Unlimiting how I paint and draw

I've never called myself a painter or a fine art artist. But I've been thinking this - what I call myself can limit or un-limit what I do.

This was painted with acrylic on paper at the Singapore Botanic Gardens about 2-3 weeks back. I'd usually draw small and lean toward using ink and watercolours because that fits my image of myself as an illustrator. Whenever I'd try out acrylic paints on a bigger sized paper (This was about A3), it always feels a little weird. This time, again, I was thinking that "This feels strange. I'm now venturing into the territory of a painter and fine art artist." Then I was thinking, why do I need to think in this way? There are illustrators who draw big too. And some do use acrylic. Heck, I use acrylic from time to time too when I do picture books.

So I just decided to throw out all these title that were holding me back and limiting me and just focused on painting the dang scene. And I just had fun. I even drew myself into the scene. (See the guy with the hat and orange backpack?) If I was thinking in terms of titles, for example, "I'm an urban sketcher", I might think I have to be true to what I see. But without the titles, I was free to draw what I saw and also combine it with what was in my imagination. So is this urban sketching? Or an illustration? Or fine art? It could be a combination of a few of those things. And maybe it doesn't matter so much what I call it. What matters is that I had fun and I personally like what I'd painted.

If I had to think of a title for my own self-image, I'd go with "Storyteller". Because that would allow me to draw the scene any way I want, with the important goal of telling a story.