The Exhibition

After 6 months of hard work, challenges, set backs, crisis and wonderment, the exhibition opened at Studio Gallery 1311. The reception was an absolutely great time. I got to share stories, reminisce, critique, and catch up with friends, family, and new faces. Finally, my stack of new paintings were framed and on the wall. It's hard to believe the day finally came and I could share the work and experiences.

Thank you to everyone who showed up for the reception. It was amazing, and my family really went above and beyond by making food and setting up an amazing event. It was a whirlwind, but I was able to snap a few pics from the night.  The exhibition will be open until July 16, so there is plenty of time to stop in and catch it.

I will also be having a figurative oil painting workshop the final weekend of the exhibition. If you are interested, call, text, email or Facebook message me for ore information.

Here are a few pics from last night. For more pics of the night, Dave from Studio Gallery 1311 has an album on his flickr page.


Just as the show kicks off. After this, things became a bit hectic for me!

Baby Tuna

Some Boku and a carabao

Three young Tagbanua boys and a coy young woman.

An elderly Tagbanua woman carrying jugs of water from the river back home. 

The adorably coy Abeng, who sat for me for a drawing demonstration just before watching from her doorway as we left the village. 

On the path out of Yayabu, we came across this young boy with his fresh picked flowers and a freshly killed bird.

Sunrise on the Sulu Sea

Fish from the wet market.

A farm in rural Aborlan, the area where we spent a great deal of our trip.

Sunrise over the rocks at Toby and Thelma's 

An elder in the Batak village of Timbuan.

More wet market fish.

A young man lashing balsa (bamboo) for a raft.

Travelogue Begins

My trip to the Philippines has begun! Since so many people helped make this possible, I thought I'd keep a travelogue throughout, documenting my experience, the artwork I create and the people and places I see. 

I figure a good first post is to talk about the gear I packed for the trip. I made a few grids that illustrate my thinking behind what and how I packed. As this is a work trip, my art supplies are most important. I first gathered everything I'd need to paint, draw and sketch while abroad. When I was in Brazil, I found that my sketchbook got the most time, and I filled an entire moleskin and burned through all the ink I brought with.  I had packed gouache to paint with but only got a couple small sketches started. This time around I'll be painting en plein air, as they say. I've got so many heroes that just kill it at painting outdoors on location, so I have a high bar to match. Just take a look at Ken DeWaard's wizardry. 

When painting in the studio, I have quite a lot of gear to choose from that I have amassed over years painting. Tons of colors of paint, cans and cans of brushes (some still usable), oils, alkyds and gels of every make and viscosity, and numerous different surfaces depending on the size and dimensions I fancy. 

On this trip, I will have to carry everything I want to use. Plein air painters are masters of packing lightly yet wisely. I am not. But I have gradually developed a kit that's minimal and full-featured after painting at figure sessions over the years. 

Everything else I brought along is secondary. Aside from maybe my contact lenses and glasses. So below I'll show what gear I packed, and then I'll explain a few of the choices I made and items I brought. I didn't manage to get the images numbered so you'll have to do a bit of deduction. 

Art Gear

:

Oil paint

Camera and lenses

Watercolor kit

Charcoal drawing kit

Charcoal pencils

Drawing pencils

Automatic pencils

Bic pen

Brush pens

Pilot Parallel*

White out pen

Pilot Precise (the pen to rule them all)

Razor blades for scraping my palette

Liquin, a nice painting medium that looks like shampoo

Turp jar

Water jar

Ink refills for Parallel pen

Clamps for my canvas board

Brushes (in a tube I whipped up)

Canvas*

Paper towels

Five sketchbooks:

- Watercolor moleskine

- Already started sketchbook.

- Trip specific sketchbook

- x2

- Pocket sketchbook because everyone should have one at all times. This doubles as my wallet, scratch paper, sketchbook, business cards, ledger, and passport case

Composing device, looking through it   

turns your view into a paint by number. I was too cheap to buy one so I made it out of mat board and duct tape. 

Panel, I'll tape my canvas to this. 

Tape

Paintbox and Tripod 

The backpack that will hold all of this gear

Notes:

I primarily use the parallel pen for loose gestural sketching, whether I'm at home, on the train or traveling. Since it's made to be a calligraphy pens, I can get a lot of various line weights and qualities out of it in order to quickly capture different values and shapes. When using this I keep my approach very relaxed and lyrical, not concerning myself too much with capturing exact likeness or proportion, instead focusing on gestures and overall impressions and composing my values  and other elements using, hopefully, graceful and expressive line work. 

Rolls of canvas in various widths. I can just cut off pieces as I need them. Loose canvas will save a ton of space and weight over canvas panels, and I can mount them when I get back to the studio. 

Clothing

Here is all of the clothing related gear I packed for my just-over-three-weeks of travel. Of course, I needed to pack light while being prepared for a variety of activities. 

Running shoes for walking and trekking

Espadrilles for when I need something light and breezy

Pants x 2

Shorts x 4

Rain jacket

Swim trunks

T shirts and tank tops

Long sleeve T and light button ups, because my flesh combusts when exposed to direct sunlight

Grundies

Socks (not pictured: more socks)

Polo for looking classy

Sweats for looking not

Hats, because of the skin on my face

Shades for looking chill and for just looking

Belt

Mosquito net, same reason as the polo

Pencil sharpener

Timepiece for looking deece

Backpack. An Eagle Creek backpack I bought for my first backpacking trip to France, Germany and Ireland in 2001. It's been on almost every single trip I've taken since then, including New York, San Francisco, the American southwest, Montana and the Rockies, Ireland, Ireland again, and Ireland a few more times. The company has long since changed the design of the bags and if I ever have to find a new bag it will be tough to match this one. It has a big kangaroo pouch on the back for attaching a day pack. Not the most ultralight solution to be sure, but since the daypack is now used for carrying mostly sand and dirt but also the rest of my dog's outside toys, I just cram extra stuff or dirty clothes into the pouch and strap it shut. 

Travel Gear

It is easy for me to go overboard on the random miscellany of travel items that seem necessary when I'm pulling them out of some dusty cabinet corner or long forgotten box in the closet. This is what I pared it down to:

First aid kit, basically just band aids and super glue

Toiletries kit, including standard stuff like teethbrush, contacts, glasses, deodorant, etc. I also took spare contact lens cases and filled them with things I might only need a limited amount of, for instance pills, hair product, and lotion. 

Paracord

iPhone 10s

Lifeproof case, which my sister advised me floats 

Headlamp

Multitool

Brightest damn flashlight I've ever seen

Extra phone battery

Wet wipes

Tissue® Brand kleenexes

Butts bees, and I'm leaving that autocorrection

Dry bag

Airplane pillow contraption

ZipLike bags

Sewing kit

Spare nuts and bolts

Emergency guitar picks and capo for emergency serenading 

Carabiners in case I need to bring my keys into a hip establishment, also for hanging my bag on my tripod for added stability

iPhone charger

GoPro Hero4, courtesy of trip sponsors Dan "The Danimal" Hoffman and Kara "the Karadactyl" "Hoffman" Duckett

Ear goggles

Super Sunscreen, since I couldn't find any theater greasepaint at the last minute. Even Super-er sunscreen imported from some Saharan nation. Gotta keep the skin unexploded. Seriously though, I burn very easily and since I anticipate a good amount of standing in the sun and swimming, I have to stay protected. On a related note, does anyone know how to remove sunscreen smell from clothes?

My airplane-ready liquids

Saline solution

Toothpick

Spare fluffy toilet paper for a lap of luxury

A little terry cloth Irish flag my mom gave me before my first trip abroad. It's gone with me on every single trip since. 

Finally, all of the above packed into two backpacks. This is what I will be carrying with me for three weeks in the Philippines. One bag weighs 32 lbs, the other weighs 20. The smaller one will get lighter though, as I will pack it with only essential gear for that day's painting and leave the rest behind.

I can't wait to put this gear through the ringer and figure out what works, what doesn't, and what was unnecessary.  Have any critiques or tips? I'd love to hear them.