About Me

Me at 3: more into running than drawing

A cartoon selfie of me at 61

I can't say that I've always been heavily into art, but I liked to draw occasionally starting from when I was old enough to hold a pencil; crayons were not a thing in the early 1960s in Hong Kong.

The introduction of crayons once we moved to Canada when I was 8 was a positively...mediocre influence on me. I recall loving the smell of wax, but it didn't make me want to draw more.

That's the first piece I ever drew with crayons. It was also the first landscape I attempted courtesy of my grade 3 teacher ordering me to draw something. I mean, it's got a mountain, birds, fish, and a sun. What more would you want? Monet had nothing on me.

At some point eventually, I started drawing a bit more. As with singing, those in the know seem to think I have a bit of talent...notably a Mr. William Mammarella who taught the "drawing for non-art majors" that I took at the University of Delaware while I was working soul-sucking jobs as the Spousal Unit was finishing his Ph.D. I should have taken his encouragement and ran with it. Instead, it took me another 30+ years before I got moderately more serious.

My mother also urged me to be an artist or author since I was in elementary school. I know people who would have given their left arm to be encouraged by a parent to take on a creative field. But being contrary, I ran in the opposite direction, straight into the arms of science, and therefore lost a lot of time in my art and writing careers.

I have no one but myself to blame for my being a late bloomer.

More info about me as an author can be found on the About pages of my author website.

Bluesky

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