MAGNIFICENT watercolorist Rodelio ?Toti? Cerda has achieved renown out of lambent, if joyful, evocations of childhood.

In ?Forever Young? (organized by Genesis Gallery, tel. 6338137, and opening Aug. 21 at the Art Center of SM Megamall), he deepens the trademark, as well as his art, by a bravura show of watercolors and acrylics that celebrate more of the same while adding, in some striking pieces, a note of subdued but powerful commentary.

On display will be a series of depictions of children soaking in the rain. It is easy for one to get lost in the wet ebullience of the works, their intoxicating celebration of being young and getting wet.

But looking closely at the liquid feast, one notes the solidity of Cerda?s art: The downpour is made manifest in the finest hint of stroke and color.

The drenched young bodies glisten like gossamer thrill. Here is art achieving fullness as art: the watercolor medium outdoing itself in depicting watery scenes.

Elsewhere, Cerda situates his children in games or in full-concentration activities such as pencil or crayon drawing. He catches them in their kinetic fullness, in their particular reactions of glee, surprise, pride and boredom.

Cerda?s art is thoroughly action-packed. It throbs with the adventure of childhood.

Cerda sets off his art of the childhood amid the dull and gray background of the typical urban landscape of Manila and environs. So the background is washed-out and drab ? a stark contrast to the fulsome joy of the children celebrating the rain or generally just passing off the time through play and banter.

The colorless, nearly monochramatic setting sets off in powerful relief the bliss of childhood, the better for us to value its fleetingness.

Is Cerda warning us that, soon, even childhood will pass and meld with the general dreariness of much of life? Is he saying that the dire economics of much of Philippine existence would soon snuff out much of childhood?s abounding sense of optimism?

War and play

Perhaps, but not quite. In another series of paintings, Cerda depicts children at play with war materiel: A soldier?s dome cap has been transformed into an inverted bowl of goodies and, holding a rifle that has been painted over by kiddie doodles, a blindfolded child attempts to hit the cap hovering above so as to shake off the goodies from it ? a reinvention of ?pukpukan-palayok? ? the instruments of war transformed into instruments of child?s play.

In still another painting, a kid dozes off on a hammock made from camouflage. The series is a pregnant and powerful commentary on war and peace, war and play.

The works show Cerda?s solid graphic and pictorial skills (he took up Draftsmanship at the Technological University of the Philippines). Their dynamism shows his gift for characterization, which in turn betrays his long years in komiks illustration.

In the late 1980s, when he demanded an increase in payment, the komiks businessmen connived to shut him out, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The boycott forced him to go into painting.

In 1996, Cerda showed Genesis Gallery owner and art-industry leader Araceli ?Chi-chi? Salas two small watercolor works and asked if he could be invited to Genesis?s celebrated annual watercolor competition Kulay sa Tubig.

Salas was impressed. She invited him to join the next year, during which he won the grand prize. When he won again the grand prizes of the two subsequent years, Genesis was compelled to include him in the Hall of Fame.

In 2005, Cerda won the grand prize in the AAP Annual. In 2006, he was named the Best Among the Best in Kulay sa Tubig. That same year, he was named Juror?s Choice in the Philippine Art Awards of Philip Morris.

An expert of genre styles, Cerda is also adept at florals (so realistic one could feel the petals quiver); landscape and seascape (his rendition of certain scenes of his native Talim Island in Cardona, Rizal, is moody and potential, showing another of his strong suits ?composition).

Now based in Binangonan, where Manansala had conducted his atelier (and which is not far from Angono, home of the Botongs and the Blancos), Cerda appears destined to become the next Filipino master.

But for now, he wants to be, as his choice of title for his new show indicates, ?Forever Young.?