Hobbyista: workshops

Showing posts with label workshops. Show all posts

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.

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

Des Feliciano's sites:
http://desfeliciano.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/des.illustrations

Goal-Setting & Chalk Lettering Workshop

Earlier today, I attended my very first workshop for this year (2014) which was the Goal-Setting and Chalk Lettering Workshop with husband and wife PJ and Alessa Lanot of Life After Breakfast. It was held at the Pino Resto*Bar on Jupiter Street in Makati City.

The first part was PJ’s Goal-Setting Workshop. He was a great motivational speaker and I found it to be very inspiring. He was funny, too, and he definitely broke the icy mood between the attendees. The second part was the Chalk Lettering Workshop. Alessa first showed us a video of the history of typography and then she discussed about the difference between typography and lettering, the anatomy of typography, the difference between typeface and font, and a whole lot more. She also gave us each this small sheet of paper with frames on it. It’s where we did sketches of our chalk art.

We took a small break for snacks. We were served Pino’s Mini Sisig Tacos (filled with pork sisig, lettuce, tomato salsa and cheese) and Pipino’s Tofu Lemongrass Skewers (with chili garlic sauce and alfalfa) and Pasta Putanesca (with tomatoes, olives and capers). The food was yummy considering that Pipino was vegetarian and I’m not really a fan of olives and capers. (Sorry, no pictures of the food.)

Here's a peek at the workshop...

It's really beautiful seeing all the workarts together, right? By the way, the doodles on the wall were all done by PJ Lanot. Pretty!

We were all given one “like” and we were to attach it to what we think was the best artwork. Of course, just like in FB, we’re not supposed to “like” our own work. Haha!

The “Dream On, Craft More” got four “likes” while mine and my partner’s ("Beat the Bulge") works got three “likes” each. We three got a “Makers Gonna Make” temporary tattoos as prizes. Honestly, I didn’t really like my artwork. I think that the clustering can still be improved and it lacks flow.

I had a lot of fun at the Goal-Setting & Chalk Lettering Workshop and I did learn a lot of new things. I can’t wait to join one Alessa’s workshops again. The question is, which one?

P.S. First and last photos grabbed from Life After Breakfast's blog and FB page.

Scribble Workshop

I attended the Scribble Workshop on September 20th at the Vasquez-Madrigal Plaza in Annapolis, Greenhills. The workshop was conducted by Alexis Ventura of Ink Scribbler. She discussed the introduction to calligraphy using a flexible dip pen. It was okay but I was expecting a little bit more. I was expecting at least more instructions about the alphabet like which stroke to draw first, you know, like a diagram with arrows. (Yeah, I’m a kid that needs to be spoon-fed. Haha.) I also think that there were too many students... in my opinion, workshops of this kind should only have 10-12 students max. Anyway, my purpose in attending the workshop was served, which was to jump-start this interest of mine.

The materials provided were worksheets in a folder, pencil, bottle of ink, wooden pen holder and a Hunt nib. Snack was served and there were biscuits and candies scattered on the tables, plus, bottled water was available, too. Tiny cups (for ink and water), tissue paper, wet wipes, cotton buds (for blotting excess ink) were also provided. There were also sample calligraphy pieces on the tables for inspiration.

The workshop was for three hours with bulk of the time spent on nib practices and exercises. I’d love it if it was longer but, of course, I understand that there’s a time limit. Here are some photos from the workshop...