GUEST ARTIST: “My Passion In Painting” by Bert Morelos

Greetings! My name is Bert Morelos, born and educated in the Philippines. Since I was a kid, I desired to be an Architect and to be a fine art artist. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Architecture 1969-70 in the Philippines. I am a recipient of Certificate on Planning Practice and Plan Implementation from the University of the Philippines in 1973 and have been a Registered Architect in the Philippines in 1971.

I immigrated to Canada from the Philippines and have been a resident of Vancouver since 1974. I worked with different Architects in town to gain more experience in the field of Architecture, design, planning, project management and presentation. Besides Architecture, I also have a passion in painting in all medium and in photography.  ​​

Besides Canada and the United States, most of the projects I was involved on projects in Australia, the Middle East, the Far East including China and the Philippines.

Since 1974, I have worked with numerous Architects and Developers for the next 46 years. I have gained valuable experience of working with Developers such as: Li Ka-Shing’s Concord Pacific Ltd., United Properties Ltd. and Westmana Development Inc. in Vancouver, BC.​

In 1988, one of my biggest and challenging projects I was involved in was working as one of the Members of the Design Team of Pacific Place Design Consortium that was involved in designing and development of Li Ka Shing’s Concord Pacific Place in Vancouver.

It was the former site of Expo 86 held in Vancouver, BC. Our project was an award-winning design community in 1988 located north of False Creek, Vancouver. It is approximately 80 hectares of mixed use of residential, commercial and office developments. It was planned to contain approximately 10,000 residential units including 2,000 social housing units, 3 million square feet of commercial, retail, office and hotel developments. The development includes 30 hectares of open spaces, park, bike and waterfront promenade of approximately 5 kilometers.

During those 46 years of experience in Canada, I gained knowledge and experiences that created an opportunity for me to travel and manage several projects across Canada and the United States.

At present, besides being a Development Consultant, I loved touring Europe, the Middle East, United States, Asia and South America. Also, in my leisure days, I loved doing urban sketching, drawing and painting in all kinds of medium such as pen and ink, Winsor & Newton watercolor, Amsterdam or Liquitex acrylic paints, felt pens, Prismacolor colored pencils or Faber-Castel colored pencils, Holbein semi hard pastel and Caran D’Ache gouache.

Acrylic Painting Example

Acrylic Painting Example

My Methods Of Rendering

All of my renderings were plotted and drawn manually without the aid of Autocad. It is the old school method. Most of the Developers still prefer the hand drawn method especially for low rise projects because it gives warmth to the rendering.

My client would supply me all the floor plans, elevations, sample of materials and swatches of colors to be used as references. Once I plotted it and accepted the view by my clients, I will draw them with pen and ink. I normally use watercolors as a base color and then apply a felt pen and colored pencils to give some texture to the subject.

I use gouache for highlights. Most of the skies, I render them either with airbrushed diluted watercolor or using the semi soft semi hard pastel. The process of my rendering was basically done in layers of different medium.

Bert Morelos
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Charlie O'Shields

Creator of Doodlewash®, founder of World Watercolor Month (July), World Watercolor Group™, and host of the Sketching Stuff Podcast. Sharing daily watercolor illustrations and stories while proudly featuring talented artists from all over the world! If you’d like to be a guest artist on Doodlewash.com, contact me!

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