What should I share ...Writing or Painting?

These are two talents I can opt to share. As a private employee, wife, mom without extra hands, I can only choose one skill to practice at a time. :)

Hmnn...so how do I choose? - both needs good mood and subject to drive or inspire me. For me, the difference would be:  required space or location, time to consume,  mediums to write or paint and most important is the consideration of the output's interpretation.

Writing articulates itself while Painting can be subjective to the eyes of the audience. Writing puts the readers into the same perspective while the other one provides freedom to create interpretation specially if the painting is an abstract. In my case, in Painting I am the boss when I would want to finish it while Writing may not always give me the luxury of time specially if somebody else asked me to finish a write-up.

Between the two I really like to paint - it's my silent way of expressing my emotions, I found this skill wayback in my high school days. I never had any formal training to paint, I just learned I have the talent when my works were published at Junior Philippine Daily Inquirer and joined their pool of illustrators wayback in 1998 (if my memory serves me right). I like using water color in my paintings because it's cheaper and I like it most when mixing colors all together. My first artwork was just a simple mountain and sea - nature as my subject. I'm so happy about the artwork I decided to share it to a newspaper without any expectation of it being published. As a teenager, it was a memorable event in my life. It opened an unexpected opportunity. Learnings / best experience I appreciate? My painting, illustrations were shared publicly, I got recognition from my school and newspaper plus a surprise fee for the artwork. Not bad for utilizing talent as a hobby, right? :)

As for writing, I know you can relate that from grade school till college we were required to create essays and do reaction papers. Even so, I never had any courage to join writing contest nor bother taking a formal training. Back then, writing was just a plain task for me, I was writing because I was asked to do so, not because I wanted to do it. After graduation from college, I thought writing essays will also end but I was wrong. Honestly, I have been in the corporate world since 2001 and I'm still compelled to write - the major difference started last year till September 2012 this year...I was tasked to supervise, write and join prestigious communication competition. It was like living in a life of lie, and I did ask myself - am not a professional writer that's why my forte is development not communications, so why do I have to write?
Learnings / best experience? I found my new skill, I was convinced I can write. My write ups, task bagged awards from Anvil and Quill. I learned that I should not under estimate myself even I'm not a professional writer, what's important is you put heart into your task. I may not have been publicly recognized as the writer of the winning piece unlike the paintings but I was able to conquer an opportunity to share my talent. Thus, the awards were just confirmation that it wasn't after all a "tsamba" :)

So for you out there, believe in yourself, explore and find out other good things in you. Utilize and share, who knows an award or a fee is at the end of the string. Till next time :)