Category: Art events

Daniel Smith launch at Art Caravan

Around March, PGW announced that Art Caravan now carries Daniel Smith, one of the watercolor brands that artists covet for. Their store is located in BGC, so we had to commute to get here. We had the chance to try out the watercolor sets from Daniel Smith in our table. I really loved the Jean Haines master artist set:

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We also participated in games, got to know more about the art store and the watercolor brand, ate some food (it was gooood!), got to chat with other PGW members, and managed to try out ALL of the Daniel Smith colors available. My wallet was ready for this event.

Look at all of the paints that you could swatch ♥.

And then there was a quiz bee about watercolor and Daniel Smith. I was grouped with 2 more people. We won because I am a watercolor nerd. Look at all of the goodies I got! ♥ I also won a Daniel Smith apron from their raffle, and I think that solidified their thought of how lucky I am with raffles. (I won around 4-5 last year).

I bought so much Daniel Smith paints. ♥ And then at home, it was the process of elimination for the reds. I wanted to replace some older paints with Daniel Smith alternates. I also wanted to switch up my custom palette to include colors that I could use for urban sketching (hence the Buff Titanium and Lunar Blue). I also got a Lunar Earth because I really liked the granulation of this one, and I thought this would mix well with my other paints.

So, was it worth it? Did it make me happy? Was my plan on using the custom palette for urban sketching successful? All of these questions have a yes as an answer. Will I buy more in the future? Maybe, if I had more money haha. I spent around 5k+ for 13 pcs of paints in 5ml and 15ml tubes. I hope to paint more, so I could buy more.

Urban Sketchers Kyusi – Retiro Sketch Crawl

Another USK QC sketch crawl – this was the March event at Santuario de San Pedro Bautista Minor Basilica at Frisco. Fun fact – I used to live nearby here! But I never knew that this was the oldest church in Quezon City.

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I initially sketched the church facade while waiting for Hannah. It was the first time that I brought my new folding stool. Really useful!

We were also allowed to sketch inside of the church. They toured us at the underground tunnel that apparently used to connect to Sto. Domingo Church. I found the atrium inside and sketched the parish’s dormitory. Really liked the capiz windows and the cast shadow from the trees.

Above – my painting vs subject photos are always blurry! Its so hard taking a picture with one hand. Below – our usual latagan. This was also the time that I got jealous of the sizes of the other artworks and promised myself I’d bring a bigger paper next time.

And that’s it! Really enjoyed this one. We also got a chance to hang out with some sketchers after the event. They told us of the April sketch crawl which was an exciting one – they were invited to Taal!

PGW Artworks

I tried to be more active in PGW this year. Every month, they have a prompt where you had to paint 5 subjects and post it in the PGW FB group. I tried. These are my February and March entries:

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Above – A rabbit for February. I used a new paper for this to test it out. I don’t remember the specific paper but it was a sampler pack from Canson. I didn’t liked it. Below – plum blossom on Canson 200gsm paper. Yup, still don’t like this one!

Above and Below – these are a mix of Feb to April entries. I really liked these ones. Especially the sunflower painting. ♥

Around April I stopped participating because my focus went to convention preparation. That’s it for this one!

Sunday Nudes

Hannah had always wanted to try out life drawing, but it was hard to look for an event like this. I already experienced this during a PGW Art Tambay before. I followed Sunday Nudes on Instagram after so I could be updated on their events. Thankfully, we were available on the weekend that they had they March event. The venue was at Art Whale – I bought a different sized Hahnehmuhle watercolor pad and a giant brush this time.

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I’m not the best at this. But at least I tried! We had 5, 10, and 15 minute poses with break time in between. I started with pencils, but was adamant on using my watercolors but I really had a hard time. The blue painting was the model’s choice and I won some stickers.

There is of course another latag session after the event. Its really cool to see all the other artist’s works and how they sketch. If I remember correctly, Hannah also won an award. Glad she had fun!

I really liked this group. Unfortunately, this was the only Sunday Nudes event we participated on. We focused more on urban sketching and conventions this year.

If you’re planning on joining a Sunday Nudes sketch, please follow their instructions on their instagram account. Its also strictly LGBTQ and ally only, which is understandable given their history. Please respect and don’t push yourself in this group if you’re a male.

Urban Sketchers Kyusi – SketQCthlab 

Another USK QC Sketch crawl, this was the February event at Quezon Heritage House Social Hall, Quezon Memorial Circle in partnership with the QC government tourism and promotions department. I mentioned before that I joined a discord group of PH artists – so I invited them to this event. Hannah also joined this one! ♥

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The first part of the event was a brush and watercolor painting workshop by one of the USK QC members – Nadja. I didn’t have a decent photo of our works there, but I remembered that Hannah was struggling with Chinese style of painting. After the workshop and demo, we were free to sketch around QC Circle using our newly acquired techniques.

Can I just say that I still suck at Urban Sketching. But! I still attended a lot of events this year because I was with friends the whole time. ♥ The photos above is my painting, plus a blurry photo with the subject HAHA. Really liked the trees here. Below is a photo of the Heritage House where we had our workshop. I would love to sketch this one in the future!

A compilation of our works ♥. The upper right one I think is made by a first timer with watercolor. The lower right one is from Mico. After that, we went back to the venue for the usual latagan of works.

Thankful that a few days after this event, the QC government bought our paintings! I appreciate that they support our local artists. ♥

Urban Sketchers Kyusi – Banawe Sketch Crawl

Finally, we are now at 2023 posts! The first one is about Urban Sketchers QC‘s first sketch crawl of the year at Banawe street in celebration of Chinese New Year. I went with Hannah on this one! They closed off the area at Banawe street corner Quezon Ave. They had food stalls, a stage, and decorated the place:

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I really liked the red lanterns. It was also the first time I actually got to admire the arch. If I remember correctly, they made this as a Filipino-Chinese friendship arch. We painted at a building nearby where there were a lot of policemen. I painted the arch:

Since there was still enough time, I painted my left view as well. I really loved painting those lanterns and the red tent. Below is our selfie after finishing our paintings:

After the activities were over, we met up with the other urban sketchers and did the usual latagan. All of them were soooo good!

We went home afterwards. Look forward to more USK QC event posts here. We were active this year with this group. ♥

Urban Sketchers Kyusi – UP Diliman

The last event of the 2022 is with USK QC at UP Diliman. Hannah and Shine were not able to join, but Kathleen (@deartoourhearts) was! She’s one of my botanical art friends in instagram, and apparently Aira’s classmate from high school. What a small world! We met up at UP Diliman, Sunken Garden.

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I’ve visited UP Diliman a number of times before. This is where Inggo spent half of his life. He also accompanied me that day as a moral support/body guard lol. He was supposed to jog but changed his mind. When we met up with Kath, we spent our first painting session near the benches. We tried painting the whole sunken garden. I hated my fist painting HAHAHA.

It started to rain so we looked for cover. I found a cluster of birds of paradise under the pavilion area and started painting those. I really liked this one because I got to do negative space painting. My talented friend started another painting, this time she painted the library:

Then it was latag time! Sadly didn’t get some pictures. I had a lot of fun that day. Inggo and I walked all the way to Maginhawa after. Plein air and landscape art isn’t really my thing I’m still game for future events! I think that I’ll learn something from joining more of this type of events.

PGW On the Spot Painting Competition

I mentioned before that PGW Convention is a whole month long event. I participated in the online on the spot still life painting competitions. It started in the morning until noon. The camera needed to be turned on, facing toward me while I’m painting.

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We were given numerous reference photos of the still life set-up. It was up to us on how will we interpret or express the composition of our artworks. I painted in portrait and focused on the leaves. What an experience. It was a continuous painting session that lasted for 3 to 4 hours. I was tired physically and mentally afterwards. But what an experience! Will definitely attend again.

PGW Convention

I wanted to write my experience of my first PGW Convention. The kick off event was held at GSIS Museo ng Sining in Manila. It happened the day before StickerCon MNL 2022, so imagine my fully booked schedule lol.

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I joined PGW on January 1, 2022 because I wanted to learn. So why not join a watercolor group? They have events every other month, and the biggest one is the month-long convention. I went there by myself, but I didn’t really mind. I bought great art materials for a discounted price, got freebies, met new people, won raffles, and learned a lot by watching the pros paint. I also joined the art exchange event. Received a bougainvillea painting from sir Manny Vailoces. A person who had a Day Pass ticket received my painting.

The most significant program that happened on that day was the artist personality test by Seeworthy. I realized that I’m a North West kind of person — and I agree 100%. Introverted, quiet, and someone who really loves organization.

I went home inspired, tired, and ready to fight the next day for Stickercon 2022. The convention continued for another month, with artist demos and live selling every other month. Was it worth it? YES!

Office events

I’m not sure why the I wrote this as one of my posts in my OneNote, but okay. Also not sure if I mentioned it here yet, but our office has an art club thing and I’m the head for that. We’re not that active, but we try our best! I even had our club logo printed on the excess spaces of my individual sticker sheets:

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Last October, HR asked us to make a lettering in our pantry blackboard for our office’s anniversary. I suck at lettering, but thankfully I had a lot of officemates who are talented! The above photo was done by Danica, with me as the assistant.

A few weeks after that, we had our Halloween event. HR tasked us again on decorating the pantry and reception area with the halloween theme – Coco. I had no idea why they picked this theme when its years old already, but anyway. We printed a bunch of coco-inspired graphics and taped them everywhere. The banderitas were hand cut by the art club members.

Grabbed the photos from our office’s Photography club. The photos looks so good!

I also did the welcome sign in our reception area. My metallic paints were finally used on something! HAHA. And that’s all of the photos! There also was a committee for our Office Christmas party and Design department party, thankfully we weren’t tasked for those!

And now its time to do all of my pending artwork trades with officemates.