ABOUT

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Like many youngsters I began drawing as a kid, growing up in the Philippines. The first drawings I recall were of airplanes, as I witnessed friends and family members flying off to the United States and other places abroad, at the airport. Years later at the age of seven I, too, would be on a plane bound for Hawaii. While drawing was something I did to pass the time, it was never something I seriously considered as a profession. In fact I wanted to become a pilot and even took flight lessons in high school. But things changed and I became interested in world events, and so I applied my drawing skills to political cartooning, and worked in that position in high school and college newspapers. I had hoped to continue the work after college but, alas, it was not meant to be. Newspapers across the country were dwindling, laying off staff, or folding entirely. Those that survived relied on syndicated cartoonist instead of in-house cartoonist. Nevertheless, in the intervening years I found work in graphic design, journalism, college outreach worker, teacher and currently, school librarian. Through it all I continued to draw, amassing watercolor vignettes on sketchbooks, which became my inroad to plein air painting, documenting my travels across the country and abroad. Artistically, I’m self taught, I majored in political science after all, and my “teachers” were the artworks, themselves, produced by contemporary and past painters. Whenever I visit museums or see a painting I like, I don’t care who did it. Instead, I analyze how it was done: composition, values, colors, and brushstrokes etc. It's a never ending process, but that’s the way it should be. I've been fortunate enough to be able to sell my paintings, been represented by a gallery, and participated in international art shows, the most memorable of which was Kayumanggi, to commemorate the sakada experience in Hawaii.

 

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