[Originally written in my notes on Facebook.]

For those who want to know how I began.

It all began when I was around primary school. I liked to draw pictures depicting a story of my own or creating a scene consisting of characters from books or Japanese mangas that I read. For years of doing this, I began to develop my ability to capture fine details from pictures, and with my sort-of "perfectionism" personality, I tried my best not to miss any single detail, even the angles of the lines connecting to each other had to be exactly the same with the original picture.

One day, on a trip to Ayuthaya with my parents, I saw some artists drawing the pagodas at Phra Srisanpetch Temple and was fascinated by them. So I drew one too with a pencil on a piece of paper and the result was quite satisfying to me. That was my first landscape artwork in my life.

Not until I went to the street shopping district market festival at Sri Lom that I was enticed by a watercolor portrait of my then favorite celebrity, Aon-Lakana. Afterwards, I always harbor the feelings that Portrait Artists are geniuses, being able to capture the so many profiles and details of people, and even their mood and personality. I started a portrait of Aon-Lakana depicting her picture on the first album when I was in 6th grade. The portrait was somehow a line art portrait since I did not know the techniques of how to draw an actual portrait at the time.

But during 8th grade, I started to get into J-Pop and bought the magazine J-Spy every month. Around the last pages of the magazine there were pencil portraits sent in from the readers and that was when my fascination of photo realistic portrait started. Then in 9th grade, I was assigned a portrait drawing assignment in art class. I decided to draw Utada Hikaru and tried to adapt the techniques from the best portraits in J-Spy, which was a success. My portrait received positive feedback and the art teacher kept it, which surprised me since he never kept any other of my assignments at all. This further encouraged me in portrait drawing.

In 11th grade, I was once again assigned a portrait drawing from the same teacher. This time I decided to draw Celine Dion by using all the techniques that I had self-learned and once again received positive feedback and was kept. At this time, I was confident enough that I can continue my portrait artwork at my own pleasure and started to draw them from time to time if I have the chance.

Ironically, during the recent years drawing pencil portraits started to be unsatisfying for me. I think the reason why is because the first portrait that had impressed me was done in watercolor, not a "Black and White" portrait so I might have had a hidden ambition to be able to create color portraits. Though I do not wish to use any liquid painting mediums; I confess that I hate washing paintbrushes more than anything else and I never had the knack of being able to mix color into the exact same tone.

After having stopped drawing for more than a year since my mother passed away of cancer and rid me temporarily of any artistic emotions, one day while internet surfing I discovered pastel colors which really interested me. Pastels can be quite dusty since they contain loose pigments but I would rather try wiping my own fingertips clean than washing paintbrushes. Plus, they are like an in-between with pencil and liquid paints so I decided to give it a try.

Upon trying to self-learn how to use them from internet and a handbook, at first I was quite disheartened because I'm not used to it and wondered whether I should stop, despite buying my first box an artist grade which is something I have never done before and almost cost me a fortune. But ultimately, I did not give up.

Once again, it was a success. Finally I had painted a color portrait....