STRESS reliever.That was how teacher Amanda Cervanez would describe her passion for painting amidst the busy schedules she has in her profession.A public school teacher, Cervanez said her inspiration for her paintings are landscapes although there were times that she did portraits.“But I usually don’t make portraits if I’m not in the mood unless I like the person (I’m doing the portrait for),” she said.When she was young, her mother told her that she drew on cigarette boxes and foils.Seeing her potential, Cervanez’s teachers at Negros Occidental High School (NOHS) encouraged her to join poster-making contests and even suggested that she took up fine arts in college.Aside from that, her teachers also tasked her to make their bulletin board, she said.Although she wanted to take up fine arts, Cervanez agreed to enroll at Riverside College and take up nursing instead.Unfortunately, prior to the opening of class, she fell ill with typhoid fever.“When I got well, I told my mother that I would pursue fine arts,” Cervanez recalled.Now that she has taken a different path as a teacher, she would still paint in her free time not only to release her stress but also to escape boredom and retain her mental health.When the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic started, Cervanez took it as an opportunity to rekindle her love for the visual arts.There were times she would start to paint at 7 p.m. and would finish shortly after midnight.At first, she didn’t have any intentions of selling her artwork because she wanted to display them.However, some of her colleagues who saw her paintings wanted to buy them.Asked if she wanted to hold an art exhibit, she said that she tried to join a local association of artists but she cannot comply with the requirement to display an artwork monthly.Cervanez stressed that she would continue painting amidst her busy schedule as a teacher as she thinks that she is really born as an artist.