Back to Reality, making coffee, graphic works in the morning and painting by the afternoon. Still feeling floaty from the overwhelming experience. For this video I am creating a still life painting on a lobster, moscato and lemon with saturated low tide sea and afternoon sky. Surely the best thing happened to me is eating lobster and swimming on the sea thats why they are the subject of this painting. Lemon and moscato did not really exist on the travel but they are a good match with the lobster including the color. Lobster is really delicious. Its taste is in between crab and shrimp. I have good access to seafoods like fishes, squids, muzzles and shrimps. But lobster, not much. I think it is hard to harvest. There are changes in the way I painted today. First is thatI used Golden Matte Medium because I ran out of Clear Leveling Gel. This completely left the painting Matte. Second it is tropical in theme. Most of my paintings are about Ancient Egypt suddenly it has become a tropical, seascape. It is not a compromise. I am still looking on how combine Egyptian theme and seascape.  Reminds me of boat of eternity wherein the Egyptian Gods ride a boat towards the stars. There are theories that the Pyramids of Giza are surrounded by water and the Egyptians were the the people of Atlantis. But it requires a lot of research. Maybe once I get to the sea in Egypt that I can arrive with a good concept. And third, It has a natural color scheme. It is my painting that I dont have my favorite homemade Payne’s Gray and theres the blue green color. Its a combination of Ultramine Blue and Cadmium Yellow. In graphics, I don’t use blue green that much because I find it hard to harmonize with other color or if it does it looks vintage. Without pushing too hard to make the colorscheme, it just came out naturally. It was said that Mother Nature got the best palette. Indeed its true. I like natural color harmony as they look very relax and cohesive with each other. That is my story for the topic of this painting. 

Here goes  the things I learned from my solo travel. 

1. You’re no complete alone during your Solo travel. Theres a lot of communication going on wherever you go. Just by the time I was in the airport, I met a stranger and has become my IG connection. A woman who lives in Boracay also talked to me. And another elderly woman sitting beside talked to me and gave me orientation about Palawan. You will also get to talk people on the hotel and the locals who will tell you a lot about the story of the place. 
2. Allot time to do videoshoot and take photographs. It is very challenging to these while youre having fun. One will be compromised. When I was studying photography bringing with me a DSLR, I have to sacrifice some of the moments. Ive been away to photography for long and somehow I forgot the discipline on how take good photos. 
3. Bring backup devices for image files. I only brought my iphone. Im always running out of battery as well as space. If youre doing videos expect that it will consume a lot of space and that you need to back up files on a separate device if uploading to cloud is a problem. 
4. Expect less. Going to an unfamiliar is like looking on abyss. Likewise the abyss is looking at you wondering who you are. It is better to expect less because you might discover good stuffs that might delight you. Other than the crustacean delicacies, serene tides and deep seas, I saw the constellation of taurus while laying on a hammock under the black sky. This vey meaningful to me because I have a painting of Taurus. You can easily recognize it because of the two adjacent status that appears like horn if a bull and appears like a big letter Y. Even the sky leads the right path for me,   
5. I found the industry of hotel and tourism and I was able to weave all that is related. Airport, hotels, resorts and resto all come together in one specific industry. Coming from a corporate setting, hotel and tourism is one of the coolest and unpredictable industry. Although it was totally affected by the plague.  
6. The sea has created its own art genre – graphics, typography, fashion, interior design. I do not why I concluded this only now the fact that Ive been to going to the seas a lot. Themes related to sea are tropical or nautical. Tropical is more of seashores, coconuts and lifestyles while nautical is more of ships an ravaging sea. There are also a lot life in the sea. I wonder how it feels like. Its like a reverse of life in the city and highlands. It has just sparked some curiosity in my mind.     
7. You might find courage when you go solo, but at the end trip you will feel so naive and small in this beautiful world. Learning takes place not just in the city, master study class or Google, the sea has a lot to tell you. One lifetime is not even enough to explore the mysteries and beauty of the sea.   

That goes my reflections about my solo travel. Thanks to my 72 subscriber. Hi to Jenny an Steve. Thanks for subscribing. And thanks to Merc’s family for all the treats especially for the lobster. To all artists out there i encourage to go out of your studio once in a while and spend time with Mother nature.