My wife baked me a coffee walnut cake for my birthday – yummy! This is the last slice…after doing this sketch I ate it! Of course I have sketched cake many times before…and coffee walnut is a regular…see sketch No.2640 and 2008.
Mon-30-Mar-2026
Painting
117-3434 – Birthday party by the pool
To sketch this family celebrating a birthday by the swimming pool, I sat with my wife in the little cafe in the clubhouse where we live. I used my new blue ink (Sailor Sei Boku pigment ink, a birthday present from my daughters) in my Platinum Preppy pen and kept it simple by only colouring the greens and the people – helping to make the people the focus…and make the process faster. I find that sketching helps build up your Chi (vital energy), if you are feeling a bit exhausted, and that was one of our objectives this day.
Sun-29-Mar-2026
117-3433 – Smiling later on in the conversation
Here is another sketch of my mum done during our regular video call. She started off a bit “droopy” but was much more animated by the time the call ended. I started this with watercolour pencils…which feel less permanent and looser (which is good as I am a bit tentative when sketching faces) – and then added some touches of some new blue Sailor ink afterwards.
Sat-28-Mar-2026
117-3432 – First bread
We finally said a sad goodbye to our 25 year old bread-maker and our new replacement (a Baumann) arrived on the day before my birthday (a present from my sister and mum). Of course I had to use it straight away and it worked brilliantly – it didn’t jump about on the worktop, there was no need to jam spoons in it (see sketch No.116-3417) and the bread came out perfectly!
Thu-26-Mar-2026
117-3431 – Leaky kettle
We bought this Asahi kettle last year. It’s rather fancy in that it’s glass and has settings for different temperatures and coloured lights to indicate what it’s up to. Unfortunately one of darling our cats knocked it off the worktop soon after we got it the plastic at the bottom cracked. It still works but leaks a little…and my attempt at sealing the hole did not work.
Wed-25-Mar-2026
117-3430 – Blues and greens from Art Caravan
After our sketch-walk at Tandang Sora, we went for lunch at the Gateway Mall and then walked to the Art Caravan store in the Katinko Building on the corner of Edsa and New York Street, where they were having a “warehouse sale” with up to 90% discounts on selected items. The sale goes on until 8 April and we went a bit mad. I bought these paints (mostly QOR brand and one Daler-Rowney)…and it turns out I bought mostly blues and greens!
Mon-23-Mar-2026
117-3427-9 – Not let in, Melchora Aquino and Tandang Sora Shrine
Here are the sketches I did with Urban Sketchers Quezon City on third part of the “Banaag: Sketching Heritage from Revolution to Republic” tour. “Banaag” means a soft ray of light, radiance, hope or enlightenment…we could do with a bit of that these days. The first part I joined was in Taal (see sketches 115–3400, 3401 and 3402-3) in February. For this part we started off by going to the “Monumento ni Andres Bonifacio”…which we couldn’t get into! That didn’t stop us though and we all sketched on the narrow pavement, looking through the railings.
After that we went to the the Tandang Sora National Shrine, a national monument dedicated to Filipino revolutionary and centenarian, Melchora Aquino (also known as “Tandang Sora”). I’ve sketched there several times before (see sketches 82-2572, 2573 and 2574) so tried a couple of different viewpoints this time.
Sun-22-Mar-2026
117-3426 – Tree at Bad Café
On this day I drove my wife into Makati for an evening meeting and waited for her in the Bad Cafe (“Bad” stands for Brian and Dianne – the owners I guess). I sketched outside this cafe in October 2022 with Urban Sketchers Manila (see sketch No. 67-2210).
Sat-21-Mar-2026
117-3425 – Finally, oh finally
We have been waiting, nagging, reminding, complaining and following up with our ISP (Converge), for a router upgrade that we started paying for in September 2025. Then out of the blue we suddenly had a visit from their engineers and they installed the new device. Of course the speed of our internet connection didn’t improve much! Included in the package was a little box that connects to the TV and gives us local channels…so we now have four remote controls to lose down the side of the couch!
Fri-20-Mar-2026