One of the things I learned is that Filipinos don’t like caricatures. Caricatures usually mean that a part of your face would be exaggerated and you would look funny. Most Filipino caricatures would often be a cartoon version of the person – simple lines, shadows and less exaggerations. That’s what I did for this project.
The images were drawn using Faber-Castell’s pitt pens then painted over in different layers with acrylic. Since each plate differed in color [some were dark, some were lighter], I had to dye the wood with a uniform wood color then proceeded to layer the paints [shadows]. I did not paint over the wood with acrylic because I wanted the wood grain to be visible.

This was the ‘first layer’. Since the paint I used was Golden’s Acrylic paint – it was transparent enough to let the ink and the wood grain peek through the colors. I had to use a permanent pen that wasn’t alcohol based and had archival qualities.
After painting the colors in acrylic, I redrew the outline using a Pitt Brush Pen, made the border darker so that the image would stand out.
- My cat kept on checking on me. Wondering why there was no food on the dining table.
- He was smelling the brushes.
- Drying the plates.