
The Orchid Artist
Black and white pencils and conte on brown craft paper.
This was my first drawing project for my illustration majors, and the goal was to create a self portrait that talked more about who we were.
It had taken far too many tries to get to the end of this journey. I have never done so many studies for one piece in my life! The process here is very difficult and yet it makes sense. Sometimes you find yourself stuck on a drawing but that’s mostly because things were not planned completely before hand. In this case, I had to redo my idea several times because I had to figure out about what I wanted to say about myself.
Self portraits of this purpose are hard to make. I suppose that in creating something with more illustrative depth, I started to find myself as well.
Orchids mean a lot to me, as they are delicate things that remind me of the imagery I tend to create. They grow in several places, and I see them often in the countries I call my home. It seemed to be the uniting element that brought together the different fragments of my identity, geography, and aesthetic.
But this self-portrait has lead me to believe that all of the travelling and being cut off from the people I grew up with has been a confusing ordeal. It was hard for me to collect my bearings in regards to my identity. Despite all that, what remains true is that I know I am an artist. I am a very good one at that. But in order to become a great one, I have to take down the barriers that I limit myself with.
I admit to not making personal work for weeks now. It has troubled me so much that most of my time is devoted into part time work and art studies. There has been so much happening here and I know so MUCH that sometimes it’s hard to sleep at night. What do I do with all of this new knowledge? How do I combine that with the ‘style’ I already had going? But now that I know so much, I feel like my old ‘style’ is so antiquated. There’s nothing much from it I can salvage.
My professor told me something very comforting the other day, he saw me working and remarked on how different the look seems to be from what I usually do. I told him that I end up changing up the styles of my assignments because I am always in conflict between “the look I want to put in a cohesive portfolio” versus “do the look you have to do in order to solve the visual problem the best way possible”. I had to always unlearn the way I do things in order to learn the new. It’s really taking a toll on my esteem sometimes.
His reply on the matter: “Don’t have a style. You’re not supposed to have that sort of thing right now. I know people who were great artists when they came into this school and left not much better than the level they entered. You’re here to learn and do the things you are not comfortable in doing. That’s the only way for you to get better at what you do.”
Somehow I can be at peace with that. If the things I post seem out of trend or disjointed, I hope that this doesn’t throw you, dear reader, off too much. With all this worrying about ‘style’, I forget that I am a student. Experiment, succeed, fail, repeat… I will figure all of this out eventually in my life.
Recalling the Circus
It’s a great honor to have been asked to collaborate with The Ringmaster after having worked with Francis Lorenzo and the rest of the creative team involved in organizing the album art for Sleepwalk Circus. Above are previews to a special art project that should be unveiled soon this year. Hope you could watch out for it!
For those who haven’t discovered their music, please do check out their facebook pages. I can’t for the life of me begin to gush over the surreal and otherwordly quality of their music. It’s sumptuous for the ears.
I don’t remember if I have mentioned this before, but the reason why I’ve gotten into Illustration at all was mostly due to my work with Sleepwalk Circus. It was 2010, and I was invited at a dark time of my life when I’ve hit a bad midlife crisis. It was also during that week when my computer decided to die along with everything I’ve ever made since the 7th grade. Even my college thesis was completely erased. It was during this trying time that I decided that I wanted to draw above all things and that life was too short to compromise.
Learning has been a painful process lately. When I say painful, I mean it in an impatient way that there is so much to digest and absorbing everything requires a lot of experience which you cannot cram. I look back into my life and wonder, “Why didn’t I work as hard as I should have?” or “Why haven’t I done this before?” The best thing we can do is make the most out of the situation we’re in and give it as much heart as we can.
Studies have been preoccupying my time as of late. It’s truly inevitable. I was faced with the grim reality that as an illustrator, I have a terribly limited visual vocabulary that needed expanding. The next entries should have bits on that and I hope that all of my entries on my studies aren’t getting too tedious. New work will be added soon enough. I’m just enjoying the creative process more and more, no matter how slow I seem to be and have realized my full passion late in life- it truly is better late than never.