The Baguio SketchTour featuring landmarks, landscapes and people of the city has been extended until the end of the Ibagiw Festival on November 28.
Some 50 works of artists Aurelio Castro III and Ged Alangui will be viewed at the Baguio Convention Center basement which will be the nerve center of the annual creative festivity.
The Session: SketchTour of Baguio actually took the entire month for preparation with the two artists doing the on location sketching of Baguio landmarks.
These works – 44 for Castro and six for Alangui – were launched last September 30 at the end of the Charter Month.
Despite the gloomy and rainy weather after the city’s 113th Charter Day celebration, the two artists were still able to make their rounds and come out with their artistic creations done using pen and watercolor on paper.
Session: SketchTour of Baguio did not only take the two artists at the center of the city and the famous thoroughfare as the main subject but also to other parts of the city.
Castro actually came here on August 31 and stayed overnight at Camdas Subdivision where he did a sketch of Carabao Mountain or better known as Quirino Hill, one of the most densely populated areas in the city.
In his four day stay here, he did also Magsaysay Flyover and at Session Road, he did the former Session Theater, inside the Volante Pizzeria, the stairway of the Cathedral with the archangels statue at its entrance and the lowest part of the road with La Brea Inn as the most prominent structure.
“No blue, but only gray,” bemoaned the artist due to an overcast sky.
At Podium Botique Hotel, where he was holed out for three nights, he did a sketch of the Bengao and Bakakeng Central barangay. Inside, he did a sketch of the Hoka Brew where he grabbed a couple of beers later.
A rainy September 3 saw him at the Victory Liner where he got a package from manila and while walking down Session Road, he dropped by the Court of Appeals and did a sketch despite the downpour.
Alangui, on the other hand, was at McDonalds Insular Life, where he was doing a sketch of Baguio Central School.
Castro also included some of his earlier works, done actually in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic and were displayed in the Ibagtit exhibit at Luisa’s.
The two artists are also eyeing an urban sketching workshop on the first week of December as efforts to put up of a local group of on location artists have started.
“I do wish to have our local version of urban sketchers,” said Alangui, who was one of the three artists who did the 32 mural of Baguio and Cordillera athletes at the Baguio athletic bowl middle of this year. Pigeon Lobien