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

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.