My First Love

When I was a kid I drew a lot.

I remember drawing Batman when I was barely 3 years old. We lived in Proj. 3 back then, and I remember being taught how to read, write and draw by one of my aunts before playtime. She taught me how to draw stick figures, trees, flowers, houses, cats, dogs, rice fields and rainbows. After these lessons, she would help me set up my toys. I used to have this purple pail full of toys--toy soldiers, animal and dinosaur figurines, small cars and a single Batman action figure. She would play with me until it was time for merienda. She doesn't know how I learned to draw Batman, but one day she saw me drawing Batman, fighting dinosaurs, tanks and soldiers. I have a picture of me holding up that drawing lying around somewhere around the house.

When I was 4, my family moved to an apartment in Pasig. My mom was pregnant then, and she and my father decided we needed a place of our own. I have forgotten about drawing, mostly because my aunt did not move with us. My father, who was in between jobs that time, was the one who took care of me.  During the first month, I was always kept inside the house. It was a boring childhood--we had no TV, and I couldn't play with my toys because my father insisted that I read and write in the morning and take a nap in the afternoon like most kids. I couldn't play in the evening because my father couldn't stand the sight of scattered toys, and I was put to bed early.

I rediscovered drawing when I met the neighbor's kids, Jay, Jess and Jude--3 boys who were a year apart with shaved heads who looked almost like triplets they were called tatlong itlog (three eggs). They woke me up one afternoon, calling from outside our window, asking what my name was, why I wasn't out playing, and what toys I have.  They were asking me to come outside and play with them. That was how I learned to sneak out of the house like a ninja.

The middle kid, Jess, was my age and loved to draw as well. In our barangay, 4pm was considered as the official playtime for kids. I would usually wake up from my afternoon nap at around 3pm, and sneak out early. Jess would sneak out early, too, and we would sit outside our house and draw our asses off until his brothers wake up at 4. We usually try to one up one another through our drawings, but I always manage to end up with the best one, according to my mom.

The next few years saw me drawing more and more. I met Jay, another kid who liked to draw when I was in 1st Grade. We became good friends and we would draw while waiting for the school service. The popular things to draw then were characters from Dragon Ball. I remember wanting to reach 2nd Grade quickly because most kids I know from the 2nd Grade can draw Son Goku and Piccolo very well. I thought that drawing Dragon Ball was one of the subjects in 2nd Grade. I don't need to say how disappointed I was when I found out it wasn't so.

During the rest of elementary school, I was known as one of the kids who drew well in our class. I wasn't the best, but I was one the kids the teachers will call when they want something drawn on the board. I was also into comics due to being introduced to Funny Komiks, Pugad Baboy and Archie comics. I would make my own comic books using bond paper, folded in half and stapled in the middle. I drew inspiration from a lot of things--mythology, Star Wars, Disney films, Super Mario, etc. My parents never bought me a gaming console when I was a kid, and so I spent all this time making comics. I never showed anyone these works--I was content with knowing that I managed to make them. Looking back, that was probably one of the biggest mistakes I ever made in my life.

High school changed the usage of drawings due to raging hormones. While most boys chose to buy flowers, chocolates and jewelry for girls, I chose to give drawings. Samurai X, or Rurouni Kenshin, was popular at that time, and that was what I usually drew. I also wrote poems. Yep, I wrote poems, but I never gave them to girls like I did with my drawings. It worked then, I got a girlfriend.

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In the end, all I wanted to say is that I always regretted not taking up Fine Arts in college.

I took up Architecture. I reckoned, they both have drawing in them, plus, architects make more money than artists. This is, hands down, the biggest mistake I ever made in my entire life.

I'd like to borrow a quote from one of my friends, one she used when she wrote her autobiography referring to our 3rd year in high school, and use it to describe my college life: if this was World History, college was the Dark Ages.

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I just rediscovered my passion for drawing while looking up articles over the internet. I decided I wanna do it again, so I picked up a pen and a piece of paper and drew. I cried during the first few tries because the skills I accumulated since I was a kid were lost. But I realized, if I give up, I wouldn't be able to draw like I used to again. I made a lot of bad choices, I made a lot of mistakes, I do not want to make THIS mistake.

As I'm typing this down, there are sheets of paper scattered in my bed, full of sketches. There's a box of colored pencils in front of me, and a small yellow pencil that needs sharpening. I have 5 tabs on drawing tutorials open in Google Chrome, both for sketching in paper and in Photoshop. At 24, it might be too late for me to take up a course in Fine Arts, but I won't give up drawing again.

I have a story to tell...

And I want it told, but I don't know how.

Then I remembered, I can make a blog and write it there.

So I made this blog.