Summerview 4

My wife and I are participating in the Summerview 4 Exhibition of Artists Alive and Well, inc.

Please come and enjoy artwork presented by local Houston artists this summer with a fantastic view of our city from the 9th Floor Sky Lobby of The Phoenix Tower. This art exhibition and sale has quickly become one of Houston's premier yearly events. The artists of AAW present original artwork in a wide variety of mediums and genres to fit every taste. Fill up your senses at The Phoenix Tower.

Opening Reception: 29 July 2013, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Closing Reception: 16 August 2013, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Location: 9th Floor, Phoenix Tower, 3200 Southwest Freeway, Houston TX 77027

Registration is not required.

http://www.artistsaliveandwell.com

Kite

I finished this painting on July 6, 2013. It was Saturday, the first Saturday after the 4th of July. I really wanted to finish this painting that weekend, because this painting had been sitting unfinished in my studio for quite some time already. I actually started this painting three weeks ago, in one Sunday afternoon. The truth is, I started this painting even before I started the painting "Washing in the River," which I finished last Thursday (4th of July).

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This painting shows a boy flying a red kite, while sitting on a huge rock on top of a hill overlooking the crop fields below.

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This reminds me of my childhood days. When I was in grade school, I enjoyed flying kites with my friends and siblings. Our school had a wide playground where students loved to play and run around after school. We would even go there during weekends. Sometimes we would bring our kites to school and fly them later after attending our classes. We would spend the rest of the afternoon that way.

Prints of this painting is available for sale at http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/cyril-maza.html.

Washing in the River

I finished this painting on the 4th of July 2013. It was a holiday (US Independence Day), so I did not go to work. I spent the whole afternoon, adding finishing touches to this painting, which I started a couple of weeks ago.

This painting shows two beautiful women washing clothes in a river. This scene may be considered typical in remote areas that are far from the cities, where rivers are the only source of water, both for drinking and washing.

This is an acrylic painting on a 24" X 36" canvas.  Prints of this painting are available for sale at 

http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/cyril-maza.html.

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.

Harvest Time and Kids Eating Mangoes

"Harvest Time" is actually a version of another painting called "Kids Eating Mangoes" by Cyril Maza.  It shows a group of teenage kids having fun and eating mangoes, with a farmer and some farm animals around them, depicting a typical farm scene in some rural villages in the Philippines.

A nipa hut is shown standing not so far away from where the kids are. There is also a carabao, a couple of ducks, a rooster, a dog, a couple of pigs, piles of rice straws; as well as trees, mountains, and rice fields, in the background.

The original is a 20" X 30" acrylic painting on canvas, painted by husband and wife, Cyril Maza and Lorna Llanes D. Maza (LLDM). 

To purchase prints and/or greeting cards, simply click on the images below.  They will lead you to their respective pages in the Fine Art America website.

The original "Kids Eating Mangoes" is a 16" X 20" acrylic painting on canvas, and is one of Cyril Maza's first paintings.

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.