2 posts tagged “narciso hilo”
Narciso Hilo
Fil-Am Arts Exploration: Reflection on Project #2
3/26/07
This project meant so much to me because it was therapeutic. It provided another opportunity for me to reflect on negative past experiences and gain further closure in my life. The story that I chose to investigate/retell was my Christmas of 2006, specifically, the events that involved my mom and dad. After a long fall semester, I was looking forward to going home in Santa Clara to spend time with my parents, sister, brother-in-law, and their kids. But the series of unfortunate events that followed led to an entirely different outcome.
When I got home, no one was there so I decided to start on my laundry while waiting for everyone. After I started my third load, my parents finally arrived. With a dismayed look on my dad’s face, he sternly looked at me and told me that we needed to talk. My mom, dad, and I gathered around our dining table and began to talk. This was the first time I explicitly told them that I wanted to pursue Physical Therapy as a career instead of Dentistry, which they were hoping for. So after about a half hour of my father bashing my career goals and tears (mainly on my part), I decided that I should leave their house and return to my apartment in San Francisco as a recluse.
This story was the inspiration for my project. As I walked around Michael’s, the possibilities for depicting my experiences seemed endless. It took about an hour of wandering around the store for me to finally decide what media to work with. My girlfriend, Ces-Marie, suggested using a birdhouse to depict the concepts that I presented to her earlier. I wanted to color half of the house nice and neat while the other half would be poorly colored and “darker” to express the emotions I felt.
The “cleaner” side of the house was supposed to express my ideal Christmas and Birthday scene while the “darker” side was supposed to depict actual events and my emotions. In the cleaner side, I placed little happy characters: my mom, dad, and me surrounded by presents and happiness. The single balloon on the wall was representative of my birthday, three days after Christmas. I also found stickers of grass and flowers that I thought would bring warmth into the scene. The fence surrounding the house symbolized protection; in contrast, the fence also symbolized the hold or barrier they had on me to choose Dentistry as my career.
A wall separated the different sides of the house, which I colored to match the emotions of the scene. The darker side of the house was supposed to be a scene from me in my apartment – alone. There were fewer and smaller presents under the Christmas tree (visible on both sides of the house) in this side and I also placed a single balloon and a cupcake with a single candle on it to show that I celebrated my 22nd Birthday mostly alone. The angel on the wall behind me was supposed to represent Ces-Marie since she tried her best to spend time with me and make my Christmas/Birthday less depressing than it really was. She was my angel through my adversity.
Last, the parol on the side of the house was inspired and executed by Ces-Marie to add Filipino culture to the piece.
Narciso Hilo
With my subject in mind, I searched the Internet for any information I could find that pertained to Lapu Lapu. Eventually I found an image of his sculpture in Lapu-Lapu City (formerly town of Opon) in Cebu and I thought it would be perfect for me to render onto paper.
I chose a red sheet of paper to begin my drawing as well as charcoal because I thought it would provide the shading I was hoping to obtain. As I finished drawing his head, shoulders, and chest, I had to decide if I wanted to complete the drawing on red paper or to change the color. After 5 minutes of pondering, I chose to change the colors and picked orange and turquoise for the completion of the project. Last, I knew that the top of Lapu Lapu’s shield would not fit on the red paper so I decided to put a white boarder around the entire drawing. I thought this was a good idea since it made all of the white shading in the drawing stand out. Last, I shaded in his loincloth with the brick-orange charcoal for contrast.
I successfully challenged my artistic abilities with this project because I never tried layering paper for a dramatic effect and I got more experience shading. I was also able to further my knowledge about the Philippine’s first national hero by researching him as my subject.
