Artsy Patsy #1: Never too old to learn anything

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An incident in the past

It may have been roughly fifteen years ago but I could clearly recall how one of my classmates mocked my artwork back in my sophomore year. One of our teachers asked us to draw a pigpen. I know that I don’t draw well so I tried to compensate for the lack of skills with a little décor. My teacher praised me for doing so; in fact, it was hung on the wall together with the rest of Best Artworks for that project. But in front of everyone, my classmate stood up and questioned why I qualified for the award. I was deeply saddened by her actions which made me rethink if my creativity is enough to take me to the top.

Unfortunately, this little childish incident put off the blazing flame of creativity inside me. “Maybe she was right. There’s no room for me here”, I thought. Later on, I finally gave up my dream of becoming an architect and interior designer. Aside from that one incident, it was too costly and there’s no way my family could afford it back in the day.

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Rediscovering the child in me

Fast forward to the last quarter of 2021, I knew I needed to do things differently when the new year comes. With COVID variants kept coming after the other, few travel restrictions are still in place. don't like doing the same thing over and over, 2022's a great time to start moving out of my comfort zone!

If there’s one thing I believe I’m good at, that’s finding, rediscovering, unleashing the child in me again. Remember when you were a child and it doesn’t matter if you do things incorrectly or if you don’t get the result you wanted but you kept pushing forward anyway. It didn’t matter if we fail, if things didn’t go our way, if people around us were terrible. We were once unstoppable; one unfavorable remark about our work never bothered us. And it’s as if the only thing that’s worthy of our attention was we were learning and we’re happy learning.

I met the child in me once again. I met her when I finally told myself to include the following goals in this year’s list without doubts if I could do it or not:

• Enrol in a dance class (which will be due next month)
• Learn how to paint (ticked off last February)
• Learn how to play the piano (hopeful to start by 3rd quarter)

When the time came for 2022 Goal Setting, I knew I had to write goals as if I’m the 6-year old kid cooking rice in a small pot we call kun-kun or kulon, which is a small pot made from clay. The kid who was never afraid of using the wrong color in her pre-school artwork because standards and expectations didn’t exist then.

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The Art Bar

With a child’s heart, I visited Art Bar in SM City Cebu thrilled to buy my first painting materials. The Art Bar was any artist's dream place.

I didn’t do much research prior to buying so I just picked a few brushes (different sizes and shapes), bought a really cheap canvas pad, and of course, acrylic paints. It wasn't my first time in the Art Bar but haven't paid attention during the previous visits. It was only when I came back to finally buy stuff that I found the place mesmerizing. There were countless art materials to choose from; they have the usual acrylic, oil paint, pouring acrylic paint, and fancy glitter and metallic paints. I did the shopping as fast as I could or else, I'll go broke! 😂

Since I'm a newbie, I just bought the cheapest ones I could find. And here are what I got:

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Off to paint

The time has come to show you how I fared in my first ever acrylic painting. I did all these 3 little paintings on a Sunday afternoon at home. It was one of the most relaxing time of the day, blocking off an hour or two just to sit down and take the brushes and colors I have and start the process of creating something amazing from scratch.

I got the idea and even the colors to use from a video on Youtube. I'm not confident using the entire A4 size canvas, so I divided it into four and ended up with mini-canvases.

I'm not sure if it was the brush I got or just me being the neophyte wannabe artist who couldn't figure out how to perfectly blend the colors. Nonetheless, it's pretty decent.

Moving unto the next step:

Here's the final output:

I was so happy with the result that I moved to the next painting right away. The adrenaline in my body was tremendously out of control! 😂

Here is the 2nd final output:

And when my mother thought I was clearing all the mess I created, I pulled out another canvas and started making the 3rd one.

The final output is here:

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Progress over perfection

When we're aging (and aging fast 😌), it’s difficult to learn something when at the back of our minds, what we wanted right away is to be the best. There’s a notion that you have to be perfect and do things perfectly the first time and every time and if you couldn’t do so, might as well not try. We don't want to be labeled as failures. That’s why we stop discovering who we truly are beyond the doubts and fears; we fail to uncover what we are truly capable of if we only let the child inside us take over.

I was ready to fail, but I will never be ready to stop learning. Being another multipotentialite in town, I’ve always been drawn to do anything under the sun. This time, I decided to give art, specifically painting, a try. And there, I did it! And will continue doing the same. Remember, the only limit that exists is the limit you create. Now, I'm excited to buy a keyboard! And enroll in a dance class! When my spine's back to regular programming, I will surely be doing all that! 💪

That's it for today! When was the last time you allowed the child in you to take over? ✨❤️

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