Issue 1/December 2019
Born to Create Discover 19 year old fine art student, Keshia Tamidles on her pursuit to the call of creativity.
v Meet the Artist written by : Thea Marie Montecillo
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“Never compare your beginning to someone else's middle� BORN TO CREATE
true colors of people and that they really are that much different than that of their surface.
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dventure-seeker, goal getter, and ambivert (mixture of extrovert and introvert) are one of the things that describes Keshia Marie Tamidles. At October 24, 2000 she was brought to life. She is now a second year college student although she is one year younger than most of her batch mates. She started going to school at the age of 4 which is quite early. She is fond of drawing and has a weird interest for papers, according to her “my favorite item is paper, because of its peculiar odor, plus I can fill them up with my creative powers and make them works of art!”. Watching korean dramas and other asian movies, never fails to drive her emotions into a wacky rollercoaster. Being a person of the internet, she despises slow net connection. She likes to stare at people’s eyes because she believes it is the window to the soul, and every soul has its own story which fascinates her. She often wonders what the
“Never compare your beginning to someone else’s middle”. That’s what Keshia always says. She believes that we all have different struggles in life, everything happens for a reason, we may not reach the success today or right here and now, but eventually time will come. These wise words come from a woman who has a very realistic and dark way of understanding the world around us. Her political outlook is leaning on the negative instead of positive. At such a delicate age of 15 she already began to open her eyes to the society we live in which is filled with injustice and chaos. Although doubtful, she has little hope for the future, she dreams of changing the barbaric mentality of the ignorant and to shed light to those who are in the dark. Her parents are Thelma and Amelito Tamidles. They work hard hand in hand to ensure the health of their children in all aspects. Amelito works as an mechanical engineer, while Thelma is a housewife. Living with 3 sisters, Keshia considers this not a problem but rather a convenience, she feels as she is lucky to have all siblings as girls as their topics and interests are quite similar. Being the youngest one she does not really feel pressured. Her parents would just tell her to pass and she always does, her decent amount of merit cards has been a proof of her achievement. The future that she sees is bright and victorious. Although she is unsure on what’s ahead, all she knows is that whatever path she is going to take, she will give it her all and attain it. She prefers to live in the now and not worry much of the future.
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Creative pursuits over the years
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rowing up with three creative sisters, I was exposed to art at an early age. As a child, I’ve always been amazed when my sisters paint, draw or design for their school projects. My mom as well, taught me how to draw a few figures as a child, enrolled me to summer art classes and bought me coloring books to enjoy while she leaves for work. Since then, I grew interest on art which eventually became my main driving force in life. With it, I had a long love and hate relationship. I tried to give it up a numerous times but I always came back.
During the summers, me and my neighborhood friends would play games, direct plays, venture on places, storytell, invent stuff and watch films - things that ignited my creativity in my younger years.
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However on my first attempt to paint a portrait I was discouraged. Way back when I was in third grade,we were told to paint Saint Therese as our project. Among the paintings displayed, my classmates laughed so much at my painting because of how distorted it was, so much that I felt inferior of my skills and slowly quit drawing and painting. But that didn’t stop me from being creative.When I first discovered the camera from my sister’s keypad mobile phone, I was amazed at how you can freeze or replay a moment in a frame. As a child, I took a lot of photos and videos with it, which often got me in trouble from my sister. But that was just the first few manifestation of my love for photography and videography.
Years passed and it was in high school that I engaged with various form of creative expression, including drawing, painting, crafting, music, video and photo editing. I had also embraced a fanatical interest on watching dramas, movies, documentaries and music videos. Through these films, I was inspired to be a video editor. In 7th grade I tried to learn video editing for fun, which later on came in handy every time teachers would give us video projects, an opportunity for me to also practice editing videos.
at art made me feel really behind of my artistic skills for my age. The thought that art may not be for me came to mind which made me think of quitting.I tried giving up art but the thought of creating it, always excites me.
Despite my creative pursuits in high school, I could never take it seriously because of how I am always held back from practicing my skills to prioritize my academic life. Back then, I didn’t really know how to balance my studies and passion.Though I did succeed academically, it was not as fulfilling as creating art. Seeing young artists my age who were exceptionally good
I wasn’t the best illustrator in class nor did I win medals or certificates for poster making contests like any other artists, but I knew I wanted to draw and design. I was 16 when I realized I wanted to pursue a career in the creative industry, specifically to be a graphic designer. It wasn’t an easy decision as I was caught up over practicality and passion. I had to consider alot of factors like which university to enter, financial budget, employment rate, salary and my parents’ decision, before I could finally
decide which course to take. It is at this time that I finally took art seriously. I gathered up my courage and picked up my brush again after a long time. With the help of my family and friends who supported and motivated me to practice, I was able to overcome my art frustrations and creative block. I ventured out on different mediums, from charcoal, to colored pencils, to watercolor to acrylic and many more. I watched a lot of tutorials, read books and joined workshops to improve my art. I am now a full-time second year Fine Arts student majoring in Advertising Arts at the University of San Carlos motivated by my passion for art to become a successful designer someday.
“ I tried giving up art but the thought of creating it always excites me “ BORN TO CREATE
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Finding Her Niche
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ight now, I don’t have a consistent art style and medium yet but I do embrace my style versatility as a strength because it helps me grow to be flexible and adaptable. I jump from one style or medium to another like from digital to traditional, realistic to caricature style, photography to videography and crafting to sculpting. What I do love to draw a lot are realistic human interests! I really find it interesting to draw or paint humans because of their facial expressions and the deep meaning behind. Recently I’ve been venturing out on digital painting. I still have a lot to learn since I am still a beginner but most of my works are portraits and are inspired by the characters of the movies or dramas I’ve watched. In addition, I also plan to experiment on digital collage art, which I find really witty and aesthetic, and motion graphics, since I’ve always wanted to make kinetic typographies. In the future, I want to take my skills in the creative industry as a graphic designer, lay-out artist, or video editor. However, aside from solving design problems,I also aspire to use my skills in addressing or spreading awareness on the local, national and global issues through designing for campaigns and organizations. This way I could use my talent to also serve others.
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Keshia as an Art Student 7
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Life as a fine art student is not at all times ‘fine’. For the most part, you’d find yourself dealing with creative blocks, burnout and cramming over plates and deadlines. However, this is what makes life as an art student fun and challenging. Get to know more about Keshia and how she deals with all these challenges in this quick chat! As a fine art student, do you ever feel like you’re not as good as you want to be? How do you deal with it? - Yes, I think most artists experiences this. What I do is not dwell on it too much and actually use it as a motivation to improve myself. I always remind myself to be patient and that art takes time and effort. As the famous saying goes, ‘trust the process’ and that’s it.
How do you stay driven and inspired? - I stay driven by constantly reminding myself of my goals in life. One thing that helped me be reminded of my goals is by having an inspiration wall where in I paste works of art in our room so that each time I wake up, it would be the first thing I see and would help me get up each morning. I also take inspiration from the things around me like store signages ,songs I hear, packagings, book covers, etc. and from the films I watched. Staying curious hepled me alot to be inspired. The access of internet also allows me to find inspiration easier.
How do you beat burnout? - I take a lot of rest and nap. I’d like to think burnouts are blessing in disguise. It is God’s way of telling me to take a step back and rest. But if deadlines are close, I take a 15 mins. break interval after working. Within that 15 minutes break, I either take a nap, eat, or consume content. What is your creative process? - My creative process includes brainstorming, where in I list keywords or anything that reminds me for that project. Second I try to research information or inspiration for that certain project. Third, I review everything that I listed down and what I researched to see anything that could form ideas or concept. From there, I start to sketch the design or
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concept. Then I move on to make the actual work where in I work from the overview of the design to the details. After, I would take a step back, refine and make adjustments. Of course, all of these doesn’t happen in a day as it takes time and effort. I always make room for mistakes in the process because after all, creativity is trial and error. Do you always have a plan b whenever things don’t go your way or do you just go with the flow? - Yes, when it comes to my plates. I usually plan how I’ll do it so that none of my materials would be wasted and lesser mistakes would be made. If things don’t go my way for my plates, then I resort to my plan b. However, if I make art for myself, and things don’t go my way, I usually just go with the flow. What are your tips for art students like you? - My tip for them is to not be worried too much on finding their own art style because it will come find them if they keep creating art. Always remember the 3P’s, practice (train your eye and hands ), perseverance (stay focused on beocming better and improving your art) and patience (allow yourself to make mistakes) . Also, don’t take criticisms too personal but instead take it as a lesson to improve your art. This actually makes your progress faster. What’s important is to never stop creating, enjoy the process and just let creativity flow.
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