There has always been a feeling deep inside me of what this life is, though what it is I have yet to find out. Don't we all have this feeling within us, tickling us as we turn a corner and even bothering us deep into sleepless nights, letting us think of why we are here and usually ends up with the question, who are we, really?

Well, it's never been easy for me to define who I am. All I know is that I am immensely in love with this world I live in. And it's the littlest things that I feel ever did give a hint of who I am as a person.

Illustrations have always been a huge part of me. May it be someone else's or mine, it never failed to stir so much feeling and thought in me. I did draw a lot and it can be anything - the ever-present flowers, young looking ladies, characters filled with oh so many backstories. There are always two sides to them too. One is the bright spot of sunshine that lingers in my art, and then there's this starlit darkness that seemed to perpetuate in some of the themes I did, like that one about the uselessness of beauty if emptiness is what defines us. Yes, I struggle between these two, always had. But then, I realized that I didn't have to choose between them - I just had to embrace them fully because I feel it now that they both tell me who I am.

Then there are these amazing living beings who live this life along with me. It's hard to think how I would live my days and nights without them around me. Family, friends and nature, just hovering over me like guardians. I love them so much and I know that they have taught me so much - taught me how to live in kindness and love even though it is hard to always live constantly with both, and how to fight for myself to have my place in this world, to have my voice be heard, that no matter how little I may sound, someone or something is bound to be listening. 

So many things making the most of who I am, just how in the world do they fit inside me? Well, it's true, things do not define you. 

It is the ones I get from them, from everything, that makes me who I am.

Having loved to create, there's this need, a yearning, to make something that would let people know who I am, what I sound like, what I might look like, whenever they see something I have made. I didn't want to call it a logo, nor a signage. I wanted it to be more of a signature, an insignia. And so I did this. Florals surrounding my initials in abundance, the way things that make me who I am are. 

Funnily enough, my mother and my cousin asked, after showing this to them, what I would do with my initials here if ever I did marry and accept a new surname (seems a little bleak right now, ha!) My mother said I should retain it, my cousin said I should change the whole arrangement. I thought about it carefully. And I replied, "I'll put the new initial right there with the old initials, changing little to nothing of the former arrangement." My mother said it would look rather odd. This was my reply:

Like the leaves and flowers that embrace my initials, my insignia simply grows like them. Little change in look, but it grows like a tree, new leaves adding up like flowers and leaves. Nothing of my former name will go or change and instead, my new initial would simply grow into it, becoming a whole new part of me.

With everything I make, you'll see this. And I am content that somehow, it will remind you of me, that I have crossed your path even just once. And it is a lovely thought, is it not?

I find myself busy with illustrations these past two weeks and I am loving every minute of it. I get to illustrate and experiment a lot. 

First, the tools of the trade. Ink, pencils, an array of brushes, water bottles and yes, the never-ending to-do list. I must also metion my brother's anatomy book, which I have suddenly now remembered was and still is in my possession. And of course, coffee. Endless supply of coffee to keep the spirits up and running until the wee hours of the morning, the time when I could ink in either silence or listening in earnest to historical documentaries...and the occassional Linkin Park. 

Within the last week or so, some concepts have been playing inside my mind, and these are the two. First is this, the lady in gold. I have not any title yet, but this is what is behind the illustration. 

"What use is a pretty face if one is but empty inside?"

Do you ever feel like her?

 Vines are entertwined within her empty chest, wrapped within the individual bones of her ribcage, with nothing even a heart inside to stir meaning and passion into her being. She is abandoned deep inside.

This has been so far some of the things that I think about whenever I'm alone with my thoughts at night or the early hours before dawn, letting them go around my head in an attempt to understand them, making the best of what I can from my insomnia.