Category: Art events

Patrons of the Arts – January 2024

We started 2024 with a convention last January. Inggo and I joined Patron of the Arts: Spring Beginnings held at Centris once again. Pretty proud of our full table! Looks like we’ll need 2 tables in the future, no?

Read More

This was one of the smoothest ingress and egress con experience for us. It was quick and stress free. We were one of the early birds during ingress and we took our sweet time setting up. I brought more original paintings this time hoping that they’d find homes. I sold a few and I’m really thankful to the buyers! ♥

I also organized a stamp rally! My idea was to make a palengke-themed stamp rally so I recruited artists who have fish or produce related stickers. Those who completed our stamp will get a crochet bayong made by Inggo with all of our artist’s prizes. We had meat, fresh fish, dried fish, veggies, fruits, and more. It was so cute! I also made giant stickers again and bought fake ice as decor for it. It was a huge hit!

Our friend also made a stick normally seen in markets. I borrowed it to take a photo with my fresh fish stickers. This was also the first time that we used zipties for the acrylic boxes tied to the mesh wires. I wanted to display my postcard prints efficiently, and while it was sort of a success, it wasn’t stable enough and sometimes the prints would fall. 

Aside from the usual tilapia stickers, I made parrotfish ones. They are available in A4 and A5 size at the same price. My thought process was “who would even buy an a4 fish?!” but a lot did. They said it is a future me problem on where to stick it. Thankful as well to officemates, friends, and family who visited our booth. Some were first timers in this kind of convention, I’m glad they had fun! 

Overall it was a convention. I truly felt that we started the year right by participating this event. ♥

PlannerCon

My next event after Art to Cart was PlannerCon. This was StickerCon’s first event for planner and journaling enthusiasts. I applied for a half table this time and this is my real solo stint event because assistants are not allowed for my type of table.

Read More

I was partnered with another artist for this type of table. She was really nice! I also have friends who also boothed in this event – Clair, the sisters Beatrice and Joyce / Ella and Marie, Louise, Alyanna, and many more. ♥ Inggo was also there for support – to switch with me whenever I need a break (or to shop lol). I really liked my table display that day! I added wire baskets on my mesh wires to display some of my other products – more washi tapes and my misprint postcards. The misprint postcards were just desaturated versions caused by my printer supplier’s error. Thankfully, they replaced it with the correct colors. I couldn’t sell it full price due to my pride so I did a discount basket. 

I also made giant versions of my tilapia stickers just to give away to my friends who will visit the event. One of my customers wanted to buy some of them but kept asking for a price, so I said its 100php each. She bought two! 

Huge appreciation to Inggo – whenever he wasn’t at my table, he was around the venue crocheting away, sometimes in the middle of the wide aisle lol. My friends from each aisle kept on commenting about it. He made around 4 mini clodsires that day! 

This was a pretty chill convention. I’m glad that I got to join another StickerCon event. ♥ I didn’t earn as much compared to the other conventions (but Art to Cart still was the lowest sales). But I really wanted to join another event like this that when they announced PlannerCon for 2024, I immediately joined. ♥

Maker’s Festa and Thingamajig

November – these two events happened one week apart from each other. Makers Festa was held at Gyud Food park at UP Diliman. Another discord member wanted to try selling at conventions. He’s my second con baby. He specializes in collage art, and has turned his products into prints and stickers:

Read More

I was pleasantly surprised that Alyanna, or alfajone was physically there for Maker’s Festa. I thought she moved overseas! I bought some of her merch as well. Another seller that I found and liked was avonlii, I bought her A4 print of camellas last ATC – this time I bought her morning glory one. Makers Festa haul below.

Thingamajig was held at Tierra’s at Maginhawa. It was a small but cozy event. I wanted to return the favor to Niao because she was always there whenever I held events. Below is my small haul from the event:

I didn’t paint as much this time as my hands are still recovering. I’m pretty happy with my haul from these two events.

PGW 6th National Convention

This post is about the preparation and the exhibit itself: September was a busy month! After painting the PaperCon commission, I painted a 15″ x 15″ watercolor painting for the PGW 6th National Convention the weekend after. It was the annual open call exhibit for PGW members.

Read More

Of course I wanted to join! I didn’t last 2022 for reasons I cannot remember anymore. And the members are starting to remember me because I kept on winning raffles. It was time to change that! The theme for the member exhibit was Lakbay+Diwang. Travel and celebrate.

My concept was pushing itself too hard, but I really wanted it to work. Below is my artist write-up that I’m very proud of:

Banaba, scientific name Lagerstroemia speciosa, is an indigenous flowering tree native to our beloved country, the Philippines. It is also known as the “Pride of India” or “crepe myrtle” in other parts of Southeast Asia. The Philippines, as a megadiverse country, has an abundance of flora and fauna—natural wonders that I believe are needed to be represented more in our medium. This is aligned with the advocacy of Ms. Bing Famoso Tac-an, founder and current head of the Philippine Botanical Art Society, which I am also a proud member of. This group aims to showcase endemic plants of the Philippines through visual arts, specifically via botanical art painting. Our group hopes to educate and create awareness about the conservation of these indigenous flora since most of them are now endangered.
I chose Banaba as the focal point of my composition because it was one of the first flowers I encountered outside when it was safer to go out during the pandemic. I wanted to show through my work that we have a myriad of beautiful endemic plants which can be subjects to choose from aside from the more popular but foreign flower subjects like peonies, roses, sunflowers, etc. My piece is inspired by the botanical art style with a white background, a requirement for the Philippine Botanical Art Society as well as its international counterparts for portraying such works, with the aspiration of scientific accuracy to the best of my abilities.
Indeed, our local endemic fauna—Katmon, Waling-waling, Tayabak, Hoya, and, of course, Banaba (but ironically, not Calachuchi and even our own national flower, Sampaguita), among others—must be celebrated. Through painting these as subjects, one can inspire and instill the knowledge that one must simply look around, even in our urbanized Metro Manila, near our homes we live in, and all round our own barangays, to see that such beauty exists around us. What more can we see and appreciate once we travel around our own beautiful Philippines.

I was really satisfied with the details. Look at those folds! ♥ The convention kick off was also the day of the exhibit opening. I attended the convention kick off first in the morning. Inggo waited somewhere in Estancia. During the exhibit opening, my Ragnarok friends from wayyyyyyyy back came and visited! We had dinner afterwards and reminisced about the good old days.

I didn’t have any time to retrieve this painting for egress so I donated it to PGW. I sort of miss it, but I can make another one anyway! I loved the experience of being part of this community. I hope I could be a bit more active this 2024.

Art to Cart

What can I say about Art to Cart?

Days after the relatively successful Patrons of the Arts, another new organizer popped up from the convention gossip grapevine. We were curious and attended their presentation. Impressed, we signed up. It was another gamble with a new organizer that we could afford, so why not? Their first event happened around mid-October.

Read More

Above photo is our Day 1 set-up. Let me just say that I got injured on the first day of the event. It was so bad that I couldn’t hold a pen or draw for a month. I had a wrist brace most of the time. Lesson learned – don’t run, let people wait for you.

The organizers were alright? We were forgiving because it was their first art convention. We were impressed with the writeups they made of us that was obviously well researched and well-written. On the day itself however they had a lot of mishaps. The floor plan and map in particular. Artist aisles were too narrow (they fixed it on day 2). The program and host was boring.

One good thing about this event is that Inggo sold a lot of his works on this event. He even had a fan who bought A LOT of eevee merch. Super happy for him! We also had a stamp rally with our server members as well – where supportive server members completed the stamp rally lol.

This was also my first convention baby – or con bb Ret’s first event. She’s a server member as well, and she said that she has always wanted to join a convention but never had the courage to or doesn’t know where to start. I offered to help her from application, financial help, merch production, up until ingress and even lent her our extra table displays. I’m really proud of her as well! I made her pair with Shine, one of the January Maker PH girls, on a full table so she could be with someone who has experience with conventions. I’m glad that they matched personally. The photo below is a jeepney sign custom made by one of the server members. Its our informal nickname to fellow members. I loved it so much I had one made for Inggo and I for future conventions. 

Above is my humble haul from Art of Cart. This was my lowest selling convention of 2023, but I wasn’t in the red. I had a good time hanging out with my friends. One of the notable conversations during the event was with a customer who complimented me – “Your works should be in an exhibit”. Me, flexing, “Oh yes, I have an exhibit with the Philippine Guild of Watercolorists at Estancia Mall next week”.

And that is the next blog post! ♥

PaperCon 2023

PaperCon was held last September 9 at Centris. It was technically my first time as a solo artist, but Inggo was there with me as my assistant. ♥ Look at my full table! It’s so cute!

Read More

I felt pretty proud of my table set-up. We upgraded a lot of things after POTA July: laminated price tags for easier visibility, mesh wires so we could take advantage of height, a printed table cloth, more grass tiles, and more acrylic trays. It looked so neat! But look at the chaos the night before, packing all of these:

I also made newer business cards with two different designs. My previous one was too small and was not a standard size. This one is beautiful and the art speaks for itself. I also had a stamp made – the photo below was what they had made without my instagram handle. I sent some feedback and the supplier replaced the stamp with the correct request. The passport photo on the left is a new thing for PaperCon. It was a small booklet for customers and sellers, where they could collect stamps from all the artists in the event. I had a lot of fun asking for stamps from everyone!

I’m really thankful for this event. Even though the venue was scorching hot that day, we didn’t really mind it because there were a lot of people! It was also really nice to see some previous PaperCon kapitbahays and other artists. It felt like a post-pandemic reunion of sorts.

Really thankful as well to my friends who came and visited the event – USK QC people, POTA friends, officemates, discord friends, etc. ♥ Inggo also made me an orchid crochet headband because I requested one for this event hehe. One customer also wanted to commission me for a painting – which is what my next blog post will be about!

And lastly, I kept being sentimental about this one, it really means a lot to me that I can finally stand on my own as an artist. I’ve been boothing since 2017, and look at all of my products now!

Urban Sketchers Kyusi – UP Diliman Sketchcrawl

I’ve added another tag for all Urban Sketcher posts with USK QC. We’ve been active with the QC chapter since we also live in this city. So just in case we get to join other chapters, we could differentiate it with another tag. Anyway! August last year was USK QC’s UP Diliman Sketch crawl. This time around I invited my discord friends with me!

Read More

I already forgot the location of where we sketched but its near sunken garden. Inggo was there as a guide for us just in case we’d get lost. We were with Hannah, Mico, Bea and her friend Ryzza. Bea is from Laguna and for some reason wanted to join us here in Quezon City.

I finally brought my foldable stool this time! And I finally used a bigger sized paper. This is a Hahnemuhle paper – around 9″ x 12″. I wanted to paint the tree and the field. It was hard because all you could see are greens and browns. But I loved mixing my own greens! It rained so the USK QC people took shelter under the film building. Another discord friend of ours also joined us here – he was having lunch near Area 2 and remembered that we were here for the event. After the latag session, we went to Friuli at Maginhawa so they could try it out.

I found it funny that the USK QC admin Nadj thought that our group was a bunch of tourists walking around UP Diliman but then realized we were one of them. Another group commented that we looked like a dance troupe because we all wore black.

It was a fun experience. I’m glad that more discord friends are interested in joining USK QC events. ♥

Patrons of the Arts – July

Our first gamble of the year is with Patrons of the Arts – a new art market event from a new organizer. I learned about this from convention friends last April. I discovered their IG account when they still didn’t have a lot of posts. It was suspicious at first, but I asked my convention friends about it. They already registered HAHA. And with a 500php discount for early birds for a 6 feet table I felt like it was worth the risk. I didn’t have a lot of products with me at that time, so I invited Inggo to join me. This was his first convention as a crochet artist!

Read More

POTA organizers promised some features for this event – an art wall showcasing the artist’s works (we got to take home our framed works after), artist lounge on both ends (who knew there were 2 hidden rooms in this venue?!), discord for communication, and I guess a lot more that I cannot remember. Ingress was impressive. The organizers were very accommodating and really nice. You could feel their passion for this event.

We bought a lot of things for the event – an acrylic display rack for me, mesh wires for Inggo, our very own QR code display, and behind-the-scenes things that you need for a convention. I also brought some of my original paintings for sale. Inggo brought everything he has worked on since we registered for this event. We had no idea how to price crochet works, so he kind of adjusted the prices along the way.

Some highlights posted on my social media: some customers wanted me to sign my postcard prints, my original paintings were sold whenever I’m not manning our table, a customer recognized my katmon sticker so I gave her a freebie of my hoya sticker (she even knew the scientific name!), we saw Inggo’s hats worn throughout the event, one girl even commissioned him on the spot for a penguin coaster, and so much more. ♥️

They even had an official photographer, and the two photos above were taken by him. Thank you so much! That’s the artist lounge behind us HAHA.

This was my first event that I wasn’t with my original artist group January Makers. I felt that after StickerCon 2022, I needed to go solo. Thankfully it wasn’t the case here – as I had Inggo as my new permanent tablemate. It was nice to see everyone – most of my convention friends were in PotA. It was like a mini reunion with everyone and all we did was chika all day. ♥️ Our server friends also visited our table! It was chaotic and fun. We could feel the love.

The first Patrons of the Arts was a successful event. We were raving all day to other artists about this organizer. What a game changer. When they announced a 2024 event, we immediately signed up. Look forward to that post in a couple of months HAHA.

Urban Sketchers Kyusi – Bantayog ng mga Bayani

The next Urban Sketchers Kyusi we attended was at Bantayog ng mga Bayani last July. I was with Hannah and Mico. Shine also attended but she was with company. I never knew that there was a place like this beside Eton Centris.

Read More

These two didn’t bring any folding stools and were complaining about the heat. So after sketching the subject, they proposed that we go to Starbucks and finish our works there. This is not the correct way to urban sketch by the way!

I sketched the statue but realized that my proportions were wrong! I didn’t get to include the head! Oops. I brought my Berkeley paper this time. Its a beginner paper but I really liked painting with it. Especially when creating dry brush marks on the paper to depict stone or metal. Hannah said that was my habit whenever I get tired of painting and wanted to finish it immediately. Really?!?!

Because we went to Starbucks, we weren’t included in USK QC’s group photo. So Hannah, Mico, Shine and I had our own latag session. I missed Shine, and I hope we could do more art tambays in the future. ♥

SW May – Brush Lettering Workshop

The 2nd top choice of our art club survey last year was calligraphy or brush lettering. This was scheduled to be the weekend before Mother’s Day (so they could write their letters fancy). Unfortunately I got sick and had to reschedule to two weeks from the planned date. Thankfully the workshop teacher is a very close friend of mine – Clair Colors.

Read More

I asked the members to bring a marker with a brush tip since this is about brush lettering. Those who didn’t get to bring one, we brought our personal stash that they could borrow instead. Clair also provided workshop sheets that we needed to print out. These will be used for practice drills per stroke and letter. The same as last time – I opened this workshop to all employees, on site and in zoom. A lot of people joined this workshop as well. I hope those who joined got to practice some more after this!

How was the workshop? It was a new and interesting experience. I know there are different kinds of lettering out there, I chose brush calligraphy because I think this is one of the beginner friendly ones. Clair did a demo on all of the common strokes. She also did some flourish to make your letters fancier. It looked really easy at first – but like every other mediums, you need to practice. ♥