Hobbyista: Trade School Manila

Here's another super delayed post.

I attended another workshop on the 31st of May, this time it's Brush Calligraphy 101 at the Commune and again by Trade School Manila. The teacher is Paola Esteron of Crafty Kitty. Below is the description of the class

I attempted doing brush calligraphy on my own but it made me feel frustrated. Thanks to Paola, I'm really loving it now. Even though I already know basic calligraphy, I still learned a lot from Paola's workshop like how to hold the brush properly, hand exercises and drills to help loosen up those hand muscles. Paola was a hands-on to teacher and she made sure we were picking up what she's teaching. It also helped that the class was small because she was able to check on each one of us and how we're doing.

Paola made us do some practice drills so we can get used to how to handle the brush. Then we practiced how to paint the letters. We were supposed to practice painting or writing a quote but since we didn't have much time left, we just painted the word ALOHA and had our class picture taken with our works.

Below are photos from the workshop, photos taken by Makee Wilwayco and grabbed from Trade School Manila's Facebook page.

Here are my practice sheets and my "Aloha" and the last photo is our class picture.

Trade School Manila's sites:
http://www.tradeschool.coop/manila/
https://www.facebook.com/TradeSchoolManila

Paola Esteron's sites:
http://instagram.com/paola_koala
http://themightypaocat.carbonmade.com

I am so glad to have learned about Trade School Manila (TSM) from a friend's post on Facebook. For those of you who are not yet familiar with TSM, is a group of people who shares their skills and knowledge in exchange for stuff other than money... it runs on barter. It is modeled after the blueprint of Trade School in New York and you can read more about it here.

On my first visit to Trade School Manila's website, I signed up for two workshops and one of them is Des Feliciano's Watercolor Workshop for Beginners at Commune in Makati. My barter item: this blog post and I hope I do justice with it. :)

Here are the details of the workshop with a little introduction about the teacher (screenshot mtaken from TSM's website):

Actually, I already took a basic watercolor class but that was ages ago. I have already forgotten what I learned and I never really did get to practice it... I am literally back to zero. When I saw the workshop being offered, I thought I'd give watercolor painting another shot.

Now, about the workshop, it was fun and I did learn some new things. I love Des! Her works are beautiful and I love her personality. She's bubbly and I love that she went around during the workshop to talk to all of us... not just to check how we're doing but she also made an effort to get to know her students. She gave us a little background about herself, her achievements and her works. She taught us about the materials that we're going to use, which kind of paper and watercolor brand. The most important parts in the workshop were when she taught us about the different types of brushes and the different watercolor painting techniques. Some of the techniques I'm already familiar with but I honestly didn't know about the brushes. I know there are different kinds of brushes but I only used the very common Japanese (or Chinese) brush that's the easiest to find in bookstores. You know, the one with the bamboo handle. (I don't even know what's it's called. Haha!) Now, thanks to Des, I know about the basic types of brushes that is used for watercolor painting and their specific functions.

Des taught us some basic watercolor techniques using the different brushes. She taught us the wet-in-wet, graded wash, two-tone wash, lifting out, and stippling. (Did I miss anything?) She showed us first how to do each one and then she let us try doing them ourselves. When we were done learning about the techniques, she let us paint a small landscape (or whatever we'd like) using the different brushes and combining all the techniques we learned.

The workshop was really fun and I do recommend it to anyone who wants to learn basic watercolor painting. I do hope Des will teach a different watercolor workshop and I definitely will join again!

Here are some photos from the workshop and below are the links to Trade School Manila's and Des' sites.