Melissa Arbotante

As long as I can remember the moment I picked up a pencil I started to draw and never wanted to stop. I drew on almost everything, my Mom’s Mills and Boon pocket books, my Father’s printouts and I even ventured on the nice serene walls of my house…well till my disciplined me to limit my creative wanderings only on paper. My drawings always have a story behind them.

This is the beginnings of my love affair with art.

I was a sickly child so I spent most of my time indoors. I was constantly drawing and imagining. This was my way of escaping the solace of my room. My mother noticed my interest in drawing so she let me take art classes in my free time. I joined competitions. Winning was not my main goal but learning from other artists.

In my high school days I didn’t compete any longer but I did not stop creating art. This time I drew for myself. My cousin Jor-el influenced me with his fascination for comics. I went through a phase when I drew characters from X-men and Batman. But I really loved drawing Spawn. Then I was also attracted to Japanese Anime. I drew a couple of Sailor Moon characters and feminine like guys. I was also into making portraits. I drew from from fashion magazines pictures of beautiful people like Brad Pitt, Uma Thurman etc. My art style was still very diverse and unfocused.

I was very excited for college. At first I wanted to take up Architecture or Interior Design but later I realized that I do not want to create very calculated and measured art. I took up Fine Arts Major in Advertising.

I learned art the traditional way. We studied color theory using water color. We learned the Fundamentals of Design. Studied the History of Art. We drew naked women and printed our own black and white photos. There was already a rise in the use of the digital art media but still my school stuck to its traditional ways. When I was doing my thesis I had to learn Photoshop. It was very hard to do my thesis through traditional means. My Thesis was children’s book. I integrated my love of story telling and illustration skills. By this time I saw the rise of the use of digital art.

After graduation I did not immediately applied anywhere. I enjoyed a couple of months of vacation. I was back in my Home town, Davao. I didn’t know where to find work so my first work was a boring clerical job. I answered the phone, made photo copies and filled my desk with origami. The next job, I was an art teacher. A fresh graduate with no knowledge of the real world I had to face the different realities of teaching. I had to face the war freak grade one’s, gossiping grade four’s, stubborn freshmen and hormonal seniors. It was a fun job but having 28 sections under your belt it will definitely take its toll. After four months I resigned.

I went back to school. I learned what I lacked digital applications in Art. I learned photoshop, illustrator, InDesign, Flash and Maya.

After I worked as graphic Illustrator at Iyagi a Korean children’s website. I resigned because I applied for Masteral. It was a good thing that I did not passed because the tuition would make a very very big hole in my father’s pocket.

Right now I am working as a graphic artist and a web designer at an Out sourcing company.

I really want to master motion graphics but right now I must fist learn web design and maybe later I could jump into that.