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Mimi Chao is a lawyer turned illustrator. I chanced upon her name in a video via Skillshare. Skillshare is a paid video-based learning platform that teaches varying skills from digital graphics, photography to cooking. It usually consists of more than an hour of skill sharing by various individuals known all over the world.
Back to the video, the main point was putting creativity and mindfulness together. Mindfulness is such that you put yourself back in the moment less the worries and fears. A time to wander into your own world while making use of your senses that results in vivid outputs.
Perhaps this is what made me write and at times, made me draw too. As I was getting into word play, the feeling of nostalgia and descriptive synonyms and homonyms were brought to life. Even rhymes when placed into Grammarly correct phrases and sentences have their places in myriads of evanescent scents.
As I draw from a place of chaos, there is some tranquility to it. From lines, shapes, forms and etches and sketches on paper, there is a form whether scraped from a known drawing or an imaginative being perceived by my own. Sometimes I am at awe with the difference between thinking and doing – the input versus the output.
Coloring is also significant. It reminds me that rainbows do exist. That the world is so colorful. That minimalistic hues often make you more grounded s a foreground while background is something you can play with. That even crayons and pastels do hook up fine with Mrs. Graphic and Mr. Illustration.
I am also taking time to learn how a series of movements and gestures make up for an animation like in the case of Disney’s world. How often from forms to stationary drawings that they end up as moving pictures in a video. How sweat and time of learning makes up for things.
I guess, I am a couple of things more and you are too. They say, jack of all trades makes you a master of none. I say, the world is a vast landscape so why not explore. Start it with yourself. Start it with the young generations. I think I realized this passion just now. But there is no age requirement for learning and living life.
Shout out to my Animation class at the Cordillera School of Digital Arts. It has given me enough sense to be mindful and grounded. I thought that perfection is impossible but there is something like doing your best and aiming for perfection found in making almost-identical drawings. It’s like first playing with spot the differences in YouTube nowadays trying to fill in the spotted differences with a cursor.
Although Animation is time bound which is a bit pressuring. I realize that there really are deadlines and ways for time management. In all things as it is in mental health, be conscious and be aware of things. Even Inside Out stressed these things too.
Why am I talking about these verdant things? Because creativity and art are connected. Gracias to Professor Tor Sagud for making me realize this. Even mental health and psychology has its embedded knowledge of interrelatedness to arts and creativity.
Sometimes I don’t know where I am going. But most of the time I realize that life is a flow and you will eventually be led to where you are destined to be. Of course, with patience, hard work and perseverance, it will automatically sync in like a ballet choreography or even a choir harmoniously sung even with off tune voices.
Life really is surprising and so is living. Pause when I have to but basically just get going. You can rest but don’t stop. There is strength, resilience or whatever “watchamacallit”. I have hope.
I do learn from experience many times. I say my life and capacities are not like yours. As I believe we are all diverse. But in a sense, we are the same, people with journeys trying not only to survive but make sense of things. I hope whatever I put inspires you too not the way it did but to make things your own.
Life really is a wonder so let your mind wander with good things. Now, time to smell the flowers before it rains in the afternoon. I wish you everything that is well, good, hopeful and beautiful!