The UP Oblation / pen & ink - 92 x 193 cm /1965 by Glenn A. Bautista
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The UP Oblation was a pen and ink drawing that I did before I worked on the Complete Poems of Dr. Jose Rizal Monument. Instead of letters or text, I made use of horizontal lines similar to the one we see on television. I improvised my own pens of different sizes by cutting the fountain pen tips to determine the width of each. I discovered that the fountain pens were a lot more effective than using the usual speedball pen tips ~~>:) glenn
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(lifted from: “The Uncommon Art of Glenn” by Alice G. Guillermo)
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Even as a student in the College of Fine Arts of the University of the Philippines, Glenn Bautista showed extraordinary accomplishment in art. Proof of his exemplary gifts are his drawings. One of them a personal exercise he did of the Guillermo Tolentino’s Oblation, the statue in front of Quezon hall that has become symbol of academic freedom in the University, with the ordinary medium of pen and ink on paper, he executed a precise and finely modelled drawing 6/ft. by 3′ft. of the statue in three-fourths view against the setting of the administration building. This he executed in a most difficult technique which required drawing fine, perfectly even, and precisely spaced horizontal lines, with tones and shadows exactly rendered by means of closer intervals. It was a highly disciplined exercise demanding the perfect coordination of eye and hand, as well as total control in the draughtsmanly execution of the thousands of parallel lines, without the least faltering, unevenness or inacuracy which would easily show as imperfection in the demanding work. The wonder of it was that so impeccable was the completed drawing that the technique, extraordinary yet unobtrusive, gave way to the perfect clarity and justness of the graphic image.
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But this was not all. A companion to this remarkable work is the artist’s pen-ink drawing rendering, 6′ ft. x 3′ ft. of Jose Rizal’s Huling Paalam or Last Farewell in a line by line transcription of the entire text of Rizal’s thirty-nine poems, including the poem of the title and one song, Las Orillas del Pasig, on the space of two master illustration boards. What makes this work amazing is that the handprinted words themselves, done by means of three kinds of technical pen, light, medium and dark, build up the image Rizal’s monument at Luneta Park with all features complete and in perfect scale. A masterpies of precision, the written text with all the letters rigorously rendered with eveness and measure concludes exactly at the bottom right hand corner of the white board.
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My Multiply.com correspondence with Wawi Navarroza (http://wawinavarroza.multiply.com), a great young artist is the reason why we have these cyberpages of my school plates at UST and UP. I had to go back to the old school plates for the readers to understand how the Rizal Pen & Ink Drawing came about. This topic got initiated upon Wawi’s invite on Dr. Jose Rizal’s latest book. ~~~>:) glenn
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My 1963 UST & UP Fine Arts school plates led to other major artworkks such as the pen and ink drawing of the Jose Rizal Monument. It was composed of thirty-none (39) poems and one song “A Orillas del Pasig” of our beloved national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal himself. The song was translated into English by my late friend Alfredo Veloso. The Rizal Pen & Ink Drawing was on exhibit upon the request of Ms. Imelda Romualdez Marcos for about 6 years at the Jose Rizal Shrine at Fort Santiago. I meticulously worked on this pen & ink drawing daily for about two years. I was briefly interrupted to rest my eyes upon my father’s request. He encouraged me to tour the Philippines for a brief respite which I did. However, I came back with a lot of drawings of my travels especially drawings I did of Sagada – - a place about 7-8 hours from Baguio, here is the link to these drawings:
(http://www.yessy.com/glennbautista/cogon.html
Eventually, I had to get the pen and ink drawing of the Jose Rizal Monument for a much-needed restoration. ~~~>:) glenn
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Rizal / pen & ink – a take off from a school plate / UP-Fine Arts
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The icons or images below were school plates for Technique & Reproduction and Composition classes under Professor Rebillon. The written encircled 1R meant a perfect grade and R is the professor’s initial signature approval. These were exercises for pen and ink textures and techniques used to achieve modeling or “chiaroscuro” depicting the basic forms of various objects such as the sphere, cone, cube, pyramid and the cylinder. We were allowed to introduce new techniques such as the one I did by making use of the English alphabets or written word. This particular technique led to my major artwork, the “Jose Rizal Monument” which incorporated his (39) thirty-nine poems and one song, “A Orillas del Pasig“. The other school plates were exercises in color combination of secondary and tertiary colors. ~~~>:) glenn
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