Sketching at the Zoo

Do you like animals? The latest news is that the one elephant at the Manila Zoo is lonely. Is that true? PETA wants to have the zoo closed due to am insufficient budget being given. Let's have a look through our sketches of what we see on Saturday, June 23, 9 am to 12 noon at the Manila Zoological and Botanical Garden. Ticket entrance is at php 50. See you there!

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Urban Sketchers Philippines Celebrates Its First Year

A year has passed since we have become the Urban Sketchers' official Philippines group. Like our other country group counterparts, we have regular sketch walks at diferrent and interpret them. The sketching sessions give opportunities to get out and sketch as a group, with members not necessarily already skilled in illustration and with varied professional backgrounds.

Sketching on-location is not a new concept as we can observe from the many sketches through the centuries. The process and benefits has not changed so much, except perhaps in mediums. The process of the eye-mind-hand while sketching still remains to be the most basic effective skill for observating of what we see, feel and think. In an era where almost anyone has a picture-taking capable device in their pocket, sketching gives us a more integral, intimate and personal connection of what we are observing.  We MAKE the picture willingly on a blank sheet of something, permanently etched after it's done, and intantenously can be shown. This compiled or album of sketches will most likely be in the form of what we normally call a sketchbook. There's no extra process like developing the picture that you made, perhaps only scanning it or TAKING a picture of the sketch for internet sharing.

Looking through a sketchbook with the sketcher narrating is a definite delight as you know that every line, color and contrast was meant from his or her observation, with it layers of reminders of that one memory of what was observed.

For the first anniversary of the Urban Sketchers Philippines celebration, we had our regular monthly session at the Quezon Memorial Circle park in Quezon City, with some 25 sketchers in attendance. Some of us had lunch after at a nearby Filipino restaurant.

The following day later, Sunday, we caught the episode of Art 2 Art featuring Urban Sketchers Philippines on the RHTV channel, produced by the Manila Broadcasting Corporation and hosted by Lisa Macuja-Eliszalde. You can catch some snipets of the show via Youtube:

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eleKQIWs8E8&sns=em

Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZmJ5Uz2s5w&sns=em

Happy anniversary, fellow Philippine sketchers. It has been a fruitful year. Let's continue sharing our sketches of what, when, who and how we are in the Philippines and in the world.

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Sketch Walk On May 19 2012

We celebrate our first year as the official USk group in the Philippines in this month of May at the Quezon Memorial Circle Park. Come join us as we record what we see, feel and think about with our sketchpads.

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USk Philippines Shares What is On-location Sketching On the Art 2 Art Show

The invitation to talk about on-location sketching for the Manila Broadcasting Corporation's show, Art 2 Art was too good not to pass. Susan de Guzman, a production assisstant for the show wrote to invite us for the taping, and 4 members of USk Philippines namely, Carlo Martinez, Cesar Ramirez, Ampao Roxas and myself were able to share our thoughts and encouragement on sketching. The host, prima ballerina of the Philippines, Ms. Lisa Macuja-Eliszalde, was most accommodating and adored Ampao's enthusiasm in sketching.

This episode will be aired on the MBC channel on Sunday, May 20, 2012, 3:30pm. We will update this post with a video of the aired show.

Update:

A paper clip of the Daily Inquirer newspaper published last May 14, 2012 promoting the episode

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Digital On-Location Sketching

The Samsung Galaxy Note smartphone is so far the only available mobile unit that has an active Wacom digitizer system with a pen stylus, and it was this feature that I got it with an unlimited data subscription. I've always imagined something like this would come out a decade ago. Creating pictures with it skips the paper process, and thereby you can share it instantly.

Although I still believe that creating art in traditional mediums cannot be replaced by the digital medium. Sketching on paper is a sort of instant print where mistakes can happen. Those mistakes has humbled me and kept me learning to doing it right the first try of whatever it is I'm sketching. In one of the sketching application I use on the Note, layers can be implemented, and of course erasures and "digital paper" are virtually unlimited. Not happy with the first try? You can easily switch to a bank sheet. Somehow, this is the trap you can find yourself in if you have not been working with sketching "on paper". Format is currently limited to a 3:4 or 3:5 ratio, and I can't do a long panoramic format that I've learned to love doing with a Japanese Fold sketchbook.

Here are some of my sketches using the Galaxy Note on mostly food, preferably when I eat alone since 10 minutes of waiting before eating what's in front of you is pretty long for a companion.

The Galaxy Note is about 1/4 of an A4 paper, and 10mm thick. It comes with a Wacom S Pen  that slides inside the  Galaxy Note. Here though, I managed to get the S Pen holder accessory which makes it weigh and feel like a full metal pen 

The discipline of just sketching fast without erasures (much) from the medium pen on paper has taught me to get it done fast the first time.

The S Memo default app for sketching come with simulated brush, pen, pencil and translucent marker tools, and you can adjust the sizes of the tips. You can also have virtually any color hue you can pick on its palette  

It helps that the Note has a hi-res 800 by 1280 screen pixel so that you can do finer sketches

The Wacom S Pen that comes with the Note has levels of sensitivity that translates for pen width variance just like a pencil. This makes it quite a likable natural tool.