Attention to detail is a must, especially if you’re a portrait artist. Just ask Airdrie artist Mark Erwin Mirasol, whose ability to capture smiles and moments on paper is astonishing.
Mirasol, 40, is a portrait and realism artist who specializes in humans, pets and objects using graphite pencils. He grew up in the Philippines surrounded by loved ones who loved to draw and picked up the passion, sparking an interest in teaching himself.
“I’ve been doing drawings since I was young, but back then it was different,” he says. “The only things we had back then were printer paper and Mongol pencils,” he says, adding those were the only accessible materials back in the Philippines.
Mirasol carefully studied how his family members drew and was inspired to experiment and create his own unique style and technique. But, instead of taking art at university, he instead earned a degree in architecture in 2008. But this didn’t stop him from creating, and he’s continued to compete in fine-arts and poster-making competitions in the Philippines and other parts of Asia.
Mirasol battled with depression, leading him to lose motivation to create, but it was his wife, Glecylle, who encouraged him to get back into drawing in hopes that it would help his mental health. She brought him a sketchpad and pencils and Mirasol started to sketch again. He got his first commission through Facebook Marketplace in 2014.
Mirasol has continued to create since moving to Airdrie six years ago. Today, he runs a small arts and crafts business, Markuslovidoves.
“Dealing with clients is what I enjoy,” he says. “The moment that you give the portrait to the client or receive a video from them, and you see their heartfelt emotions, it makes me happy.”
Earlier this year, Mirasol started immersing himself into a new medium, trading up the pencils for ballpoint pens.
“It’s the hardest to master as it’s not something you can easily cover up or correct once you make mistakes,” he says. “I thought to myself, let’s do something new for a change, so I went to Dollarama and bought coloured ballpoint pens and I started scribbling. I was happy with the result and started posting them.”
Mirasol’s most requested commission is for merging individual pictures into portraits, such as to remember a loved one who’s passed away, or to pay tribute to a favourite band.
Some of his commissions have stretched his creative muscles. He recalls one client would send him a half-burned picture. Mirasol would only receive information and background about the person featured in the damaged image, and, from this information, he would reconstruct the face and create the missing half of the image.
Receiving positive feedback is what inspires him to continue.
“The satisfaction from the client and every time I received a thank you message from them, that’s already a payment for me,” Mirasol says. “Monetary value comes second.”
Learn more about Mark Erwin Mirasol’s art on instagram at @markuslovidovesartsandcrafts.
