More of San Francisco

Every where I go in San Francisco, there are so many things to see that inspires me to sketch. If I could, I would do an on the spot sketching. I have joined some of the sketchwalks organized by Urban Sketchers San Francisco/Bay Area. I met the very lovely Laurie Wigham, one of the pioneers of urban sketching in San Francisco. I have been to a couple of the sketch walks she organized and it was great to see fellow urban sketching enthusiasts Apart from urban sketching, I also try other ways of illustrations like taking a photo of a place and sketching it and sketching the interior of a coffee shop or restaurant.

Here are more San Francisco sketches I made:

Pinto Art Museum, Antipolo, Rizal

Yes. All I can say to myself when I finally get to see this amazing art gallery and museum. All Filipino artists works. Painting, sculptures and mixed media. The houses or villas in this compound are such a good sight to see. As people may call it, these place is just so instagrammable yet contains such great works of art.

National Museum, Manila, the Philippines

THIS IS A REVELATION. I have to start this really good as I must admit that I hate myself for not having been back to this place since long time ago. I studied in Manila for 4 years and worked there for about 5 years and never have I been back to this wonderful museum. I vaguely remember my school trip to this museum when I was in elementary. I could not even remember whether it was in elementary or high school but it is definitely more than 16 years since I have been to this place.

Barcelona: Gaudi's city and its old modern charm.

Barcelona is a place I have dreamed of going ever since I watched the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. That was the very first Olympics I have seen and I was barely 11 years old at that time. But I did not know that there are even more fascinating places to see aside from the Olympic Stadium. Through  years of waiting, I have learned about many places you can visit in Barcelona and up until the last two years, I have met fellow The Little Prince book collectors who live in Barcelona.

This city is one place I would definitely go back to. It is just an amazing mix of art, food and culture. And its people are quite relax and easy going.

Here are photos from my trip in Barcelona from July 3 to 8, 2016.

Marseille and Aix-en-Provence

Marseille, a port city, and Aix, a landlocked town, both in Provence, Southern France are two of the best places I have seen in this country. These two cities are completely different yet it left me with the hope of coming back again.

Here are photos of Marseille.

Photographs from Paris

Paris has been blogged by many so I am just posting the pictures from my trip. But to sum it up, the best places for me are:

1. Best Museum - Musee D'Orsay

Musee D' Orsay - is an old train station that was converted into an enormous  museum and well-packed with arts that were really impressive for me. A vast collection of the best works of Claude Monet and Paul Cezanne, two of the most iconic Impressionist artists I know and some of Van Gogh's great works are here as well.

Hakone and a view of Mt. Fuji

Weeping Woman by French artists Francois-Xavier and Claude Lalanne at the Hakone Open-Air Museum.

It is my first time to visit Japan and as I have a full Tokyo itinerary for 8 days, I squeezed in a day visit to its neighboring city Hakone. Little did I know that this will be the highlight of my trip. I only managed to visit 3 places, the Pola Museum of Art, The Little Prince Museum and the first of its kind in Japan, the Hakone Open Air Museum. Navigating the city was quite easy and I managed to take a ride in one of their old electric railway system, a cruise on a huge 4-tier boat and the reliable and easy to handle bus system.

Manila Sketches

Here are some of my previous sketch work of Intramuros in Manila, Philippines I have done. Sketches were done using watercolor and ink.

San Agustin Church, Intramuros, Manila, Philippines

Oro: A Colombian Art Invasion

In Spanish, the word "Oro" means gold. Pedro Ruiz, a Colombian artist who hailed from Bogota, introduced us to another cultural weekend at Galeri Nasional in Jakarta Indonesia. As indicated on the brochure given out at the free entry exhibit, nothing gold can stay. These paintings by Pedro Ruiz tell us that splendor is on the run, that we ourselves are on the run, that time is also a river that only in art does the river remain. It is the first of its kind that I have seen such gold painting in a canvass. The paintings have a quite similar them with a gold background paint. A man steering his boat and in each boat contains the different aspects of the human being towards life. The man represents us on how we have to move on with our lives based on what we want to carry along with us in each of our boats.

BenCab Museum

So many things has been said about this place. I have checked BenCab's Facebook Page and hundreds of celebrities have visited BenCab Museum and everyone are just in awe on almost everything that they saw in the museum. I visited BenCab Museum last January 18 and I also had the same expressions with all the visitors. This place is amazing. I am glad that local artist like Ben Cabrera created such a place to display his contemporary works of art as well as other artists' work as well.

This is the kind of place that people should visit, not just because celebrities flock to this place, but to appreciate local works of art. We Filipinos, in general, seem to have forgotten our own roots and is just willing to embrace everything foreign, or putting it in layman's term "imported". We think that everything imported is always good and we forgot to patronize our own local artist. If we learn to appreciate our own culture, we will keep on loving our country. Patronizing places like this and helping it propagate and be known will  help our local culture grow and be known by fellow Pinoys and internationally.

BenCab Museum has a display of a lot of works in different genres that can reach all ages. I like the idea that it was placed a bit far from the city to get away from eagerly modernizing city of Baguio. I lived in Baguio in 1990 and I can say that things have changed drastically. It was not the pre-earthquake, pre-new millenium era that I enjoyed before. It is chaotic now and filled with construction and urbanization that will continue to ruin what was once a great place to live in.

The Owl Museum at Penang Hill

Upon my quest to find places to visit in Penang for a short back packing trip, I found out that there, sitting on a heavenly place on top of a hill in the middle of that island, is a place I can definitely call Heaven. Well too much of my exaggeration, it is actually an Owl Museum. I have been fascinated with owls as always. I have a friend whom I share this fondness of collecting owl displays and crafts and I am just so glad that this museum existed in a place I was planning to visit unexpectedly.

The collection they have just made me envious as I only have about 20 owl figurines, art and crafts. I spent about almost 2 hours just to see the details of each of the displays that I terribly wish all belongs to me. Haha. But I am not that crazy so I managed to control myself. I am just so thankful taking pictures are allowed.

To get to the museum, one must travel to Ayer Itam vicinity, which is like in the middle of Penang Island and
take a funicular train (inclined train). it takes about 10 minutes to reach the top and upon reaching the main entrance, the Owl Museum is just about 5 minutes walk.