Hobbyista: watercolor

Showing posts with label watercolor. Show all posts

10 Days of Heartaches

I joined DyosaImma and Fozzy's 10 Days of Heartaches calligraphy challenge on Instagram and I just want to share my works here, too.

I had a hard time with the very first one because it was a while since I last did calligraphy. One thing I learned from this challenge is that practice really does make perfect. Well, in my case, it's not perfect but I can see the improvements. So, I've decided to practice calligraphy frequently if not everyday. I should at least do the drills, right? Also, I've learned that calligraphy need not be expensive. See, mI don't want to buy expensive inks or paints unless I'm doing this professionally. I just buy Indian ink for black and watercolor and poster paint for colors, including metallic ones like gold and silver, and white.

Here are my works with their corresponding song titles and links to YT videos (so you can listen to them). Click photos to view full size.

Day 1: Because I Miss You by Jung Yong Hwa of CNBLUE

Day 2: Eyes, Nose, Lips cover by Tablo X Taeyang

Day 3: Porcelain by Julia Fordham

Day 4: Tonight I Can Write, a poem by Pablo Neruda read by Andy Garcia

Day 5: Everything You Want by Vertical Horizon

Day 6: Sa Kanya by Agot Isidro

Day 7: Illusion by CNBLUE

Day 8: Tell Me on a Sunday by Marti Webb

Day 9: Foolish Games by Jewel

Day 10: Only One Day by SS501

I hope you'll take the time to check out the songs... they're all really nice, even the non-English ones (Filipino, Korean and Japanese). You can also check out my work on Instagram (link in the sidebar) or search for the hashtag #10DaysofHeartaches to see all the participants' works.

For the Love of...

A couple of friends asked me to do some calligraphy for this windsurfing camp in Anilao that we frequent. I hesitated at first because I don't think that my calligraphy is good enough. But they talked me into it and now, I'm very excited to do the project... calligraphy and some paint decorating. Yay!

I Googled for some ideas and here's what I came up with first...

I had a hard time with the waves (took me several tries before I settled with this one), I don't know how to draw waves. Haha! Also, I thought this was not really appropriate for the camp. It's a windsurfing camp and the peeps there catch wind instead of waves (fine... they do sometimes haha). So, I looked for a more appropriate quote and found this one by Isak Dinesen...

I like this one better. What do you think? Now, the question is, will I be able to replicate this on a much much larger scale? I already bought some poster-sized papers for practice.

I really wish this project will push through and that I'll be able to do it. For the love of Anilao! Wish me luck!

Brush Calligraphy 101

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

Watercolor Workshop for Beginners

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.