Mi viaje artístico
In this article, I would like to share with you my journey as an artist, from a very humble beginning to the current date. I hope it will help you to get to know me better and maybe even inspire you a bit along the way.
First steps
Similarly to many other artists, I liked drawing from a very early age, fascinated with mysterious things like monsters, spaceships, and robots that I saw in movies and cartoons.
My first real encounter with painting was at the age of 16 when I had taken up art classes that were taught in the back room of an old framing shop. To my teacher’s despair, I soon stopped copying those old boring flower plates and started painting weird landscapes. Finally, I got bored and ended up dropping out in order to focus on my graphic design studies.
What really happened was that I forgot about painting for nearly 15 years.
Medieval castles and Swiss cheese
In 2013 I went on a trip to Switzerland and had an opportunity to visit the wonderful Gruyeres Town.
The famous H.R. Giger museum is located there and, while as impressive as it was, what most struck me was a small fantasy & surreal art exhibition that was held inside the castle. The special atmosphere of that exhibition (which included backbit prints inside a tower with a spiraling staircase) awoke something inside me. I wanted to be able to make something similar.
At that moment I felt a strong urge to get back to painting again but I was uncertain about “how” and “where”?
Rediscovering painting
By mere chance, I found out that a colleague of mine, Toño Velasco, had started teaching art classes.
I was intrigued and decided to give it a go. As a result, I learned how to improvise and how to stop worrying about being excessively analytical when painting. My first large painting was made by using acrylics and…I hated them.
Acrylic paint is a great way to work fast and to achieve precise strokes but it dries up so fast that I was unable to properly mix colors.
After a couple of attempts, I jumped straight into oil paint. While it takes longer to dry, the colors are so rich and vivid that I decided that they were going to be my weapon of choice.
«Ad Astra» solo exhibition
I kept working on surreal fantasy paintings as well as other more personal and cryptic artworks, like my Space Horsemen of the Apocalypse series. In these early works, I didn’t worry much about the technique, instead, I let my imagination run wild.
This first stage culminated in 2015 with my first solo exhibition named «Ad Astra» which was very well received and boosted my confidence as an artist.
Then I decided to set up a small Etsy store in order to sell my artworks.
While it took some time to get noticed I finally managed to make my first sales and started to receive commission requests. I felt that I could achieve anything!
A brief stop on the road
Not long time after that I had a personal crisis related to my work as a designer, where I felt trapped.
During that time I stopped painting for a whole year and tried to find a so needed career change.
I got rid of all the web design services that were making me very unhappy and decided that I will focus on the things that I love: illustration and painting.
To symbolize this new stage of my professional life I adopted a nickname: RUGIDO (which is a mix of letters from my name and surname). In Spanish “rugido” means “roar” so I used a small lion as a logo. Proud and fearless!
This is the way
I continued self-teaching which was frustrating. I kept asking myself: How could I improve my technique in order to reach the same level as the artists I admire?
The answer came in 2018 while visiting a local artist fair when I discovered artworks of an artist named Luis Azon and was fascinated by his amazing portraits of racing drivers.
Fortunately, he had just opened a workshop where he was teaching figurative art highlighting the importance of having good drawing skills. It was exactly what I needed!
In his workshop, I explored portrait painting, a subject that I had never dared to touch but which I am enjoying enormously now.
And here we are now
This year 2020 is proving to be a very difficult time for everyone and I hope you are doing well.
I have some major projects on hold, waiting for the current situation to improve but, in the meantime, I keep creating new paintings and artworks that I hope could bring a bit of happiness to your life.
What is your relationship with art? Do have a story to share? Don´t forget to leave a comment below.
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What is your relationship with art? Do have a story to share?
Don´t forget to leave a comment in the article.