#nowplaying – Valentine’s Day

It’s been a while since my last #nowplaying post and I guess I just really have to make one for this ‘holiday’. I’ve never really been big on this whole Valentine’s Day thing for as long as I can remember but my expectations for this day have greatly decreased as the years (and the boys) have come and gone. Safe to say that since my senior year in highschool, I’ve been greatly enjoying Valentine’s Day simply ’cause I stopped giving it much importance.

Now that I look back on what I did last year, I dug up my archives and found that I made a post like this. Check last year’s list here. I remember eating really heavy, full meals with every meal I ate that day ’cause I spent it with 3 different groups of single friends. Food = true and real love. HAHA. But it’s true. Personally, I don’t know what’s in store for me this year but I’ve got a few fun things planned! Food very much involved, of course.

On to the music you really ought to listen to this Valentine’s Day. For the loved, loveless, lovely, etc:

1. Make You Feel My Love – Adele
2. I Would Do Anything For You – Foster The People (I will never ever get enough of this song)
3. Shooting Star – Bag Raiders (This too)
4. Endlessly – The Cab
5. So Close – Jon McLaughlin
6. A Love That Will Last – Renee Olstead
7. Sway – Bic Runga
8. One And Only – Adele
9. I Won’t Say I’m In Love – Hercules OST
10. With You – Chris Brown
11. The Chain – Ingrid Michaelson
12. Without You – David Guetta x Usher
13. Collide – Howie Day
14. You Make It Real – James Morrison
15. Heartbreak Warfare – John Mayer
16. One Less Lonely Girl – Justin Bieber
17. The Way You Look Tonight – Maroon 5 (I love you, Adam Levine.)
18. Nothing Lasts Forever – Maroon 5
19. True – Ryan Cabrera
20. Heart – Stars
21. Smile – Uncle Kracker
22. A Whole New World – Aladdin OST
23. I Can’t Make You Love Me – Bonnie Raitt / Adele Cover
24. I Will Learn To Love Again – Kaci
25. Stay – Lisa Loeb

From my little heart, I wish you all a happy valentine’s day! Consider it a special day to either overeat or just be extra cheesy.

Nicole x

Need. To. Shoot.

It’s late at night on a cold Sunday night and I’ve just been looking at my compilation of saved makeup pegs on my iPhoto. 49 pictures later, I’m itching – no, DYING – to shoot again. The last shoot I’ve had free reins on what to do with makeup was last sembreak, during a photoshoot with a good friend of mine. Summer’s coming soon (yes, one month is soon enough for me!) and I can’t wait for us to have another shoot.

Here are some of the photos I’ve collected over time, and I’m sharing it just because.

NEED

TO

SHOOT!!!

 

Kickstarts

The first month of the year really kicked off my 2012 really well that, as you may have noticed, I haven’t been updating as much. Thankful for the 4-day holiday given to us by the university that is the root of all stress and sleepless nights, I have been posting a little bit more often that before. Since this is still very much a personal blog, I would still like to be able to share random best bits of my life just because.

As normal conversations would usually start, I’d like to answer the question, ‘how am I?’ I haven’t really thought about how I am, considering how my ‘one-day-at-a-time’ new year’s resolution seems to be doing well for me. Now that I actually gave myself time to think about it, I can honestly that I’m doing really well in many aspects of my life. January has been packed with a lot of busy schedules with all things work-related but I always had the opportunity to rest well, chill and recharge with my friends and family. I actually think that I just had the most balanced month in a really long time. I’d like to believe its cause I’ve finally learned how to manage my time perfectly to my advantage, but then I said that before and it then BOOM – my life was a busy mess again. Not that I’m complaining, I like being busy but I do love sleeping a lot.

Before I got into college, one of my goals was to be able to achieve good grades, have a social and still get sleep. So far, it hasn’t exactly been working well but I think this is the closest as I’ve ever really gotten. I realized, after a while (thanks to a very awesome friend), that grades were just numbers and that nothing would ever really compare to all of the experience, friends and good times I got in just one month.

with Ning and COWsek @ the CADs Taba Week

Push lang @ the CADs Sportsfest

@ the TV Patrol News Studio of ABS-CBN during our first trip and studio tour for Com13 class

Dreams are starting to come true, one day at a time

@ Fiamma for Jazz's 24th. Also, the day I forgot to wear and bring lipstick

CADs Sto Nino Hands @ Fiamma

Gotta post this cause I love the settings of Tonio's camera for making my skin color look so nice hihi

@ Shindig 2012: Animalia

@ Ponti the first of the CoSA Umbrella Parties: Rush

And for the namesake of the title of this post, I just have to say: and the love kickstarts again.

Nicole x

Poster Boys

More shoot backlog.

Exactly a month ago, I became a CADs production staff member again as I became the makeup artist of one of the CADs portfolio shoots for the production staff exhibit that happened the whole of last week in the SEC-C Foyer. The shoot itself probably wasn’t as long and tiring as it felt but when you have a pounding headache from 8am-1am with leadership seminars and NSTP insertions on top of the actual shoot, it definitely felt more agonizing than ever. But of course, it was all very much worth it. I was blessed (uy, blessed daw) to have put on makeup on a few of my favorite boys from CADs, to be part of a team that are all so very talented and be around friends to get me through the headache.

I personally think I finally got the hang of putting makeup on boys after the shoot I did with BrandX and now this. I remember saying, once upon a time, that I didn’t fully appreciate putting makeup on boys only because it was too simple and there was practically no creativity to be practiced. Finally, I realized that the beauty of putting makeup on boys relied so much on the simplicity that the foundation setting had to be flawless since no color or anything else that would make them look extra gwapo. My foundation setting skills were tested not only for the simplicity but also for how different men’s skin are. In my experience, they proved to be more oily, less adherent to makeup, slightly more skin imperfections and they sweat a lot more. I only realized how much tissue I used when I was cleaning up after the shoot and the balled up tissue wouldn’t even fit my hand.

And since I’m already talking about the difference between putting on makeup on boys and girls, I guess I’ll just really have to mention how much more fascinated boys are with makeup given how clueless they are about it. Everytime I bring something out, they would ask what it is, what it was for and surprisingly, if it would hurt. They would also be so curious as to why I have so many brushes and if I ever get to use them all. Well, for their case, the answer is no and so they wonder why I hassle myself with bringing everything else. I think, out of all of the things they say while being subjected to such girly treatment such as makeup, my favorite would have to be: ‘your brushes feel so soft on the face I think I could fall asleep.’ When my clients are at ease and trust me that they could fall asleep, it’s one of the best feelings in the world.

Noel Narciso

Vyen Villanueva

AG Gatmaytan

Arthur Tan

My Dream Team for this shoot:

Photographer: Tim Arafiles
Creative Director: Tim Arafiles
Post-editing: Tim Arafiles
MUA and Stylist: Nicole Ceballos
Creative Team: John Tan and Yogi Catabijan

Of course, one must always end a successful shoot with a beautiful crew shot.

Back L-R: John Tan, Vyen Villanueva, Arthur Tan, Noel Narciso, AG Gatmaytan, Yogi Catabijan. Front L-R: Leina Bolinas, Tim Arafiles, Me, Steph Ayson.

Due to time constraints, I wasn’t able to put on makeup on the girls but they really did a good job doing their own! Such beautiful girls, I’m so jelly!

I posted this before but check out our BTS video a la Esquire, Fragments shot and edited by my CADs dad Yogi Catabijan.

Check out the portfolio shots by the other production teams here.

With all this talent brewing in all just one organization, I stopped wondering why I’m part of it and why I chose to be part of the Executive Board. WHEW! Shit just got real!

Nicole x

HAKANA

I finally found the time to update my slowly and very sadly diminishing blog. The stress of academics on top of everything else that has been going on really piled up that I couldn’t find the time to do a lot of things I actually want to do. Right now, however, on this very chill Sunday evening, I actually have nothing else to do. Well, okay, not entirely. But it doesn’t matter!

I guess the timing is perfect that I’m going to post pictures from the shoot I had last month with my friends from CADs who joined the L’Oreal Brandstorm. The theme of the shoot is very relaxed, zen and stress-free. The week of this shoot was terribly stressful that I questioned myself why I even agreed to do this shoot but then again, when has makeup ever been not destressing for me? I had a really fun time doing the makeup for this shoot since I already knew everyone in the shoot really well and makeup time with Mitchi, my (annoyingly) graduating jazz head and good friend, was spent a lot just talking about life. As much as I enjoyed this shoot, I collapsed on my bed the moment I saw it and was knocked out for a good three hours until I had to catch up on even more homework.

BTS

true friendship - martin and mitchi. please don't graduate, both of you.

some hardcore photography angles you gotta take for that perfect shot

would you believe this is just a test shot?

please don't graduate

Official Shots

Many thanks to Martin Fausto, Ross Tan and Pauline Manaloto for trusting me to do such an important shoot. To Sara Erasmo and Tim Arafiles for the beautiful photos (and not getting annoyed with me asking for them ahihi). Extra thanks to Tim for never editing my face shots anymore cause we’ve shot so many times he knows I don’t edit my photos. And of course, the beautiful models, Mitchi Kawpeng and Mrs. Rose Fausto.

Get these photos more notes by liking it or reblogging it here on my online makeup portfolio!

More photos from more shoots coming soon, when I find the time!

Nicole x

Of Big Foreheads, Filipinianas and Barongs

Last January 3, my family and I had our family portraits taken in our still empty house while my eldest brother and photographer was in town for the holidays. I always enjoyed having our family portraits taken until I had to be the make-up artist of ten people and be photographed as well. It was such a long afternoon but with family, everything seems that much more worth it and enjoyable.

The last time we had our family portraits taken were during my senior year in highschool which was roughly around three years ago so we were due for a much needed update. I’ve always wanted a shoot wherein we would all be in Filipiniana attire because one, we were a Filipino family and two, it looks so classy and clean.

Before

Right after this shoot, I went to another shoot for a friend’s directing class project and damn, all I can say is, ‘ang hirap pala maging artista!’ We shot one long scene from 5pm to 12mn but it was definitely worth the time and tiredness; I wouldn’t have wanted to end the amazing Christmas break I had any differently. The shoot also made me think what I was doing in my advertising class and why-oh-why I gave up my slot in the introduction to basic tv production everyone was dying to take. This is already the third month into the semester and I’m still a confused communications major.

In other news, the month of January has been very generous to my life as a makeup artist, I’ve been spending all of my weekends in photoshoots. I’m still waiting for the shots from my portfolio/exhibit shoot with CADs but here’s a video with BTS outtakes of what happened in the shoot made my very own CADs dad Yogi Catabijan. Esquire ang peg, achieve na achieve!

There have been so many good things happening to me this month and I’d love to write all about it but this post is much too long now so I’ll save the rest for another day.

Have a sarap Sunday, everyone!

Nicole x

15 Seconds of Fame

I mentioned in my post about the shoot with Brand X that it would be shortly featured on the show Follow That Star on GMANews TV last December 17, 2011. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to watch its premiere nor its replay that happened around a week after. A few friends of mine just sent me texts exclaiming how I was on television putting on makeup on their crush Drew. I’ve been trying to find videos of it online but I really can’t seem to find any so if you do, please do let me know!

Luckily, I was tagged by Brand X’s official like page on a few screen captions of the show and I just thought I’d share it with all of you.

I wonder what he was saying at this frame!!

Like BrandX‘s facebook page to see all of their photos and support their brand!

Nicole x