His Art Shines on Rainy Days
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Joie Pabilando is the top raindrop visual artist in the Philippines.(Photo courtesy of Joie Pabilando)
A native of Bulan, Sorsogon, he spent the happiest days of his childhood during summer vacation. He would wake up late in the morning. After breakfast, he would do some sketching exercises and doodle comic-cartoon characters on his small sketching pad. Outside, he would play with his brother and playmates in the street under the scorching sun.
“We ran like nomads,” he remembers. “We played kites, swam in the river, and climbed trees.” Those days gave him freedom, wisdom, and sweet memories to cherish endlessly.
Pabilando studied industrial technology, majoring in architectural drafting, at Sorsogon State University in Sorsogon City, Sorsogon. Afterwards, he earned a master’s degree in technology from the Technological University of the Philippines in Manila.
He worked as an animation artist in different studios in Manila. He started as a visual artist by mirroring and soaking up the works of the masters and visual artists that he admired. It did not take long for him to develop his own style.
Pabilando believes that the soulful practice of making art is a good exercise for the body and the mind. “Art reflects what my consciousness is, bringing my thoughts in the form of a carved reality,” he states. “Creativity is very positive because it improves my life and health by lowering my stress and making me relaxed.”
How did he become a raindrop artist? “I have always enjoyed the rain’s pitter-patter on windows and roofs,” he replies. “It gave me peace, and I was more productive listening to the falling rain.”
In 2018, he joined an exhibition entitled Mind Over Water at Galerie Anna in Mandaluyong City. A group exhibition of watercolorists in the Philippines, he submitted two raindrop paintings, Pit Pattering 1 and 2, which became instant hits. From thereon, he knew what to specialize in.
I have a firsthand experience of Pabilando’s genius because he has done paintings for me. Based on a photo of my grandniece, Bella Castro Piraro, at a water park in French Lick, Indiana, he created Bella Goes Wet and Wild in French Lick! (2023). The flow of water, which is in white and gray, at a water slide is so naturalistic. There are even bubbles of water floating in the air.
Bella Goes Wet and Wild in French Lick! by Joie Pabilando, 2023, watercolor on Arches, 21 1/2" x 15". (Photo courtesy of Joie Pabilando)
When Pabilando starts a new painting, he does a pencil sketch first. He then uses a pencil outline as a guide for locating highlights and applying a frisket, that is, any material that protects areas of a work from unintended change.
I gave Pabilando a photo of myself caught in heavy rains when I visited San Jose City, Costa Rica. He created When It Rains, It Pours on Rey (2022). The torrential downpour is vividly portrayed, as well as the wet pavement in the foreground and the flooded street in the background.
When It Rains, It Pours on Rey by Joie Pabilando, 2022, watercolor on Arches, 21 1/2" x 15". (Photo courtesy of Joie Pabilando)
According to Pabilando, he can’t just paint a raindrop depicted as white on a watercolor paper. The conventional way of achieving white with watercolor is to use white on the paper and not by painting with white paint with other media, such as oil and acrylic. Aside from brushes, he uses different tools to create the raindrop effects, such as toothpick, sponges and ruling pen. A toothbrush is used for splatter effects.
Pabilando shared a raindrop painting: Essential 2 (2021). Shoppers and vendors continue to do their activities despite the torrential rain. What is interesting is Pabilando’s use of glass to illustrate water drips and droplets, consequently enhancing the painting.
Essential 2 by Joie Pabilando, 2021, watercolor on Arches, 21" x 29". (Photo courtesy of Joie Pabilando)
Joie Pabilando has successfully combined his art and his love of rain. With his imagination, rain has become an enchantment and a spiritual experience. When it is raining in his painting, it is raining all over the world.
Rey E. de la Cruz, Ed.D., Positively Filipino correspondent, writes from Chicagoland when he is not loving the arts and longing for his hometown in the Philippines: Ballesteros, Cagayan. He was the first documented film student (University of the Philippines) and high-school film teacher (San Beda University) in the Philippines. An educationalist, he originated and disseminated the use of the ancient Philippine board game sungka as a teaching strategy. He was awarded the Gawad Balagtas for Drama in Filipino by UMPIL, the Philippines’ largest organization of writers, “for his pioneering creative spirit that imagined and expanded what can be possible for today’s modern theater.”
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