Tag: watercolor

Urban Sketchers International Symposium 2026: A Volunteer’s Experience

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Recently held in Toulouse, the Urban Sketchers International Symposium came to into conclusion a few weeks ago. These have been the four (five, if I count the day I volunteered to pack the goodie bag items) busiest days of this year for me. I have never been so physically tired in a long time but I have never been so happy either. Being a volunteer at the symposium is easily one of the best experiences I could possibly have as an artist!

It all started when I wanted to join last year’s symposium in Poznan, Poland, but realized it was already too late for me to register, and that I had other holiday plans as well during that time. You can just imagine how ecstatic I was to find out this year’s symposium was going to be held right where I live!!! And that they would need volunteers. Volunteering for something that I’m passionate about has always been in my blood even when I was still living in the Philippines. I’ve volunteered for ecotourism, education for children, and even for kiddie cancer patients (which was heart-breaking). And now, I’m volunteering for art in one of the most artistic and beautiful places in the planet.

I applied to be a volunteer for the symposium during the last quarter of 2025, if I remember correctly, and then I heard from them in January saying that I was short-listed, and finally accepted to be one of the sixty lucky volunteers! I was so, so, so happy. We had a couple of meetings after that, and I was also accepted to volunteer for the goodie bags packing, which was so much fun.

We packed the goodie bags on Bastille Day, which is a national holiday here in France. All twenty of us were so excited to unpack the boxes, arrange them properly on the table, form an assembly line, and fill in the yellow bags with all the goodies, all 900++ of them!

We were supposed to finish late in the afternoon, but we finished hours in advance because we were so fast and efficient. Thanks to the help of volunteer coordinator, Amelie Demange and all the admin and staff working with us during that day.

As a volunteer, you get to see the behind-the-scenes of (almost) everything, and also get to know the wonderful people behind the organization, and of course, the faculty. We also get to have our free lunch, and our own lounge / resting area. And of course, all the goodies in the goodie bag from all the sponsors, and more:

As a volunteer, I got to assist in one of the demos and one of the workshops. I also got to attend on one of the workshops. They were all very interesting but I was really too distracted and too tired to follow the workshops and the demos, and I even forgot to bring the proper art materials with me because I always had to rush in the morning, not used to waking up very early and I would be so exhausted coming back home from volunteer work that I would just eat and sleep when I got back home. But still, I was able to sneak in this quick sketch and a watercolor doodle of Saint-Sernin Basilica while assisting a demo from one of the faculties from all over the world, even without my usual plein air painting kit. I made do with the sketchpad that was included in the goodie bag from leuchtturm1917, which they actually engraved with my website URL for free!

I also had a chance to watch Stephanie Bower on her talk about perspective. She also did some book signing one day, and so I brought all my books for her to sign.

There were a lot of other well-known artists there doing the workshops and demos, etc., but I mostly enjoyed assisting Barbara Luel in her demo at Place Wilson. She was the nicest, warmest, most charming faculty member. And I am just so glad to have been assigned to assist her.

I actually did not know that there would be a lot of walking involved, even though I avoided volunteering for the sketchwalks. It was Urban Sketching after all, so I should have expected to walk outside with the faculty and do the sketching / painting plein air!

One of the highlights for me was when we all went up onstage to accept a warm round of applause from everyone during the closing ceremony.

I have never done anything quite like this before. I don’t think I would have the stamina to become a volunteer again, but I think I just might go to the next symposium in Toronto, summer next year. And if I ever do, hope to see you there! 🙂

Thanks for dropping by! Cheers, and have a good week ahead!

Watercolor Art Retreat, Lanzarote, Canary Islands

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As a loving treat to my wonderful self this year, I booked this relaxing Yoga and Watercolor Art Retreat in Lanzarote, Canary Islands in Spain. It was organized by Lucia of The Sun Collective. We had four days of very informative art classes by watercolor artist and Sennelier Ambassador, Catalina Rodriguez Villazon. I did not care so much about the yoga, though. It was too early for me to join, and I was always sleeping so late, or in the wee hours of the morning, for some reason. Probably because I was not used to the complete quiet, except for the howl of sea breeze at night.

The place was gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! And I had the most beautiful room of all, with the beautiful view of the sea, and the surrounding volcanoes. It was a few steps to the dining / recreation area, with the huge orchard down below.

The food was wonderful, the service was exceptional, the place was magical! I had the most wonderful time with wonderful people, and it was one of the best experiences I will cherish most. 💖✨

Botanical Watercolor Art Retreat in Teyssode, France

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So, I just got back from a wondrous, week-long watercolor art retreat with Harriet de Winton here in the South of France.

I spent a full week interacting with a small group of lovely people from different parts of the world — mostly from North America, and the UK. And I got to meet and chat and learn first-hand, up-close and personal some watercolor tricks from Harriet herself, who stayed with us in the same location.

First of all, the venue, Domaine d’En Naudet was lovely. The hosts, Nicolas and Sophie, are a lovely couple who own the estate. My spacious room was kept clean every day (very unusual in these parts, except in hotels), has huge windows and is conveniently located directly in front of the hall where we hold our daily (almost) watercolor sessions with Harriet.

Each meal (lunch and dinner) was specially prepared by a British chef (forgot to get his name) but he said he works only with uptrek (the event organizer), and that he has a food truck somewhere in Teyssode or Albi. I should look him up. He was really good. As for the wine, and the wine trip and dégustation, I was not so crazy about it, and really quite disappointed. Although, I appreciate that they are trying to promote local wines.

All in all, I had the most enriching experience and wonderful time painting and relaxing and walking around the neighboring village of Albi, which I had not seen in ten years! It was worth revisiting.

Thanks for dropping by and have a lovely weekend!

Sampaguita Original Watercolor Prints

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New item on the zazzle shop — original watercolor stickers and prints of Sampaguita, the Philippine National flower.

This artwork, together with a few others (see picture gallery below) were on exhibit during the Philippine Independence Day celebration of the Filipino-French community here in Toulouse last June.

Apo Whang-od, Philippine tatoo artist, on A4 watercolor paper
Catriona Gray, Binibining Pilipinas and Miss Universe 2018, on A4 watercolor paper

I have been super busy with work, and life in general during the past months. I barely had time to update. But in the coming weeks, I shall be posting about our mini-garden / terasse renovation, recent road trip to Italy, and the upcoming watercolor retreat I shall be joining.

Thanks for dropping by, and have a good week ahead!

Happy Holidays 2022

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Hey there! I know I’ve been slacking on posts lately. My new job has taken over most of my time lately. But since, it’s the holiday season, things are getting a bit more slow-paced at work starting this weekend. So I’ve taken the opportunity to post a watercolor painting demo, finally!

In this video, I was inspired by the Christmas lanterns that I found in Ikea here in France. They remind me so much of the Christmas lanterns that we have back in the Philippines (Parol), I just had to make a watercolor version of them in a Christmas greeting card.

Since I’m always missing the tropics, especially, the beach, I’ve created this tropical themed greeting card. If you guys are interested, I sell some greeting cards, and other gift items with my original watercolor prints on them on zazzle.com. Mostly, Filipino themed. This year, I am so happy to have sold quite a lot! I’m finally going to be able to cash out my earnings! 🙂 What a treat. Thanks to those who patronized my humble artworks.

Hope you have a great holiday. Cheers!

Arch Art Supplies San Francisco Haul Unboxing

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Hey guys! It’s been sooooo long! I had been so so busy with my Master’s degree, especially the last three months! It felt like ages since I last posted here. And it felt like I have aged five years the last three months due to my overly hectic schedule and overwhelming course projects, assignments, exams, etc! But my classes finally ended last June. And although I still have some projects and exams to accomplish, I managed to squeeze in a couple of weeks’ holiday with my family.

We toured the West Coast of the United States, driving from Los Angeles, to Arizona, Utah, Las Vegas and San Francisco. We visited so many, many beautiful places like Venice Beach, The Grand Canyon, Horseshoe Bend and Lower Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona. We also went to Monument Valley in Utah, Bryce Canyon, Mammoth Lakes, Yosemite Park, Death Valley, and San Francisco. It was super tiring and hot (like hell). I also had to help my husband drive a bit. It was exhausting. But I loved it!!!

That spot in Monument Valley (Border of Utah and Arizona) where the famous scene in Forrest Gump, where he decided to stop running, was shot

Anyway, I managed to drop by an art supplies shop in San Francisco, called, Arch Art Supplies. It had some good reviews on the internet, and it was not so far away from our hotel, Grand Hyatt near Union Square, which I highly recommend! We had such a lovely time there, especially enjoying the complimentary snacks and drinks at the Lounge Club, and the beautiful view of San Francisco from there and in our own room. I especially enjoyed watching “Karl”, the fog roll in and out of the city.

So here is my video, and I hope you enjoy watching it. I’ve included in it some short clips from our trip.

Thanks for dropping by, and have a great weekend! 🙂

Drawing Contest (Concours de dessin) by Art Tea Shop Toulouse

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I was surprised and very flattered to be contacted by Art Tea Shop Toulouse for their Drawing Contest. They asked if they could use the photo I took of my watercolor artwork for their Drawing Contest’s flyers.

J’ai été surprise et très flattée d’être contactée par Art Tea Shop Toulouse pour leur concours de dessin. Ils m’ont demandé s’ils pouvaient utiliser pour les flyers de leur concours de dessin la photo de mon aquarelle que j’ai prise.

My original artwork and photo

If you are interested to join, do visit their instagram page for details.

Si vous êtes interessés, consultez leur instagram pour plus de détails.

This artwork was totally not my best but I guess I captured the mood really well. My composition was not bad at all. And overall, everything in the photo looks quite nice! 🙂

Cette peinture n’est pas du tout ma meilleure, mais je crois que j’ai bien saisi l’ambiance. Ma composition n’était pas mauvaise du tout. Et dans l’ensemble, tout ce qui est sur la photo est très joli 🙂

By the way, they also have a nice restaurant / tea shop, where we had one of our monthly watercolor sessions two years ago.

À propos, ils ont aussi un joli restaurant/salon de thé, où on a fait l’une de nos sessions mensuelles de l’aquarelle l y a deux ans.

Art Tea Shop in Toulouse

If you live around Toulouse, do drop by the Art Tea Shop. It’s a really nice brasserie and tea shop with warm, welcoming staff. The place is very cozy and quite original, they have good food and drinks, and they sell artworks from local artists, too. We totally had a good time there. I should go back one of these days. 🙂

Si vous habitez dans la région de Toulouse, ne manquez pas de vous rendre à l’Art Tea Shop. Il s’agit d’une brasserie et d’un salon de thé très sympathiques avec un personnel chaleureux et accueillant. L’endroit est très confortable et assez original, ils ont de la bonne nourriture et des boissons, et ils vendent des œuvres d’art d’artistes locaux, aussi. On a passé un très bon moment là-bas. Je devrais y retourner un de ces jours. 🙂

Mont Saint-Michel Watercolor Painting Demo

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Hello everyone! How have you been? I hope you’re one of the chosen few who managed to escape the ire of Omicron. It seems to be very much omnipresent and omnipotent these past few months. Only the hashtag blessed (according to some instagram people) have managed to slip through unnoticed.

I, myself, have been under the weather for the last few days now. It’s not COVID, though. Just the common flu. The symptoms might be even worse than Omicron’s, though. I have been feeling like somebody slapped me around the whole night, every morning I wake up. My whole head hurts, especially my eye sockets, my scalp and even my teeth! I got nasty joint pains the first night. I hardly slept. From time to time, I get sharp nasty pains in my ear. Maybe I should redo the auto-test to check if I really don’t have COVID.

Today, I feel much better, though. I now only have a bit of cough and colds, and I sound a bit like Marge Simpson (or a bit like the sexy French Lola voice you usually hear on French TV doing the voice-over on magazine shows (think Edith Piaf!)… only in France! 😀 ) when I talk. That, and despite the fact that I’ve unwittingly wiped out clean my entire local project folder with all my Python Labs Machine Learning codes in it yesterday morning. Who does that?!!! I wanted to slap myself, but my sickness was already making me feel as if I have been slapped around enough already.

What’s good about all these is that I managed to get some free time (no classes also last Thurs and Fri) to paint again. I have been postponing for the longest time to paint Mont-Saint Michel. My family and I had the occasion to visit this magical place up in Normandie during the summer.

I painted it in a loose, quick, relaxing and fun way, as usual. I don’t want to take my paintings too seriously. I just want to have fun doing them. That’s the most important thing to me.

Thanks for dropping by. Cheers, and keep safe, everyone! 🙂

New Year Art Haul, Lunch Date, etc

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Hello, hello, lovely people! How’s the first few days of 2022, so far?

As for me, I feel like celebrating since I have just finished completing and passing all the exams (five in all, including the grueling Applied Maths Subjects) due this holiday. And I still have a week to rest a bit before my classes start again!

Anyway, the last day of the year, hubs and I had a chance to go on a date and eat out at a fancy two-Michelin star restaurant called, Py-r. The first time we went there was eight years ago. It didn’t have any Michelin star yet, but it was already quite good.

And just after the sumptuous lunch, we strolled around a bit to help digest all the food we ate. We passed by one of my favorite Art Supplies Shop, Rougier et Plé. I thought I’d check out if I could really get a 10% discount from my student card. And I did! Which is really very nice! If you’d like to see my haul, do check out my Youtube video:

Happy New Year, and thanks so much for dropping by! 🙂

Youtube 100 Subscribers, Master’s Degree, Travels, and Other Updates

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Hello, everyone! It’s been a long time since I last made an update. My family and I went traveling for half a month in the Northwestern region of France last month. We were trying to make the most out of the seemingly very few “sunny” days of summer this year. It has been sooo rainy and windy. It felt more like autumn than summer.

Anyways, I was surprised this morning to find this email from Youtube:

Just when I was about to give up on this channel… hope to find more time for videos soon!

It’s been a long time since I last updated my Youtube art channel. I was surprised to find that I have actually been getting more subscribers. It was such a pleasant surprise. I do hope to be able to post more videos soon. I will try my very best. Although, I am going to be really very, very busy starting next month.

I have actually applied to a Master’s Degree in Artificial Intelligence. I managed to get accepted in the two schools here in France where I have sent my application. I chose the one whose campus is in Paris and Nice. But I’ll be taking live online classes since I live in Toulouse. As you know, my day job is actually IT-related, not the arts. I have decided that I am just going to keep doing art as a hobby, not as a main source of my bread and butter. Maybe someday. Maybe I just might be able to find a happy mix of art and IT, like maybe something along the lines of NFT’s… maybe. But for now, I’d like to focus on Artificial Intelligence coz I believe, there is a lot of opportunities there. The possibilities are infinite. 😉

As for my travels, my family and I went on a Food Trip Road Trip holiday going from Toulouse to the Northwest of France. It was quite tiring, but nevertheless, wonderful trip to celebrate our 10th Wedding Anniversary this year. We saw a lot of nice places and dined in Michelin-starred restaurants. I think I will write more about this in my travel blog.

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