Blog and Artwork by Corrinne Saroca
Personally, I’ve always tried to draw as often as I can so I could always practice and improve my art, but unfortunately I’d stress myself out all the time due to personal reasons, school work, and just the lack of motivation and inspiration to create anything.
Despite that, there were times I’d suddenly have that push to try and make something, anything at all, and these four were some of the ones I really liked.
MARCH 20, 2020
Around this time, the first round of online classes at our school were suspended until further notice and I had both the time to relax for a bit but also the responsibility to finish the remaining school work I had as soon as possible. I was finished with half of the requirements I needed when my younger sister entered my room and asked if the both of us could paint on the two spare canvases I had lying around.
It honestly surprised me because she wasn’t really the painting type, she had dabbled into calligraphy but admits drawing and painting weren’t her strong suits, so her inviting me to paint together was really refreshing. I only had acrylic paints to work with but it was weirdly nostalgic jumping back into that medium again.
Since it was technically a first for the both of us we decided to look up references to paint. I wanted to try and practice backgrounds and mixing paints so I picked a room that had a limited color scheme.
We painted for about half the day in the dining room since it was really hot upstairs and jammed to some music. It was one of the nicest times we got to hang-out with each other due to the quarantine.
We haven’t decided if we wanted to put them in our rooms but for now we just have them on top of our cabinet overlooking the dining table.
MAY 19, 2020
I wasn’t feeling mentally well at this time. There were a lot of things stressing me out and I was in a weird headspace. I felt as if I was constantly getting disconnected, literally and figuratively, hence the colorful bars and tones for the background and the lack of color excluding the red of the subject. I didn’t want to bother my friends with my troubles especially with the ongoing pandemic and they had their own problems to worry about, I didn’t want to be an additional burden for them.
My room is in a mess and my eyes just darted to my art supplies. Distracting myself with experimenting with what I had while trying to create vent art helped me ground myself.
However, creating this took me about four days from May 15 to May 19. When I finished on the 19th, I showed it to a friend later on that same day and we got to talk a bit about my artwork and we ended up conversing about a lot of other things which eventually calmed me down.
MAY 22, 2020
Online class for this day had just ended and some of us stayed to converse and just catch up with each other, just having a good time overall.
I use my iPad mini to attend online classes - due to technical issues our internet connection gets messed up whenever I use my computer - so I had the freedom to sit or lie down on my bed for maximum comfortability. I also had some of my art supplies beside me and I found myself putting down colors and making flowers and foliage, which is my usual go-to thing to draw whenever I’m feeling really happy. I had also watched a video of ktscanvases the other day so I was definitely influenced with her artworks when I was making mine.
Getting to talk to some of the class again really cheered me up. I frankly didn’t aim for creating a perfect piece - I try not to stress myself with perfecting anything in my sketchbook to help me loosen up - but the intent behind the artwork makes it perfect for me.
MAY 24, 2020
Anyone who knows me to an extent would know I have a great love for musicals that I could burst into song at any time if I could. Due to our current situation, there are a few channels on YouTube that would stream certain musicals for 48 hours and I can honestly say I was the happiest chatterbox - or jukebox - of a person because I was able to both watch new musicals and relive some classic ones.
To name a few of the musicals I got to watch, belt out, and mention the lyrics in the artwork:
Ang Huling El Bimbo (green text with black splotches)
Cats (1998 film) (blue text with silver spots)
Hamilton (yellow text with gold dots; and)
Hadestown (red text with brown squiggles)
Frankly, my handwriting and color choices for the lyrics ended up looking a bit childish for my taste, as if it was the lyrics of the alphabet song, but I guess you could say these musicals became my alphabet song for the longest time.
