Single Leaf Painting

My name is Soon Papan, born in 1975 as 5th child of a local agricultural family in Burirum, North Eastern Thailand. The family later moved few times to Roi-ed, then to Kalasin, My talent in drawing has gradually be seen by others, in primary 4, I was able to draw human figures in correct proportions and ratios and later learned to do line, light and shadow drawing when I was in first year of secondary. I still remember very well once when we went for school’s outdoor sketching trip, the task was to do an EE pencil sketch of a building with many trees in front, it was all about perspective and ratios. After one of the teachers saw my work, he suddenly said among other senior students that I was very gifted in drawing, it made me realize about the skills and be proud of myself for the first time. In 6th year of high school, I spent time in school library reading about cartoon drawing, line drawing, painting, and several articles about artist; their works, experiences and inspirations. I recalled one of those artist’s quotes that said, “New generation artist should be smart enough to make a living with their passion in Arts.” This resulted to a turning point of my life as I decided to apply for a bachelor of Arts at Mahasarakham University, instead of Sciences-Maths program which I was studying at that moment. In University, still the library is my favorite hide-away place. I loved to read more about western arts and its’ artists such as Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, etc. I sometimes found myself woke up in the library after falling asleep with the books in hands - It was such great inspirations. We were assigned to create one drawing/painting every week, and I can recall very well my enthusiasm for an outdoor work to create 3-4 pieces of art per week. Mr. Bunthan Chetsurat, my teacher at that time even mentioned to me if I could spend the rest of my life just doing painting and no need for becoming a teacher, which he did exactly spoke my mind. After a graduation, I decided to go back home and spent time created painting/drawing while travelling around Kalasin, Khon Khan, Nakhon Ratchasima, Bangkok, Chonburi. Living with very little amount of money, I decided to stay with people I know such as teachers, musicians, or even those who wanted me for training. I even experienced hard time not having enough money for painting equipment and food, and must do any work just for survival.