There was a time when drawing was my source of happiness.

It was what I did from dawn to dusk.

The outlet of my imagination.

It was my everything…

I can’t exactly remember when I picked up my first pencil and drew my first crooked line on a scrap of paper I found somewhere but I do know that those lines soon met in shapes, then morphed into figures, evolved to have dimension and somewhat, even became art. 

“…pati pader drawingan mo pa gid gani ya.” my retired babysitter said on one occasion.

Translation: “…you even draw on the walls.”

But now?

There’s nothing on my walls except dust and chipped paint.

My sketchpads are just a bunch of papers bounded together. They only have one to two pages of my failed attempts to draw or marks from testing pens if they still work or not, most of them didn’t.

Those art materials are probably under the couch where my siblings accidentally placed them. Some I’ve left rotting on the shelves or in the cabinets. Most of them were wood so they maybe gone forever being potential termite chow and all.

I have not bothered checking.

Not once.

The time I used to spend drawing, I filled in with a couple of things:

Photography for one.

Reading took up a lot of my time too.

I don’t stop once I start a good book.

It would be a waste if I don’t acknowledge my talent, right? I mean look at the benefits:

1. I’d have content for this blog.
2. I get to buy new art material.
3. I get to draw.

And so I did.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Armed with my parents’ money, I commuted to the nearest store that sells art suppies. The plan was to purchase the following:

1. A sketch pad.
2. Pencils with different lead sizes.
3. Eraser.
4. White lead pencils.

But I got distracted and bought this instead:

Thus why I didn’t actually just draw but chose to do one of the most challenging form of art.

Painting.

Using watercolors.

I encountered watercolors back in 5th grade when we did watercolor string pulling but I only started to actually paint with it when I was in 7th grade. A singles painting into it, I lost interest because watercolors requires patience.

Apparently I didn’t have any.

So I tried again in 9th grade, I didn’t last long either. Ever since I’ve done a lot of research, by that I mean watching YouTube videos, on how to master watercolors and I finally discovered what i was lacking.

Good quality materials.

So now that I had a pretty decent watercolor palette, needed some paper. Long story short, the place where I went to didn’t have any that will fit the remainder of budget but is aslo decent in quality.

I was stuck with this one:

Was it any good?

It was terrible.

“Heavy paper can absorb more water and rarely needs stretching. Paper weight is determined by measuring a ream (500 sheets) of a given size in pounds or grams per square meter. Light paper is anything less than 140 lb/300 gsm and heavy is 300-400 lb/600-850 gsm.” -artisfun

Link: https://www.art-is-fun.com/watercolor-paper/

My painting was very blotchy and I couldn’t blend anything at all. I was frustatined to whole other level.

Moral lesson: Don’t buy cheap watercolor paper.

But that wasn’t the point. This whole blog was created because I wanted to try rekindling my relationship with art and it did.

I chose to do a monochromatic painting of a flower. So I searched up on Pinterest a picture of a monochromatic flower and I found one.

It was easy to sketch and it had minimal layering, not to mention I liked the color.

I finished my painting in an hour and it came out like so:

It’s not any good but I had fun making it.

And that’s all it matters.

Officially starting as an online home-based shop back in 2016, Mary Elizabeth R. is slowly rising in the cosmetics industry. Now garnering 17.8k in followers on Instagram and 28.6k likes on Facebook, they have quite the audience who are mostly made up of costumers and the numbers continue to rise each day.

FACIAL OIL

“Facial oils can include any fragrant plant oils (often called essential oils, but they are anything but essential—more on that in a moment), non-fragrant plant oils (your skin will love these) or synthetic oils (such as mineral oil—which gets a bad rap in the world of skincare but for the record, the research doesn’t support the negative information you find on the Internet).

Despite the name, these oils can be used anywhere on the face or body—there’s no research showing that certain oils are better for one part of your skin or another. Such a notion is without logic or science.”- Paula’s Choice and Cosmetics

Of course, their Oil of Oils; behold Mary Elizabeth R.’s Pure Rosehip Oil!

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The brand boasts it effectivity and how it always lives up to its claims.

SOAP

Mary Elizabeth R. locally produces their own soaps. With over 15 varities, everyone has their own favorite.

Bestselling Soaps:

CLAY MASK

“According to Alitura Naturals, clay masks work by soaking up anything and everything that may be clogging up your skin. The website explains, “After application of a clay mask, you will feel your face tighten as the clay dries. As the clay dries it “soaks” up the skins natural oils and anything clogging the pores and draws it to the surface.””- Elle

Bestselling Clay Mask:

CLAY BALM

Their first makeup product that is both organic and cruelty-free!

… and MANY MORE!

It is stated in their ‘FAQS’ highlight on Instagram that they do not have a Physical Store and only has one meetup point, BF Homes Parañaque City on weekends only. However they do have Resellers.

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for more info visit their Instagram: https://instagram.com/maryelizabethr.ph?utm_source=ig_profile_share&igshid=jeyty3n70dqb

 

For the third part of Soman Chainani’s fantasy fairytale hexalogy of our favorite childhood stories, he brings Agatha and Tedros back to a School of New Evil ruled by Rafal and his Queen- Sophie.

“In the stunning conclusion to the New York Times bestselling School for Good and Evil trilogy, everything old is new again, as Sophie and Agatha fight the past as well as the present to find the perfect end to their fairy tale.

Former best friends Sophie and Agatha thought their ending was sealed when they went their separate ways, but their storybook is about to be rewritten—and this time theirs isn’t the only one. With the girls apart, Evil has taken over and the forces of Good are in deathly peril. Will Agatha and Sophie be able to work together to save them? Will they find their way to being friends again? And will their new ending be the last Ever After they’ve been searching for?

Soman Chainani delivers action, adventure, laughter, romance, and more twists than ever before in this extraordinary end to his epic series.”-

Three weeks following the events of ‘A World Without Princes’, both schools have fallen under the rule of the returned School Master, with the original School for Evil becoming the ‘School for Old Evil’ and the School for Good becoming the ‘School for New Evil’. Still, the change is all but complete as the School Master, named Rafal, still has to ‘marry’ Sophie and ultimately start his campaign to destroy Good. Though hesitating, she is afraid she might end up alone forever, taking into account of Agatha and Tedros’ supposed betrayals when ignoring her pleas for help. Sophie accepts the proposal and becomes a teacher for the School for New Evil, but the Storian still does not accept this as a rightful ‘happy ending’. This starts a countdown in which the sun grows weaker each passing day, and when the final dusk settles, it will mean the end of all the fairytale world.

Meanwhile, Agatha and Tedros, back in Gavaldon, whoo to remain in hiding and reconcile, but are forced to escape when the people of Gavaldon tries to execute them both for all the woes she and Sophie previously caused. Agatha’s mother, Callis, sacrifices herself to buy time for the both to escape to the Endless Woods. Arriving there, they are rescued by Professor Uma, whom explains that Rafal’s return has allowed the return of old villains as undead and that the remaining original heroes (including Cinderella, Peter Pan, Hansel and Gretel, and Pinocchio) are formed in a League of Thirteen led by Merlin to combat against the Rafal’s assaults. It becomes clear that he is seeking to alter the original fairytales, starting with the murder of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and following with Rapunzel and Tom Thumb.

Agatha and Tedros, despite a rocky beginning, are eventually assigned by Merlin to destroy Rafal’s wedding ring, which keeps so much his sustenance as his ’empire’ alive, but under the strict condition that Sophie must be the one to deliver the killing blow. It can only be performed with the sword Excalibur that Tedros lost in the day of Rafal’s return. They realize the Excalibur is being guarded in the School for Old Evil, and thus Agatha sets to recover the sword while Tedros, on Agatha’s insistence, sets out to rescue Sophie and attempt to convince her to give up her marriage with Rafal. Aided by Sophie’s former friends Hester, Anadil, Dot, and Hort, they manage to infiltrate the School and perform both tasks as they then run away, with Rafal mysteriously allowing them to escape.

Merlin guides Agatha, Sophie and Tedros to Avalon, where Tedros discovers Guinevere and Lancelot still alive. Despite his initial grudges against both, he slow and painfully comes to forgive them as he learns further of Arthur’s previous paranoic behavior and domineering issues. Agatha, on her part, becomes willing to give up her love for Tedros so Sophie can have him instead, more driven by her reluctance in becoming the future Queen of Camelot than by her personal feelings. Despite both’s best efforts, however, the plan ultimately fails when Sophie and Tedros kiss, and both realize they were never meant for each other. Believing she was used all along, she returns to Rafal, accepting her place by his side and becoming the Queen of Evil. Against her wills, Agatha is chosen as the Queen of Good as both parties prepare for war. The final battle is to take place in Gavaldon, still untouched because of an energy barrier fed by people’s beliefs in fairytales, but weakening due to Rafal’s altered stories, and is being targeted for reasons unknown. During training, Agatha also learns of Cinderella’s true fairytale, where she claims that she didn’t want to be a princess at all. She believed her stepsisters, who were really kind to her, deserved it, and that she would simply tag along. Her marriage to the prince caused a permanent rift between her and the stepsisters, who were ultimately killed.

The battle takes place in the Stymph Woods close to Gavaldon, which Merlin manages to sway all the School’s students against Rafal and Sophie with Lady Lesso’s aid, having been revealed as the traitor trying to undermine Evil’s efforts. Sophie, with Agatha in hot pursuit, tracks Lady Lesso down to the School for Old Evil, whom discloses her that Evil was never meant to destroy Good or vice versa, but instead become a harmonic part of it. She and Agatha also discover the corpse of Sophie’s mother Vanessa and the tale behind both her and Callis, in which Sophie and Agatha discover to be twin sisters, explaining the inseparable bond between them. Still, while Agatha sees this as a chance to heal wounds, Sophie remains still, determined to keep her union with Rafal by any means. She thinks if she deserts Rafal, she’ll be alone forever, and Agatha is determined to make her see that her fear is not true.

The battle ultimately shifts in Evil’s favor as Cinderella dies and the barrier protecting Gavaldon fails, allowing Rafal to invade. However, instead of destroying the town, he takes Sophie’s father’s Stefan for execution by Sophie’s own hands, as a ‘final sacrifice for love’ and Evil’s ultimate victory. In a last, desperate effort, Agatha reminds Sophie of her friendship, making her realize she already had a happy ending of her own, and was risking destroying it. Sophie has a change of heart at the last second and deceives Rafal, destroying his wedding ring and ultimately killing him, saving everyone in the nick of time. Full of regret, Sophie, Agatha and Stefan make amends, with Sophie finally letting Stefan have a family of his own as she and Agatha pull back to the Endless Woods. (Now being fairytale characters, Sophie and Agatha cannot exist anymore in the reader world.) There, they also give their farewell to Lady Lesso, who was fatally stabbed in battle by her son, Aric.

Lady Lesso and Cinderella are promptly buried and everything is seemingly returning to its normal state, with Tedros, Agatha and Sophie meaning to head together to Camelot, when Sophie discovers she was chosen by Lady Lesso to be her successor as Dean for the School of Evil. Agatha and Tedros depart alone to Camelot, and despite feeling a twinge of jealousy at first, Sophie comes to fully embrace her new role and purpose and is content with herself, remarking “I am me”.

read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_School_for_Good_and_Evil

Top left: The School for Good transforming to be part of the School for New Evil. Bottom left: Sophie in Rafal’s arms. Right: Rafal as drawn Michael Blank, the illustrator of the Ever Never Handbook.

The Last Ever After is the third book in the SGE series. Altogether, Chainani has published four books for the SGE universe, including the Ever Never Handbook.

The School for Good and Evil Official Website: https://schoolforgoodandevil.com/books/the-school-for-good-and-evil/