I woke up to heartbreaking news. The Cagayan region in the northeastern side of the Philippines had suffered severe flooding caused by dam spillage. This devastating event followed the onslaught of Typhoon Ulysses -- internationally named Vamco -- last November 11th to 12th.
By midnight, people were trapped on their homes' rooftops, screaming and begging for help. Towns were submerged in the ever increasing floodwater, bringing down with them their homes, livelihood, and many lives.
In Silence
"In silence, no one answers
But I still hear your voice."
-- In Silence, Janet Suhh
The very disturbing clamor in the recording that spread in Twitter overnight stuck in my head. I won't even deny it, but just a few seconds in and I just cried. Were they drowning? Were the spaces on their homes' rooftops enough for them all? How would they keep warm? I didn't know what was happening, but I didn't want my own family to experience that pain.
This piece, In Silence, is all about their voices. And how in silence, they are all I hear.
Drawing In Silence
There is always a devious calm after a storm. The skies would look peaceful and blue. But unknown to us, there were places covered entirely in muddy brown floodwater, and all people could do was beg.
The concept of the artwork came exactly from this thought. There is calm, but there's also suffering. And I bet some would even envy how birds seemed to be all moved on, and yet we were helplessly stuck.
After getting a good feel of what I wanted it to look like, I began making the initial sketches. I used this photo as reference for the person in the drawing. From there, I began painting.
I worked on the background first. I decided to paint the waters and see if I could do them all right; it seemed I did. I settled for a cloudy background, instead of just blue skies.
I painted the trees next. Because I am not really good with trees, I decided to just wing it until I make it. I didn't think it looked bad. It could have been done better, though.
My favorite part to paint was the eye. I wanted to make it as alive as I could, as expressive as possible. The reference picture was already expressive enough, so I just had to adjust a few.
Finally, I did final adjustments in Adobe Photoshop. Everything was drawn on my Note 10+ with MediBang for Android, but MediBang Android's features were limited, and I wanted to do adjustments that MediBang couldn't. Like, for example, setting the painting to a sepia-ish tone. I thought that the original painting looked too vibrant and saturated, so I ended up lowering the saturation and including a sepia filter.
Notes
This artwork is available on NFT Showroom in 1 edition and is first of the Rise collection.
Sales on this artwork, including the ones I would mint in the next two weeks, would be forwarded to a trusted donation drive for the victims of the recent typhoons. I have chosen the Kaya Natin! Movement to receive any earnings I'll make on my NFTs. I plan to send any sales this week next weekend, with full transparency via Hive and Twitter.
Thanks so much!
erangvee.carrd.co
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