / Cotton balls Regular pencil Charcoal pencil/Charcoal sticks Eraser (preferably the kneaded kind) For starters, we’ll prepare the sketch we’ll be working on. If you’re the talented kind who can sketch portraits with ease, you can just go and draw a rough sketch of your preferred subject using your regular pencil. If you happened to be sleeping when the skies opened up and showered mere mortals with drawing talents, on the other hand, you can do it the easier way by tracing photos from magazines or photocopied pictures of your desired subject. When your sketch is ready, we’ll move on to the charcoal painting process by identifying the so-called dark areas of the human face. These usually include either side of the hair right next to the jaws and cheeks, the thin line between the upper and lower lips, the outer corners of the eyes, half of the nose and the eyebrow areas just a bit above the nose. Doing this is important because the work we’ll be doing in those areas will give our painting its defining silhouettes. Next, we’ll whip some strokes on the areas mentioned above using the charcoal pencil. The strokes don’t have to be particularly heavy, but they should be heavy enough to be distinguished from the lighter lines of your sketch. After that, we’ll get some cotton buds and rub the pencil strokes on the dark areas lightly to smudge them a bit. If you want the smudge to cover a wider area, we can use some cotton balls, but if you want to control the area that will be covered by the smudge, we can stick with the cotton buds. From one area, we’ll work our way to the other sections of the portrait until we’ve got all the dark spots covered. Once we’re done with the smudging part, we’ll finish the rest of the painting by tracing our sketch so the lines we’ve made earlier will be more pronounced. We can also fill in the rest of the painting by shading the spaces in between the lines. When all of these are done, we’ll add some finishing touches to the painting by using a rubber eraser to erase certain parts where shading has been done to give them a sparkly look like what we did. And that’s it! Our finished charcoal portrait. Make sure you don’t forget to put your signature somewhere on the paper. Who knows, it might actually command a high price someday....
read moreSculpture Experiment
Are you one of those people who collected cute figurines of your favorite characters when you were younger? So are we, but let’s not get into the details, okay? ^_~ Anyway, for this tutorial, we’ll teach you about our little experiment with traditional sculpture, but before that we will need the following: Plaster of Paris Molding clay Carving tool Petroleum Jelly Paint Paintbrush Mixing bowl Water Old cloth or discarded paper The first step in the sculpting process is thinking of a design you’d like to work on. It can be just about anything under the sun, although we suggest that if you’re not that much into molding, picking a simple design would be the best way to start. After you’ve made up your mind, let’s take a bar or roll of molding clay and knead it with our hands. Once the clay is soft enough, we can start shaping it according to our preferred design. If you want to include some fine details on your piece, you can use carving tools or any other pointed object to peel unwanted clay away. When you’re already satisfied with your design, let’s set it aside for a while and get a mixing bowl. Then let’s pour some Plaster of Paris on the bowl and add some water to it. We’ll mix the two until the mixture achieved a creamy consistency. Next, let’s get the molding clay we’ve set aside and apply a generous amount of petroleum jelly all over its surfaces. It’s important that we don’t forget this part because it will make a lot of difference later on. Once we’re done, we’ll put some old cloth or discarded paper under our molding clay. If you prefer, we can also use a basin or any container that will prevent the liquid mixture from staining the surface we’re working on. After that, we’ll get our mixture and we’ll pour it unto our molding clay. We have to ensure that no surface will be left uncovered then we’ll set it for an hour to dry. The finished product will be our mold. When the mixture is all dried up, we’ll flip our mold upside down until the bottom with the molding clay still partially visible is exposed. <insert matching photos here> Using a carving tool or any other similar object, we will start to dig out the molding clay out of the now hardened plaster. Once we’ve gotten all the molding clay out, we’ll pour some mixture unto the now hollow interior of the mold and set it aside to dry once more. <insert matching photos here> When the plaster we poured inside has hardened up, let’s get any slightly heavy object and use it to chip the mold until it crumbles to pieces. We must be careful not to strike the mold too hard or we may end up chipping a part of the molded product inside as well, though. This shouldn’t be a difficult task if enough petroleum jelly was applied on the molding clay before the mixture was poured unto it. When all the pieces of the mold has been chipped away and the molded product inside has been revealed, we’ll get our paint and paintbrush and start painting it with any color we desire. Just like in the previous steps, we’ll set the finished product aside and give the paint some time to dry. Once your own piece of sculpture is done, you can now place your work of art in your favorite spot, give it as a gift to a friend, sell it to interested buyers, or if...
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