Entrepreneurship

In order for our nation's economy to grow, we should encourage entrepreneurialism rather than vagrancy. Entrepreneurs are a driving force that moves our economy forward. They are the people who dare to step outside their comfort zones, bringing innovations, new products and services to the market, taking the risk of losing, while creating jobs and opportunities for other people.

Most people prefer to stay in their comfort zones, having stable jobs and receiving monthly pay checks, without worrying of going bankrupt. But, all that are made possible because somebody, an entrepreneur, has spent time, effort, and resources, long before they even got their jobs. The sacrifices made by entrepreneurs that went ahead of them made it possible for them to live comfortably today...

A good example of entrepreneurs are the independent artists.  They spend time and resources on their works, long before their works are even recognized or appreciated.  Just like other entrepreneurs, they create jobs and make it possible for other people such as these craftsmen and women to make a living…

Imagekind - Workshop from Imagekind on Vimeo.

When you buy something from an artist, you're not only buying a small piece of their heart, soul, and life; you are also contributing to the growth of our nation's economy, by keeping people like them employed.

Let us support entrepreneurs who are bringing in new innovations, new products, and new services to the market, by promoting and patronizing them. Their success is our success... Their success is the key to our future, to the future of our children, and to the future of our children's children.

Boy Riding a Carabao

A Caucasian boy named Isaiah, from Houston TX, went to the Philippines to spend a vacation with his family. He was visiting the Philippines and his relatives there for the first time. He had a wonderful time, playing with his cousins and meeting new friends.  He really had a lot of fun back there.

This painting shows Isaiah riding a carabao.  It is an acrylic painting on an 18" X 24" canvas.  It was completed on December 21, 2014.

For those who have not seen or heard what a carabao is, a carabao is a swamp type domestic water buffalo found in the Philippines. It is considered the national animal of the Philippines.  Carabaos are used for farming and for pulling carts in rural villages in the Philippines. They are also a good source of meat, milk, and hide. Carabao hide was once used extensively to create a variety of products, which include the armor of pre-colonial Filipino warriors.   Also, according to Wikipedia, "the carabao is considered a symbol of Guam. In the early 1960s, carabao races were a popular sport in the island, especially during fiestas. Today, carabaos are a part of the popular culture. They are often brought to carnivals or other festivities, and are used as a popular ride for children."

Below is a series of photos I took while I was working on this painting.

No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

No. 4

Bayanihan

I just finished another painting today.  It's called "Bayanihan."

"Bayanihan is a Filipino term taken from the word "bayan", referring to a nation, country, town, or community. The whole term "bayanihan" refers to a spirit of communal unity or effort to achieve a particular objective. 

The origin of the term "bayanihan" can be traced from a common tradition in Philippine towns where community members volunteer to help a family move to a new place by volunteering to transport the house to a specific location. The process involves literally carrying the house to its new location. This is done by putting bamboo poles forming a strong frame to lift the stilts from the ground and carrying the whole house with the men positioned at the ends of each pole. The tradition also features a small fiesta hosted by the family to express gratitude to the volunteers." - From Wikipedia.

Unfinished Painting

The painting is a 18" X 24" acrylic on canvas.  I started this painting last month (November 2014).  

The picture on the right shows how it looked like on day 1.  I worked on this painting little by little, sometimes in the evening and sometimes very early in the morning (just a few minutes before taking a bath and leaving to work in the office).

I finally completed this painting this morning, December 6.  It's Saturday, but I got up early to work on it.  I really wanted to finish this painting today, so I can start a new one.

Bayanihan

Summer View

The title of this painting is "Summer View".  It is a painting of two cousins resting after a hard day's work on the top of a hill, overlooking a vast area of rice fields below.  They had been having fun, playing a guitar, and singing their favorite songs, while watching the sun, as it sets in the horizon.

My wife, Lorna, and I finished this painting on the 30th of April 2014.  It is an acrylic painting on a 30" X 40" stretched canvas.

House with a Water Pump

Painted from memory, this painting shows the house where I grew up. My parents built the house in a barrio around two miles away from the town proper. 

That house is probably the first concrete house that was ever built in that area. Our closest neighbor lived still a few hundred yards away.

It was almost surrounded by rice fields and fruit-bearing trees. The only other man-made structure in that area was a small pump house, which my parents had also built, to house a diesel-powered water pump. That pump was used to irrigate the rice fields. 

It was very quiet in that area, being away from the town proper and all its busy streets. In the morning, you could wake up at the sound of chirping birds, and at the crowing of roosters. At night, you could hear the chirping of crickets and, specially after a heavy rain, the croaking of frogs. 

The house had not yet been connected to the local power grid when we moved in. We basically could not use any electric-powered appliance during those times. At night, it was very dark, and we only used kerosine lamps for lighting. Outside, we had the stars and the moon giving light from the sky above us. And yes, we also had fireflies that gave light from the trees in front of the house. I still remember the fun and the laughter we had catching fireflies, and playing in front of the house during full moons. 

This painting is an acrylic-on-canvas painting. I finished this painting on the 25th of January 2014, and is my first painting for the year 2014.

Frog Hunters

These two men (a father and a son) are hunting for frogs. Armed with lamps and nets, they venture into the night, walking barefooted on the muddy field, looking for some fresh frogs for their family's next-day meals.

According to Wikipedia, "frog legs are one of the better-known delicacies of French and Cantonese cuisine. They are also eaten in other regions, such as Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, the region of Alentejo in Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, northwest Greece, and Northern Italy, as well as the Southern regions of the United States. Currently the world's largest exporter of frogs is Indonesia, also a large consumer. In regions such as Brazil, Mexico and the Caribbean many frogs are still caught wild. A type of frog called the edible frog is most often used for this dish. Frog legs are rich in protein, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin A and potassium. They are often said to taste like chicken because of their mild flavor, with a texture most similar to chicken wings. The taste and texture of frog meat is approximately between chicken and fish. Frogs are raised commercially in certain countries, e.g. Vietnam. Frog muscle does not resolve rigor mortis as quickly as warm-blooded muscle (chicken, for example), so heat from cooking can cause fresh frog legs to twitch."

This is an acrylic on canvas painting.  I finished this painting on August 31, 2013.

This is another scene painted from my childhood memories. I was a little kid back then, living with my family in a farm. Our house was nearly surrounded by rice fields with many frogs croaking and hopping around. I remember myself running after those frogs one night.

Mother's Day Greeting Cards

According to Wikipedia, "Mother's Day is a celebration honoring mothers and motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society. It is celebrated on various days in many parts of the world, most commonly in March or May...

     Mother's day in the Philippines is celebrated every second Sunday of May. A Filipino mother is called the "light of the household" around which all activities revolve. Families treat mothers to movies or lunch or dinner out, spend time with their mothers in a park or shopping at the mall, or give their mothers time to pamper themselves. Most families celebrate at home. Children perform most chores that the mother routinely handles, prepare food or give their mothers small handcrafted tokens such as cards.

 

     Although in its current form, Mother's Day is not a traditional Filipino holiday; this and Father's Day owe their popularity to American influence."

Playing Cards

"Three Men and a Lady Playing Cards" is the last painting I finished before the end of the year 2012. At the time, I was also working on another painting, which I continued and finished early in 2013. Just like what the title of this painting says, it portrays three men and a lady, who are busy playing cards.

I painted this based on photographs (not one but several photographs) of real people. The three men are actually one and the same person, myself, and the lady is my wife. Before I started painting this, I asked my wife to take several photographs of me, from different angles and in different positions while I was holding the cards. I also took several pictures of her. Once I got all the photos, I picked the most suitable ones, arranged them, and started sketching the images on a 30" X 48" stretched canvas.

The original painting is a 30" X 48" acrylic painting on canvas.  Prints of this painting are available for purchase in my Zazzle and Fine Art America (FAA) stores.  Please click on the appropriate links in my side bar to visit the websites.  Or, simply click on the image below to open the FAA page.

Banaue

I finished another painting this afternoon, April 7, 2011.  It is an acrylic painting on a 11" X 14" X 5/8" canvas.  

I have named it "Banaue," after the municipality called Banaue (Banawe) in the province of Ifugao in the Philippines. Banaue is widely known for the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Batad Rice Terraces and Bangaan Rice Terraces. 

The Ifugao Rice Terraces (Banaue Rice Terraces or Hagdan-hagdang Palayan ng Banaue) begin at the base of the mountain range and extend several thousand feet upwards. They are commonly referred to by Filipinos as the "Eight Wonder of the World." Accordingly, the total length of the terraces, when put end to end, would encircle half of the globe. 

The rice terraces manifest the engineering skill and ingenuity of Ifugaos, who built them 2,000 years ago. They are irrigated by means of mountain streams and springs that have been tapped and channeled into canals that run downhill through the rice terraces.

Father and Son

"Father and Son" is the third in my series of parent-and-child paintings.  The first two paintings are "A Moment with Dad" and "Mom and Babe."  This painting features a baby boy, instead of a baby girl, giving it a little bit of distinction from the other two.

All three paintings were made in the first quarter of this year (January to March 2013), and were painted using acrylic paints on canvas.  I finished this one on the 31st of March.

The background of this painting depicts a countryside scene, which is typical of rural villages in the Philippines.  There is a nipa hut in the background, as well as trees, mountains, shrubs, grasses, and tropical flowers.  The father is shown carrying his son in his arms, apparently standing on an elevated portion of the land.  A narrow pathway is shown on the side slope, leading down from where they are, towards the level ground below, where the nipa hut stands.

The Balloon Vendor

Seen from the perspective of a small child looking up to an old bearded man, the painting shows a man with outstretched right arm holding out and offering a green balloon to nearby passersby. The man wears a long sleeve shirt and a blue hat to protect himself from the heat of the sun, as he goes walking along the city streets through out the whole day. He would normally hang out in crowded places such as city parks, public markets, and churchyards. Sunday is probably one of his favorite days of the week, for it is on Sundays that he encounters the most number of people; specially with kids going to church with their parents.

I finished this painting on March 31, 2013.

Parent and Child Paintings

I just recently posted three new paintings in my two websites (http://cyril-maza.artistwebsites.com and http://cyril-maza.fineartamerica.com).  They are my first three paintings in 2013.

One of them is "The Artist," which is my first painting in 2013. 

The other two are entitled "Mom and Babe" and "A Moment with Dad."  Both paintings feature a parent and a child, with "A Moment with Dad" portraying a father, and "Mom and Babe" portraying a mother.  I completed the former on the 20th of January and the latter on the 8th of February.  I used acrylic paints on a 22" X 28" stretched canvas for each painting.

Just like what I did when I painted "The Artist", I had used photos of real people to start with when I painted the two pieces.  I found those beautiful black-and-white photos from the Facebook photo albums of my younger brother and my sister-in-law.  Of course, those pictures were black-and-white, so I had to come up with my own colors.  

I chose a black background for the "A Moment with Dad" painting, and a landscape scene with a blue sky, white-bluish/pinkish clouds, and a mixture of red, green and yellow plants for the "Mom and Babe."

I have added halos around the heads of the father and the child in the "A Moment with Dad" painting to make the figures stand out in the dark background.  The lighter yellowish color around their heads made their dark, black hairs more distinct, separating the dark colored hairs from the dark background.

CSM and LLDM Emporium

My wife and I just opened an online store at Zazzle.com. It is called "CSM and LLDM Emporium." Products featuring our art works are already available for sale.

We already have t-shirts, jackets, caps, bags, mugs, stamps, wall clocks, pillows, placemats, plates, and bottles; and are still in the process of adding more products.
Please see our store at Zazzle and keep posted for our new products and promotions. Thank you.

The Artist

Below is a picture of my first painting for the year 2013.  It is a self-portrait, entitled "The Artist."  It portrays me, Cyril Maza, painting on canvas.  It is an acrylic 24" X 36" portrait painting on canvas.

 

There is something special about this painting, beside being my self-portrait.  You see, I finished it on the 13th day of January, 13 years after the second millineum (2013) or 1/13/13, in my apartment that has a street number of 13131.  Funny, how the numbers are full of one's and three's, isn't it? 

Not only that, I finished this painting after fasting for two days, from Thursday evening (January 10) to Sunday morning (January 13).  I don't know how I did that (fasting), but I guess, I was just too busy painting that I had never even thought about eating within those two days.  I could have continued fasting, but my wife who was in the Philippines for vacation at that time, called me and reminded me to eat.  She got worried, after learning that I had not eaten anything since that Thursday evening.  I will never ever forget those days, for this painting will ever remind me of them.

I have already received several comments on this painting.  One comment came from a friend who said she was wondering how I was able to paint myself here.  She said, I seem to be looking at a mirror while painting this piece. 

I told her, "No.

I was not looking at a mirror while painting this.  I actually got a photograph of myself, taken by my wife (Lorna), painting our own version of Renoir's 'Two Sisters on a Terrace."  I used that picture as my starting point.  I copied that picture, but changed the colors of my shirt (white in the picture) and my pants. I also changed the background, added the table, the glass jar, the paints, and the paint brushes.  And, instead of showing the unfinished version of Renoir's painting, I showed a landscape with clouds, mountain, trees, and a lake."

The painting I was painting in the painting was supposed to look unfinished, hence I had actually refrained myself from adding more details and colors to it.  I was actually tempted to add the reflections of mountains, trees, and clouds on the water; but, I just intentionally refrained myself from doing so.  I said to myself, "save that for your next landscape painting."

Well, yes, I will probably come up with a landscape painting, similar to what I just described above, very soon.  Please watch out for it!

How I Started as an Artist

Painting is one of the things I have wanted to do since I was a little kid, but never really had the chance to do on a regular basis until I reached the age of 39.

When I was a kid, I liked to draw very much.  Drawing was one of my favorite hobbies.  I drew people, trees, mountains, buildings, airplanes, cars, and just about every other thing I saw around me. My special talent and artistic inclination had been noticed by people around me at my early age.  They had helped me earn excellent grades in my art subjects in school, as well as, enjoy the admiration of people around me.  I still remember how my classmates used to come to me, asking me to draw something for them.  I just wish I could have painted on canvas also, but I just never really had the chance to do it, perhaps due to lack of resources.  No one in my family had ever been in the fine art industry, and I had never been really exposed to paints and canvas panels until I reached the age of 39.

In 1981, my family and I went to Indonesia, where my father was working as a consultant agricultural engineer.  We stayed there for two years, one year in Lampung (in the island of Sumatra) and another year in Jakarta (in the island of Java).  My siblings and I studied in the Home Instruction Department of Calvert School, which is in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, during our first year.  The following year, we studied in Jakarta International School (JIS), where I took Fine Arts as an elective subject throughout the whole year.  There, I learned the basics of drawing, painting, batik making, pottery, calligraphy, candle making, linoleum printmaking, and other works of art.

My father also taught my siblings and I, how to draw perspectives.  He used to arrange empty card board boxes on our dining table and then ask us to draw two-point perspectives of them.  What he taught us has greatly influenced my works, from my school projects in high school and college to my later works as an engineer and as an artist.

We returned to Infanta, Quezon, in 1983, and I continued my secondary education in Mt. Carmel High School (MCHS).  Nic Mendigo, one of my teachers happened to be a Fine Arts graduate from the University of the Philippines (UP).  He taught us (my classmates and me) how to draw and to capture the effects of light and shadow in our drawings.  He even made us draw portraits of ourselves as one of our school projects.

I continued to draw and had drawn several portraits of myself.  I had drawn pictures of famous basketball players from the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), with their faces left out and replaced by mine.  I used to place my drawings under the transparent plastic covers of my notebooks, which I carried and showed around in school.  

I had also joined an amateur drawing contest and had  won second prize during a youth assembly attended by delegates from various youth organizations and different schools around the town.  That contest was an on-the-spot drawing contest held in the MCHS auditorium and was among the many activities lined up for that day.  There were also singing, song-writing contest, and other activities conducted to promote camaraderie and friendship among students and the out-of-school youth during that day.

At some point during my childhood days, I had dreamt of becoming a great artist in the likes of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and other great artists that we read in history books.  However, just like many other Filipino artists that came before me, I had been advised not to pursue an artist career because, accordingly, there was no financial future in art.  That did not bother me, though, as I had many other options that time.  I was one of the top students in my class, and mathematics and physical sciences, besides arts (of course), were among my favorite subjects in school.

I graduated from high school with first honorable mention and a special leadership award.  I was the batallion commander of our school's Citizen Army Training - Women Auxiliary Service (CAT-WAS) cadets in my senior year.

I went to the University of the Philippines (UP) right after high school and studied civil engineering.  I got my bachelor's degree in 1992 and have passed the civil engineering board exam in 1993.  I started working and became very busy that I had no time left to indulge in art activities.  Work brought me to Saudi Arabia and eventually, to Houston, Texas in the United States.

My love for arts never left me, though.  One day, in 2008, I found myself in Walmart, staring at some art supplies displayed in the store.  Knowing I had a very busy schedule at work, working overtime most of the days, I reluctantly bought those things…  I got a small kit of painting materials for around twenty dollars.  That kit included a set of brushes, a set of paints, a palette, a pencil, a pencil sharpener, and a reference book on painting.  I also bought a set of canvas panels and a wooden easel that was worth another twenty dollars, or so.  Those materials sat in my apartment for several weeks, untouched.  I was just too busy working overtime everyday.  I even reported to the office during weekends.  Days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months until that one lonely night, sitting alone in my apartment.  I picked up the pencil from that box, and without much thinking I started sketching on one of the canvas panels I bought.  It felt awkward at first, considering I had not drawn artistically, like I did when I was a kid, for so many years.  But, as I work on it, little by little, it became easier and easier.  My enthusiasm grew more and more as I realized my God-given talent has not left me, after all those years.  It has stayed there with me all along, just waiting to be tapped.  And so I worked and went to bed late, spending many hours painting, that night.  I went to bed few hours after midnight, realizing I still had to report to work (as an engineer) the following day.

That was how I made my very first painting on canvas ever (see the picture below).  It was a self-portrait.

I was very happy when I saw what I had done, so I decided to do some more paintings in the nights that followed.  I finished two more paintings within that week.  One is my wife's portrait (see picture below).  The other one is a portrait of a woman texting on her cellular phone.  I have given out that painting as a gift to one of my friends.

Well, yes, a painting is a good gift to give, especially if you painted it yourself.  Painting is also a good way of expressing yourself.  It is actually just another way of communicating. You can communicate to others what you think and feel about them, just as you can do in speaking and writing.  Sometimes, words and letters are not enough to describe and convey what we really want to say.  But, through visual arts, we can express a lot more things than what our lips could say.  Indeed,“a picture is worth a thousand words.”  

So, why not start expressing your love and appreciation to your friends and love ones by buying them gifts of my paintings?  Prints of my paintings are now available for sale through Fine Art America, which can be accessed by clicking on the icon below.

Click above to shop and buy a gift for your friends and love ones.