Chasing what’s meant for him: Broderick Wong’s way back to art

People have probably encountered one of those days when they had to rethink their life choices and suddenly asked themselves questions like, “Is this what I really want?”; “Am I doing the right thing?”; “Am I on the right track?”; “Am I fine with all these?” or “Do I really love what I’m doing?” 

While some might still be asking themselves this set of questions, others have already found an answer to this and one of them is Broderick Wong.

Brod used to be a successful management trainer. While other employees were going back to their respective homes after a long day in the office, Brod was busy gearing up for work. He shared that he had been happy doing his job… until that one night at work came and major changes in his life decisions were made.

Choosing what’s not in his option

Brod grew up in a two-story ancestral home in Manila with his parents, Nelly and Charles, older sister Sabrina, younger brother John, and his aunt Rose. His mother was a homemaker, the one who takes credit for all the savory or sweet food served at their dining table, while his dad was an operations manager of a steel company. 

Every Sunday, he and his dad would usually look for new restaurants, try out new foods and talk about life. He also spent time with his Aunt Rose, who had her own beauty products business, talking about music and art over Halo-Halo, a popular dessert in the Philippines.

As someone who always loved to draw and who has been doing it since the age of seven, Brod had it in his mind that he would major in either Fine Arts or Animation in college, but his dad advised him to take business-related studies instead. Being an obliging son, Brod ended up choosing Marketing Management at the De La Salle University (DLSU) in Manila. 

After obtaining his Bachelor’s degree, he eventually landed a job in the call center industry as a call center agent first and worked his way up to management trainer whose responsibilities include training and certifying managers and supervisors on giving feedback and managing employees’ performance. Brod was once a management trainer working graveyard shifts, working during the night and sleeping during the day. It became a struggle for him to stay awake in the morning during weekends, to do errands, spend time with friends and his dog, Chiquita.

This was how his life went on for years until that life-changing night shift came.

Taking a detour

Others may expect that life would be like driving a specific route from point A to point B, finding a job and staying on that career path for as long as they can, buying a house, settling down with their partner, building a family, and then growing old; but the reality for Brod was far from that. He took the next exit after the find-a-job part.

While being a management trainer was something he liked, Brod shared that it was not what his heart truly desires.

During one of his work shifts, when he didn’t have any training sessions, he suddenly asked himself whether his current job was really what he wanted to do or not, and then it hit him. It wasn’t something he would think about outside work. 

“I thought that If you truly liked what you do, there is no checking in or out of it. You keep thinking about it, you keep doing it because you can’t help it.”

Sitting in front of his computer with his cup of 9:30 p.m. coffee, he started looking up on the internet post-university courses, hoping to find a masters degree related to behavioral psychology, but he instead came across a 3D animation and multimedia course — the art-related study he would have taken back in college. 

He enrolled in the 3D animation and multimedia course and began practicing art again, which he stopped doing for some time. For nine years, writing became his creative outlet instead. This time, there’s no stopping Brod from pursuing his first course choice. 

Brod was trying to juggle all his responsibilities as a 3D animation and multimedia student — including doing character design, storytelling, animation, life drawing, storyboarding, photo retouching, photo manipulation, digital illustration, graphic design, desktop web design, and web development — while still working as a management trainer. But creating a 3D animation portfolio would require a lot of his attention, which he would not be able to give if he still had a full-time job. So, in 2009, he finally decided to resign from work to dedicate himself completely to the course.

He committed more than his 100 percent to study tons of subtle details about 3D animation, trying traditionally drawn animation, and even working as a junior animator at an animation studio in Mandaluyong. To have a better understanding of the craft, Brod spent most of his time in front of his computer, drawing.  His sketchbooks would fill up with story ideas, practice sketches, human anatomy, gesture drawing, and his observations from life. He also watched old Disney films not solely for entertainment but to learn movement by drawing characters in each frame as they moved, to break down the timing and poses, and so much more.

“Describing how I started in this way would surely inundate anyone. All I could say is, ignorance is bliss. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into at the time, but I gave it my all and I enjoyed every second of it.”

Although he was already doing art, by working on and learning 3D animation, Brod stopped doing it despite the amount of time and effort he had already invested in it. Once again, he stood in the middle of his chosen career path to ask himself whether he would like to spend most of his time staring at a computer screen all day. Even though he had gained so much art-related experience through this, Brod said he realized that the more time he spent on his computer, the less happy he became.

“I felt burnt out. Tired eyes, body aches, back pains, irregular sleeping habits, etc. I knew that I still enjoyed doing art but, to be honest, animation was not for me, despite all the time I had already put in.”

Chasing the first choice

While it was clear to him that he was traversing the pathway towards art, it was still uncertain what kind of art he wanted to pursue.

Needing more clarity, he took out all his sketchbooks, flipped through pages upon pages of sketches and illustrations, and then he found his answer. Faces.

“The human face is the hardest thing to draw and while striving for realism is a great way to develop the eye, everybody else was doing it. I wanted to have something to say with my art and enjoy the process of creation, not merely copying.”

Through his search, Brod eventually had a clear vision of the way, leading him to a 10-week online course on Advanced Caricatures. He calls this new skill set: Character Portraits which enables him to balance tasteful humor and elegant realism by capturing a person’s unique characteristics in their face.

He also invested in workshops related to digital marketing, business strategy and blogging with his Character Portraits in mind. This style did not seem to take off in Manila and there was no sound business model for this since everything is done freehand, without aids or tools, and that it took a while for one portrait to be completed.

And so, he left animation, his character portraits, and the Philippines.

Off to the world’s other side

It is never easy to start anew to begin with, yet there’s Brod with his courageous heart, setting off on a journey to search for what he was destined to be.

Brod began his quest, finding the answer to his question in 2011 when he landed in Canada. His first three months were all about comparing his life in Canada with his life back in Manila. He saw a huge difference and shift in his lifestyle.

While he had a safety net in Manila, having a house to live in and a car to use, his independent life in Canada often pushed him outside of his comfort zone.

“Living here has given me more options to consider, new decisions to make and different opportunities to explore. It opened me up to new facets of myself that I wasn’t aware of.”

Migrating to Canada did not only change his surroundings as Brod also noticed that he had become a different person from who he was before. Being in a different country, he struggled “to relate with anything, desperately trying to find something familiar to latch on to.” At first, thoughts of going back to the Philippines crossed his mind as he could not see a clear picture of his future in Vancouver. 

His struggles were more about his decision to leave his home country and whether or not there was a bright future that awaited him in Canada, especially since he had no Canadian work experience that most employers look for. 

“The very skill I had studied and prepared for still wasn’t enough and getting further education was no longer a priority.”

But Brod was determined to not let these thoughts consume him. Instead, he kept the wheels turning. He searched for other opportunities, resulting in him getting his first Canadian job in customer service. 

Everything appeared to flow smoothly for Brod after a few months of his stay there, but the biggest question on his quest remained unanswered. 

Learning a new skill

Brod may have landed in a job different from the last work he had back in Manila, but he did not stop making art. Even though he had regular work, Brod continued doing character portraits by accepting commission works until 2015. It was during this year that he pondered about making his character portrait different from its usual black and white look. Yes, he was thinking of adding colors.

This started when he found a small art stash in his closet that included an unused portable watercolor palette with a small brush. He went to a nearby park one spring afternoon and spent two hours on a bench, painting. In his first attempt, Brod thought he did well but the next couple of tries, he said, became a total mess. The more he made an effort to paint, the more his works did not get any better. His frustration led him to think about why others would even choose watercolors to paint with. He wondered why his first try was a success. Beginner’s luck? He quipped and concluded that it was the materials’ fault.

“There’s just no control. I closed the art supplies doors on watercolors and banished it to the deep, dark, unfathomable depths … of my closet.”

Pushing watercolors off to the side, Brod looked for other mediums that could give him more control in adding colors to his works. He tried using acrylics but the paint dried too fast. He used oils but the paint took too long to dry.

With all these failed attempts, Brod thought that perhaps it was fate telling him either he was not meant to be an artist or he is an artist limited to black-and-white portraiture.

Letdowns, however, were not enough to detract him from adding color to his masterpieces. He thought that if something was worth doing, then it is worth doing right. He decided to slow down and study watercolors on his own and it took him another year to understand how it was meant to be used with the help of a book. He was walking through the watercolor section of a library, specifically looking at book covers since he was not familiar with any of the watercolor artists/authors. He told himself that if the painting on the cover caught his attention, that would be the one to get. And there it was, the book that stood out from the rest: “The Natural Way To Paint” by Charles Reid. The author, unbeknown to him at that time, was a famous American watercolor master who Brod had the chance to meet and paint with a year later in Provence, France.

“I learned mostly through self-studying, learning bits and pieces, trial and error and the more I learned, the more I appreciated what watercolors was all about.”

Mastering character portrait, watercolor

After a couple of years of simply painting almost every day in his free time, Brod finally found what he was meant to do all along: to share his passion for watercolors

Just like others, Brod also has influencers that shaped him into who he is today. Interestingly enough, the influencer was not a ‘person,’ but instead, a ‘trip”. 

It was during his 850-kilometer hike at El Camino when he learned lessons that were important for him to realize as an artist. He walked the El Camino thinking he could paint some postcard-worthy scenes, so he brought with him his watercolor supplies, however, things did not go as planned. It then hit him that that trip was not meant for him to produce art, but for him to find himself because the reason he did it was really to know what it was like to live in the moment. Painting was just secondary.

“Art doesn’t define me. It’s only an extension of me, a tool I use to express myself with.” Much of his realizations that day were expressed through writing 13 two-page entries about 13 lessons he took away from his El Camino adventure. Brod was still able to make use of the art supplies he brought with him during the hike even if he only produced one painting the entire trip.

In his journey of pursuing art, Brod had also met outstanding individuals that inspired him to create his own style, starting with the late Reid whose art motivated him to revisit watercolors, to award-winning artist Thomas Schaller, and to watercolor masters Joseph Zbukvic and Alvaro Castagnet. Brod said he was honored to have the opportunity to paint with these notable individuals and witness how they see and interpret the world through their own unique styles.

While he has inspirations, Brod’s art style eventually developed by realizing his sensibilities and sensitivities and expressing it through painting. In creating a style, he said one could start by looking at the works of those who have been there, done it first, and did it successfully.

“You take what you like and discard what you don’t like. Whatever you keep only serves as a means to painting, because a style, I believe, becomes more evident through self-awareness.”

“Art doesn’t lie. It’s a reflection of self and that self is revealed through your painting.”

For Brod, watercolors became his “reliable teacher” that taught him to not only balance everything that he does by doing it with some degree of control but to also know when to let go of that control, allowing the water to paint with him.

Just like in life, he explained that one must exercise a balance between control and no control when painting with watercolors. Having too much control in art, he explains, is like forcing life to work out a certain way, often resulting in a tired and overworked painting. Losing too much control is not any better as letting the water take over the process, without any plans, will only lead to a lost and washed-out painting. 

Another thing that he likes about doing art is that it lets him be in the moment. Once he starts to paint, everything else disappears. Brod said being immersed in the process of creation is no different from meditating as it allows one to “meet” themselves and to “be present.”

“The more I paint, the more parallels I find between life and watercolors. This is why I say that there is no other medium for me. Watercolors, to me, is for life.”

His talent and hard work in arts won him multiple awards, including winning first place in Master’s Category at the Grand Prix of Art, the largest plein air competition in Vancouver, in 2018. A year after that, Brod was chosen to become one of the representatives of Canada to participate in Fabriano in Acquarello, the biggest international watercolor festival held in Italy.  The painting he submitted at the event was juried into the Fabriano Watercolor Museum. In 2020, he was invited once again to participate in Fabriano in Acquarello, but this time, as an international artist, demonstrating a watercolor painting of a great white shark. This video is free for the public to watch on YouTube.

“Not wanting to sound cliché, [but] it was unexpected and unbelievable that I received this kind of acknowledgment from local and international communities. It’s much like getting an extra cherry on top of the ice cream; a pleasant, unexpected thing on top of an already good thing.”

With all these awards and recognitions, Brod continues to strive hard to make sure that the next masterpiece he does will always be his best work. 

As an artist, Brod has set clear plans to reach his short-term goals, medium-term goals, and long-term goals. He plans to re-introduce watercolors to Metro Vancouver through workshops and public demonstration along with purveyors of art like Opus Art Supplies for his short-term plan, while he aims to establish himself as an artist-entrepreneur for the medium-term plan. Recently, he has launched three online courses. The first is called Watercolor Painting for Beginners, which is already the bestselling course in the watercolor category on the Udemy website with more than 11,500 students. His second course, Watercolor Painting Next Level Techniques and Effects that launched in October, is already on an uptrend with over 7,500 students worldwide. His most recent course, Watercolor Painting Landscapes for Beginners had just been launched on December 17, 2020, making it a total of three world-class, online courses in under six months.

Meanwhile, his long-term plan includes traveling the world and continuing to conduct watercolor workshops.

“In my workshops, I work very hard at peeling away the layers of overlapping complexities and simplifying the process into easy-to-follow steps so students can recreate their successes and experience incremental progress for themselves.” 

He can relate to the frustration of his students, but Brod assured that he will be guiding them throughout the course as he himself experienced the struggles but learned his lessons the hard way.

“At the end of the day, I know that I’m only contributing a small part to a much bigger watercolor journey that each of my students are on. While they are with me, they can rest assure that whatever they learn, are methods I developed to take them towards the most direct path to success, and have fun getting there.”

If there is one advice that he can give to those who are setting the blueprint for their next journey or having a crisis about which career path they should take, it is to be honest with themselves; be clear about what you want, have a master plan, then do everything you can to achieve it.

“Don’t stop or settle for anything less. We only have one life. Find your gift and share it with the world. It’s never too late. Life should be an adventure. Your adventure. And when you are finally ready to begin, prepare yourself for possibilities, ones that you would’ve never imagined, to come your way.”