Drawing of my Life

 In this post, I will show a drawing that I did in today's class. This drawing is about how I am, about everything I did in my life, and what are the things that made me who I am.

I know some people might be confused when they see this drawing, because they don't know some elements, so I'll explain its meaning.

The big figure highlighted in the drawing is a cartoon representation of me.The symbols that are all over the body have an important meaning in my life or they describe me in cultural aspects:

(i) The body is only painted with black, white, and blue, meaning that these 3 colors are my favorite colors.

(ii) The logo on the chest is the shield of Portugal because I was born there and I lived there for the most part.

(iii) On my right arm, we see a cross, which means that I'm Christian catholic.

(iv) The name "Silva" which is one of my family names coming from my mother.

(v) On my left arm, we see another name "Marques" which is also my other name from my grandmother from my father's side, who died before I was born.

(vi) On the side of my body, we see the name "Carvalho", that name comes from my father and it's my surname.

(vii) On the right leg, we see 2 symbols, the top one is from an old cartoon that I used to watch when I was a kid called "Megaman Battle network", the other one is a pencil representing my passion for drawing.

(viii) On my left leg, we see the logo of a school, where I studied for a long time, called "Ramalhão" where I got the best memories.

(ix) on my foot is one of my other names "Claro", from my grandmother on my mother's side. 

At the bottom of the drawing, we see the place where I was born called Agualva-cacém, but it is not a place that has influenced me much, because I left there at the age of two. Beside this drawing, we have a shield from a place I was when I was a kid called Mafra, the place where I lived for some time, where I did my pre-school education. The place where I lived the longest and where my house is, it’s called Sintra and is represented in the drawing. Sintra is shown in big because it was where I lived my life for a long time, I started living there when I was 5 until this day. 

Close to my feet is also visible some logos, some of them are fairly obvious like the Playstation logo and the Nintendo logo, they are there because they were the consoles I played the most, naming them by order: Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Nintendo 3DS, Playstation 4, and Nintendo Switch. The other logo is from Linkin Park, meaning that they are my favorite band. 

Going up, right above Sintra, we see the flag of the United Kingdom and the logo from DMU University. The flag is there because it is the place I started living right after Sintra, and DMU University is simply the first and the only university I've been to.

Above my head are the 3 things that make me "Me", and they are:

- Animation (cartoon)

- Playing games

- Music 

They are basically what I like to do the most and that I would never stop doing it.

On the right side, we can see 2 boxes, the box on top is about my personalities (that's why there's an arrow pointing to my head), and the box on the bottom is the people that I love or really like the most (and it's pointing to my chest where the heart is).

On the personalities we have:

- Sleepy

- Smiley

- Confused

- Angry

- Sad

- Happy

On the People that I like we have:

- Mom

- Dad 

- My 3 brothers (2 from my mom and 1 from my dad)

- Stepmother

- Stepfather

- 2 Best friends 

- The rest of my family, it doesn't fit for being very big.

This exercise allowed me to look back and reflect on who I am. Getting to know myself better, thinking about what is most important and what influenced me, thinking about what made me who I am. When we think that knowing the lives of artists is not important, we are making a mistake. People's life story allows them to understand their work, which influenced them to be who they are. To understand the context we need to understand where they were born, what they learned, how they learned, what influences they had, among other factors. One day it may be that DMU students will do research on me and find this work.