Stare the skyline. Watch how the painter pours his emotions in every scene. Brush strokes of gray, hastily painted to conceal electric rays. Nevertheless, an angry voice challenges him to stop. But never did. His enthusiasm as an artist reaches height of a madman, for days.

Then the sky becomes an empty canvass. He carves white puffy cottons. He highlights shades of blue, meticulously detailing work of a masterpiece. Looking far better than Picasso yet, leaving viewers to unearth hidden meanings.

By sunset, he splashes little of orange, darkens the heavens in different moods saying “good.” Then silently, the artist hands in everything, to create your own horizon.

You are now the painter standing with a palette. Will green and violet match the sky? Be like Vincent in his version Starry Night. You can depict life the way you see it.

There are still life images to paint. Portraits of your own face and years can tell the difference whether it’s a Rembrandt or not.

Sad looking face of Mona Lisa is still an issue if Leonardo da Vinci himself caught in a gender problem or being clueless where he signed his name.

You can also painstakingly draw 343 magnificent figures of the Sistine Chapel, the work of art that made Michelangelo almost blind.

Names of Uccello, Titian, Durer, Botticelli and Bellini are they familiar? They are famous Renaissance oil painters depicting religious backdrops. The popular Rafael Sanzio painted Madonna with Christ and St. John the Baptist.

You can shift your ideas to landscapes. The Amorsolo paintings remind you of rural beauty. Brushing the Filipino culture, capture expressions of dalagang bukid and tiresome labor of planting rice.

Or you can either visit Manila City Hall to witness the mural “Filipino Struggles through History” and you will know why Carlos Francisco was given the Philippine national artist for painting award.

You can move back time and judge Juan Luna’s “Spolarium” and Hidalgo’s “Antigone”.

Although great painters never reveal their secrets in achieving excellence, their hands guide their creation. Some shut their doors. Others go insane or outcast by society’s norms.

If you ask Vicente Manansala, “The process of painting is like a battle – one attacks, one withdraws. That I enjoy very much.”

Artists  at one setting may feel disdain, humiliation and happiness. At the next phase their moods may change to hate, awe and indifference. Yet they produce paintings admired by art connoisseurs, paintings treasured for the experience they share.

Artists are passionate. Such passion may be at times difficult to comprehend, yet language fails when one is faced with a truly wonderful work of art.  Such passion is expressed through colors, lines, light and dark --- expressions which reflect too the artist’s hopes to achieve perfection.

Now that you are the painter, release yourself and share the master’s passion. Then you’ll see what you hadn’t seen and understood before.