Biography

My passion for art began in 2014 when I took painting classes at Laney College in Oakland, CA after quitting theater. The paintings I created are landscapes inspired by Bob Ross from his TV Series, The Joy of Painting on PBS.

While developing these ideas, I decided that I was going to sell my artwork to make money. In September 2015, an art auction was held during my parent’s silver anniversary party and people had massive bidding wars for the ones they liked the best.

About a year later, I recieved an email from the Alameda County Fair asking local artists to display their work for Artist Alley, and it looked like a great opportunity for me to showcase my work to the public.

During my first year in June 2016, I sold leftover paintings and painted new creations as a live demonstration. As an added bonus, I even had the honor of being interviewed from the Filipino Channel. While I was able to sell a few paintings, the demos didn’t go as well as I planned mainly due to the set-up and clean-up in between.

About a month after Artist Alley, my grandfather, Honesto Tria passed away after being placed into hospice care. To honor his memory, I created a painting entitled God Bless, which was then created into custom-made sympathy cards. This was where the idea for Kevin’s Cards came to be. All of my original paintings are made into greeting cards for every occasion. After developing the idea, I thought about selling them during Artist Alley in addition to the paintings.

In June 2017, my gretting cards made their debut along with new paintings to sell. As I anticipated, most of the cards were best sellers. However, not a lot of paintings were sold mainly due to the hot weather and only a three-day sale.

A few days later, a website was launched to showcase my previous paintings and where I post blogs on card sales, art shows, and other various topics. While I started to have good ideas for Kevin’s Cards, I felt like it needed a stronger advertisement.

In the Fall of 2017, I took Graphic Arts classes at Laney College where I created a new logo and business cards to advertise my business. In addition to that, I visited art and wine festivals, art shows, and flea markets to get inspiration on where else I could sell my cards and showcase my artwork.

In 2018, the greeting cards were updated with the new logo, which looks better than the original design. During the summer, the logo and business cards made their debut at Artist Alley along with new greeting cards and leftover paintings. This was one of the best sales that I’ve had because the logo got people’s attention to see my booth and I sold a lot more work than my previous sales!

Overall, my artwork has developed over the last five years and I hope to create more to showcase in future generations!