Lito De Guzman, has started to create art since 1973 with the use of a ballpen; Making his high school days and studying chemistry more interesting and creative during class experiments and reports.

College made him enhance the craft further. As he took Fine Arts, he continued to use ballpen (black and blue colors) in creating his artwork. But not until the Jumbo Colored Ballpen came out in 1985 that made him combine and expand his artworks with a wide range of colors available.

He started to teach the craft in 1989 thru different workshops but unfortunately nobody pursue this medium. In 1993, he was given a chance to teach using this medium formally in UE Caloocan when he was hired as a professor that year. Unfortunately, he stopped teaching in 1995 when he was assigned to work in the dean’s office, that made him focus more on paper works than teaching.

It was only in 2008 that he was given a chance to share his passion and innovation to the students.

Ballpen Art 4 is the first of its kind. It is an exhibit where Lito, and 10 of his students (which includes also 2 of his children) displays a large collection of Ballpen Artworks.

Lito was only teaching these kids for 3 months and he saw the potential of the students. For a very short amount of time these college students was able to grab and learn his technique. Though Ballpen Art 4 is supposedly Lito’s one man show, he then decided to give these students a chance to show their craft and talent thru an exhibit.

There are about 60 artworks displayed in the exhibit and 18 of which are created by Lito.  

Together with the UE Caloocan alumni, a percentage of the proceeds will be for the benefit of the chapel of the campus.

To date, Lito has about 130+ group exhibits and 16 one-man-shows.

“No other artist uses ballpen as a medium in the Philippines.” Cited Lito, “Though in other countries there are artists who use ball point pen as their medium, their works are more of monochrome (black and blue colors)or they use it for illustrations. I can say my method and craft is truly unique.”

Checking Lito’s artworks in the gallery will really fascinate every eye that sees it. From afar, it will just look like any other painting, but, when you look close enough, you will see the small articulate strokes of his pen, that creates a unique blend of colors and style.

Though for some artists, it will take them about 2 weeks to complete a 10 x 15 artwork, but for Lito, he can do it within 3 days or less.

Lito has now coordinated with Jerry Stith, a ballpoint pen artist in the US, to combine and create a movement, called ballpen art. “This is my innovation and I hope that people will learn to use this style. Hopefully, ballpen will be used as a new medium among artists.” Said Lito.

Exhibit run from October 27 to November 21, 2009 at the Galleria De Las Islas, El Amanecer Building, 744 General Luna Street, Intramuros, Manila, Philippines

More of Lito de Guzman? CLICK HERE.