PHILIPPINES ARTISTIC PARENTHESIS

FILIPINO artist creates images of volcanic destruction with ash. This ash from a rumbling volcano is the Philippines has inspired a local artist and instructor to paint watercolours using the gray powder that had been covering the plants in her backyard since an eruption.

Janino Sanico, who lives in a town near the Taal volcano, collected the ash, mixed it with water and binder, and started painting images, some of them depicting the devastation caused by the small but dangerous volcano.

''So that was the pain that I felt. When I saw the animals, that's where I got my inspiration for my paintings,'' revealed the 24-year old Sanico.

More than 140,000 people have been evacuated after Taal, one of the Philippines' most active volcanoes, erupted more than a week ago, blanketing homes, schools, farms and everything else in its vicinity with ash.

Sanico, a promoter of natural pigment water colours, said that she has been selling her paintings and donating the profits to help the thousands of people who have been displaced due to the eruption, making for a real rising from the ashes story.

''Since this ash came from the earth, I experimented with it and I studied it. Then when I posted my artwork on social media, I found that it was widely received by people,'' she said.

The youngster has used different mediums such as coffee for paining previously. But ash, she said, surprisingly worked very well enough as long as it had enough water.

Volcanologists have adjudged the danger level of Taal at four, out of a possible 5, meaning that a  ''hazardous explosive eruption is possible within hours to day.''

Just 311 meters [1,020 feet] high, Taal is one of the world's smallest active volcanoes. It killed more than 1,300 people in an eruption back ion 1911. [Reuters]