The Artist

I work on the monthly newsletter at work and I usually draw pictures of the people I'm doing a spotlight section on. Due to "issues" with one of my articles, I was forced to re-write a section and I decided that instead of adding simple doodles I would draw some nice pictures in paint. I made one of Ingrid and one of Matt. I was getting a lot of compliments from people saying my drawing were really great. It reminded me of my parents, and how they didn't know until I was in my 20's that I could actually draw.

FLASHBACK
I went to the Art Institute of California in San Diego for a year in 2005-06. One day, I had this idea to draw that one angry Smurf on a shirt and have a word bubble saying, "What the smurf?!" So I got some fabric paints and got to work. I drew the picture free hand on a black shirt and it came out really good. My mom walks past it and asks, "Who drew that?" and I said it was me, she then says "That's really good!" and I was like, you sound surprised and she's all, "I didn't know you could draw." And I was like... REALLY? I'm in art school! And she says, "Well, I didn't know you were THAT good." Needless to say, I was shocked and kind of insulted. It never even crossed my mind that she didn't know I could draw, i thought everyone knew! But I guess I never really showed her any of my drawings. My entire family knew that my sister could draw, that was her thing. In a way her talents overshadowed the rest of our talents because everyone's all "Oh my gosh! Rosanna can draw? What do YOU do?"

Flash forward 4 years, one day I'm at work at the theater in San Marcos and it's a particularly slow day, so I draw Souske holding baby Ponyo in a jar on a post-it note. That day my dad and his GF come to watch a movie. After the movie got out I show my dad the post it note and he was like, "Wow you drew that? That's really good!" He was also surprised I could draw. He seemed really happy and he loved the drawing so I gave it to him. Parents are weird.

I guess my thing has actually always been singing. I remember when I was little my parents would make me perform this one spanish song La Puerta Negra to our relatives cuz I guess I sang it really well. They made me sing it every time someone came over and I sang it all the time when we visited relatives in Mexico. I've loved singing my entire life! This one time in the 2nd grade we did a show for the parents where we had to sing parts of a song and I had to sing about a book and an owl. I don't remember the song. All I remember is that after the show was over TONS of parents came up to me and were all like, "You sang so beautifully! You're voice is so pretty!" I shoved past them to get to the dessert table and stole a bunch of candies and went home! Laaawl.

Now that I'm all grown up, I still love singing (Currently singing Maroon 5 songs) but I think drawing is still my thing. I may not be able to draw anatomically correct pictures, or super cool comic book style pictures, I still can't draw trees, but I'm still an artist!