I did this sketch on my way back from the life drawing session with Kyusi Sunday Sketchers, when I stopped to fill up with petrol. The queue was quite long and of course the cost has doubled since the start of this stupid, illegal and disastrous war with Iran.
Sun-12-Apr-2026
On this Saturday we began our day visiting one of the sponsors of our wedding and an old friend of my father-in-law. Sadly he is terminally ill and slept through our visit. Afterwards we stopped by memorial park then had lunch at SM BF homes. When I started this sketch there were four people at the table – then they all got up and left!
Sat-4-Apr-2026
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
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
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
Here are the sketches I did when I joined Urban Sketchers Quezon City at the Car Free Sunday event along Tomas Morato Avenue. I first met up with my friends @the_uban_sketcher and @pixl8tor for breakfast at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.
Then after the latag we went to Centris Mall where we bought some second hand paint brushes from a little stall in the market called – more about that later. I sketched in Centris in 2019 (see Sketches 1016, 1017 and 1018)… one of the first gatherings of Urban Sketchers Quezon City. As I sketched a little boy came up to me and looked at what I was doing…and asked why I hadn’t included any people in my sketch…so I added one very small person!
Lastly after lunch, I headed to Art in the Park 2026 to say hi to my fellow sketchers from Urban Sketchers Manila. My sketch is of the entrance to the park where it takes place – somehow the person in the foreground ended up looking really tall…but they were actually just a lot closer to me.
Sun-15-Mar-2026
Here is another sketch of my mum done while we have a video chat – I think she looks younger in this one!
Sat-7-Mar-2026
My daughter and her partner had an extra day in Manila (after their trip to Boracay) because their flight (via Doha) was cancelled and they rebooked a flight going through China …and then over Russia (not much better in my mind…the world is an unsafe place at the moment). Anyway we took advantage of the extra time and visited Tagaytay and then went to Alitaptap Artists Community in Amedeo. My first sketch is of my daughter.
After a fascinating tour round the community visiting various artists studios and encountering huge dogs, turkeys, tortoises (also huge) and a white (albino) carabao, we rested in the art cafe and had some refreshments where I did another sketch. The community is well worth a visit and the artists and apprentices (one of which guided us – Eric) were very friendly and welcoming.
Thu-5-Mar-2026
If I don’t use my preppy pen (with the blue sludgy Kung Te-Cheng Noodlers ink) every day, it dries up (update….even every day is not enough…it just dries up anyway). I had to work hard to get the ink flowing when I did this sketch…I next tried a little bit of damp tissue in the cap but that didn’t work either. This is one of the plants (one of the few that grows despite our “black thumbs”) that grows well on our balcony.
Tue-3-Mar-2026