How I Started as an Artist

Painting is one of the things I have wanted to do since I was a little kid, but never really had the chance to do on a regular basis until I reached the age of 39.

When I was a kid, I liked to draw very much.  Drawing was one of my favorite hobbies.  I drew people, trees, mountains, buildings, airplanes, cars, and just about every other thing I saw around me. My special talent and artistic inclination had been noticed by people around me at my early age.  They had helped me earn excellent grades in my art subjects in school, as well as, enjoy the admiration of people around me.  I still remember how my classmates used to come to me, asking me to draw something for them.  I just wish I could have painted on canvas also, but I just never really had the chance to do it, perhaps due to lack of resources.  No one in my family had ever been in the fine art industry, and I had never been really exposed to paints and canvas panels until I reached the age of 39.

In 1981, my family and I went to Indonesia, where my father was working as a consultant agricultural engineer.  We stayed there for two years, one year in Lampung (in the island of Sumatra) and another year in Jakarta (in the island of Java).  My siblings and I studied in the Home Instruction Department of Calvert School, which is in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, during our first year.  The following year, we studied in Jakarta International School (JIS), where I took Fine Arts as an elective subject throughout the whole year.  There, I learned the basics of drawing, painting, batik making, pottery, calligraphy, candle making, linoleum printmaking, and other works of art.

My father also taught my siblings and I, how to draw perspectives.  He used to arrange empty card board boxes on our dining table and then ask us to draw two-point perspectives of them.  What he taught us has greatly influenced my works, from my school projects in high school and college to my later works as an engineer and as an artist.

We returned to Infanta, Quezon, in 1983, and I continued my secondary education in Mt. Carmel High School (MCHS).  Nic Mendigo, one of my teachers happened to be a Fine Arts graduate from the University of the Philippines (UP).  He taught us (my classmates and me) how to draw and to capture the effects of light and shadow in our drawings.  He even made us draw portraits of ourselves as one of our school projects.

I continued to draw and had drawn several portraits of myself.  I had drawn pictures of famous basketball players from the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), with their faces left out and replaced by mine.  I used to place my drawings under the transparent plastic covers of my notebooks, which I carried and showed around in school.  

I had also joined an amateur drawing contest and had  won second prize during a youth assembly attended by delegates from various youth organizations and different schools around the town.  That contest was an on-the-spot drawing contest held in the MCHS auditorium and was among the many activities lined up for that day.  There were also singing, song-writing contest, and other activities conducted to promote camaraderie and friendship among students and the out-of-school youth during that day.

At some point during my childhood days, I had dreamt of becoming a great artist in the likes of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and other great artists that we read in history books.  However, just like many other Filipino artists that came before me, I had been advised not to pursue an artist career because, accordingly, there was no financial future in art.  That did not bother me, though, as I had many other options that time.  I was one of the top students in my class, and mathematics and physical sciences, besides arts (of course), were among my favorite subjects in school.

I graduated from high school with first honorable mention and a special leadership award.  I was the batallion commander of our school's Citizen Army Training - Women Auxiliary Service (CAT-WAS) cadets in my senior year.

I went to the University of the Philippines (UP) right after high school and studied civil engineering.  I got my bachelor's degree in 1992 and have passed the civil engineering board exam in 1993.  I started working and became very busy that I had no time left to indulge in art activities.  Work brought me to Saudi Arabia and eventually, to Houston, Texas in the United States.

My love for arts never left me, though.  One day, in 2008, I found myself in Walmart, staring at some art supplies displayed in the store.  Knowing I had a very busy schedule at work, working overtime most of the days, I reluctantly bought those things…  I got a small kit of painting materials for around twenty dollars.  That kit included a set of brushes, a set of paints, a palette, a pencil, a pencil sharpener, and a reference book on painting.  I also bought a set of canvas panels and a wooden easel that was worth another twenty dollars, or so.  Those materials sat in my apartment for several weeks, untouched.  I was just too busy working overtime everyday.  I even reported to the office during weekends.  Days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months until that one lonely night, sitting alone in my apartment.  I picked up the pencil from that box, and without much thinking I started sketching on one of the canvas panels I bought.  It felt awkward at first, considering I had not drawn artistically, like I did when I was a kid, for so many years.  But, as I work on it, little by little, it became easier and easier.  My enthusiasm grew more and more as I realized my God-given talent has not left me, after all those years.  It has stayed there with me all along, just waiting to be tapped.  And so I worked and went to bed late, spending many hours painting, that night.  I went to bed few hours after midnight, realizing I still had to report to work (as an engineer) the following day.

That was how I made my very first painting on canvas ever (see the picture below).  It was a self-portrait.

I was very happy when I saw what I had done, so I decided to do some more paintings in the nights that followed.  I finished two more paintings within that week.  One is my wife's portrait (see picture below).  The other one is a portrait of a woman texting on her cellular phone.  I have given out that painting as a gift to one of my friends.

Well, yes, a painting is a good gift to give, especially if you painted it yourself.  Painting is also a good way of expressing yourself.  It is actually just another way of communicating. You can communicate to others what you think and feel about them, just as you can do in speaking and writing.  Sometimes, words and letters are not enough to describe and convey what we really want to say.  But, through visual arts, we can express a lot more things than what our lips could say.  Indeed,“a picture is worth a thousand words.”  

So, why not start expressing your love and appreciation to your friends and love ones by buying them gifts of my paintings?  Prints of my paintings are now available for sale through Fine Art America, which can be accessed by clicking on the icon below.

Click above to shop and buy a gift for your friends and love ones.