I was invited to participate in a drawing exhibit at the University of the Philippines Vargas Museum. I don’t think I’ve ever drawn something this big. It was fun and liberating not having to worry about color.
Tag: Canvas Gallery
Romeo Forbes Children’s Story Writing Competition
The Center for Art, New Ventures and Sustainable Development (CANVAS) will be launching another edition of the Romeo Forbes Children’s Story Writing Competition this year. I’m honored to have my painting chosen as the contest piece for this edition of the competition. The contest uses artworks as the inspiration or basis for all story submissions. This time around, the stories will be based on my painting. When a story is chosen, I will be illustrating the entire book based on the winning entry.
CANVAS actively promotes Philippine art and culture through exhibitions and collaborations with contemporary artists. One of its chief advocacies is the promotion of reading and literary in the Philippines. The stories and children’s books published by CANVAS are eventually given for free to children of distressed communities around the Philippines. Its goal is to provide 1 million books for 1 million children, and with each new CANVAS book, the organization draws closer to that goal.
The deadline for submission of entries is on October 16, 2015; Friday, 5:00 p.m. (Manila time). Details about the contest and how to enter can be found on Canvas’s blog or at their facebook page here. All inquiries should be directed at CANVAS since I’m only doing the paintings and I have no hand whatsoever with the rules.
Pictures and Words
My friends and I gave a talk at the Philippine Literary Festival held at Raffles Makati last August 30, 2015. With me in the panel were Liza Flores, Ray Sunga, and Sergio Bumatay III. We were a bit surprised by the turnout; we actually expected maybe ten attendees tops.
Liza Flores gave an introduction about our organization Ang Ilustrador ng Kabataan and talked about her process for her recent book “My Big Sister Can See Dragons” written by Rocky Sanchez Tirona and published by Canvas. The book’s development underwent the usual process that a children’s book goes through in the Philippines, wherein a publisher commissions an illustrator to provide images for an existing story. Liza’s illustrations for the book were all large scale papercuts mounted on wood. During the book’s launch, the illustrations were exhibited at the University of the Philippines Vargas Museum.
Sergio Bumatay talked about out his process for his book “May Darating na Trak Bukas” (literally translated as “a truck will arrive tomorrow”) written by National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario and published by Adarna House. Serj’s experience on the book was a bit different since it didn’t originate from a previously written text. Instead, Serj was asked to develop several studies that can serve as inspiration for a new story. From the studies, Adarna House chose one image for Virgilio Almario to base his text on.
Ray Sunga narrated his personal experiences in being a children’s book illustrator, as well as his process, and his inspirations. He gave insights into what we as illustrators experience in the Philippines (notably how you can’t live on illustrating children’s books alone).
I talked about my research on word and picture interactions in picture books as well as my learnings from a writers and illustrators workshop I attended in Bintan, Indonesia (more about this in a coming blog post). The point of my presentation was underscore our role as co-storytellers in picture books, a fact that many in the local industry may have glossed over because of the preeminence of the purely written text as primary sources of stories.
The idea of teaching visual storytelling and visual literacy in general seems to be in its nascent stages in the Philippines. Personally, I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that parents shy away from stories that are purely pictorial or at least with very few words. I don’t have the facts as to how visual literacy is being taught in Philippine schools nowadays, but I hope illustrators will have a greater role in shaping the conversation in the future.
Silent Voices: Book Assemblages
Art Fair Philippines 2015 is happening in 9 days as I write this. I’m part of Canvas Gallery‘s Libro Exhibition, a group exhibit which features artworks inspired by books. I decided to make new book assemblages as my contribution to the show.
I have eight new pieces ready for exhibition. Here are some works-in-progress.
I sculpted different faces out of apoxie clay.
Drawn elements on the faces.
Art Fair Philippines is happening on February 5-8, 2015 at The Link carpark, Makati Avenue, Makati City.
If Trees Could Talk
I’ll be participating in a group show organized by Canvas Gallery this September entitled “If Trees Could Talk”. The show opens on Thursday, Sept. 11, 2014 (4pm) at the Asian Center Museum, University of the Philippines, Diliman. The exhibit runs until Sept. 19, 2014.
Here’s my work. 🙂
“Tuktok”, 32 x 40 in. Oil on Canvas
Hey Oso! 