Happy birthday, Romania!

Today is the 1st of December, Romania's national day, the day when in 1918 several territories, among which Transilvania, were united with the rest of Romania. We've lost a few bits here and there along the way, but nonetheless, it's still a great little country. Happy birthday, Romania!

There were several military parades and festivities in honour of this day. I watxhed the main parade on TV, since I wanted to see things up close and also the commentary was interesting. There was supposed to be an air show too, but the weather was too bad for low flights. Next time I'd like to be there in person too.

I have a lot of respect for our army and the similar and complementary services. I admire their discipline and dedication to our country and our allies. So I watched the parade with a lot of interest.

Later in the day, I decided to paint on my last piece of brown cardboard a painting inspired by today. I thus took a still image of the parade video as reference and began the arduous sketch. Then I painted it in watercolour. The same set like the one I used to have as a child.

Mom thought it was good, but asked me why I hadn't chosen a "nicer" subject, such as our own replica of the Arc de triomphe, which was the site of the parade. I had instead chosen to paint a Romanian tank, a TR-85 M1 Bizon. With the Romanian flag on it and a member of the military sitting in the turret saluting. My little homage to the people who helped make the union a reality.