INK Fest 2014

This is a super late post but whatever- this is one of the best highlights of my 2014! :)

I kept on bugging myself if I'll attend the event because I have no one to be with and I don't know how to go there, but luckily, one of my office mates asked me to go to INK Fest because she wants to meet Pepper Roxas. PEPPER ROXAS! She is my number one inspiration when it comes to Children's Book Illustrations! The reason why I wanted to be a member of InK and be a Children's Book Illustrator. I was so surprised when Monica asked me, because, it is my first time to know an actual person, that I really know, who also know Pepper Roxas.

I was so inspired by her talk. I was teary eyed, really! And then I saw Ms. May Tobias-Papa, the writer of Araw sa Palengke that Pepper Roxas illustrated. Ms. May was also the illustrator and writer of Estrellita, one of my children's books when I was a kid. When I approached her to ask for a sign on my book, I was hesitant to tell her about it, and then the little voice said, "It's now or never!" So I told her about my photo when I was 7 or 8 years old holding her book and I was so surprised when she hugged me! It was an overwhelming feeling!

When I talked to Pepper, I told her about how I wanted to be an illustrator like her and she told me that when she started, she doesn't like her drawings before. And she told me to just draw whatever I want. 

The bliss that night was so overwhelming I kept on crying to my mother when I got home. Even right now that I'm typing this post. It was a different kind of happiness. The happiness that I met them and told them how they inspire me. The happiness that I have the gut to talk to my favorite artists because when I attend events, I'm always shy. The happiness to know that the book I owned that they wrote and illustrated is one of the 9 or 10 copies that they both have signs because they don't usually sign together.

I'm just a happy kid. :D

xxx