Tranquil Beauty

Water Lilies watercolor  22x30" By Meera Rao 

tranquil beauty

in the water, out of the mud

 untouched by neither

a creative light

within. 

~Meera Rao~

Wishing everyone a tranquil, beautiful, creative 2020 untouched by the muck around.  

Check here for importance and symbolism of lotus flower in Hinduism, here for its role in Buddhism,  here for its place in Chinese culture, here  for information about Lotus in religious art in Eastern religions, and here for its significance in ancient Egyptian culture. What a special flower !!! 

Wabi-Sabi

Lily Pond  color pencils 8x10

Today I came across a Japanese term wabi-sabi. And it couldn't have happened at a better time. 'Wabi-sabi is the quintessential Japanese aesthetic. It is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble.'    Wikpedia explained  'Wabi sabi can change our perception of the world to the extent that a chip or crack in a vase makes it more interesting and gives the object greater meditative value.'  It further explained that  'In art books, it is typically defined as ″flawed beauty.' I am going to fully embrace that word! 

The 'Lily Pond" was framed and hanging for a number of years. A few days ago, I  took it off the frame and reworked it some, deepening the colors, mainly the darks and the shadow areas. I see  compositional  and technical flaws.  But I am going to embrace the philosophy of 'wabi sabi' as well as the  "How innocent"  outlook of my wise old Sumi teacher from a one day workshop long ago as she urged me to accept my art work with open arms and move on. :) 

Eenie meenie minie moe

"Flaming Petals" was an experimental watercolor painting. We had visited the Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Garden in Washigton D.C. and of course, we took lots of photographs of the colorful water lilies. When the time came to paint I couldn't make up my mind and choose one color for the lotus so I decided to try a different color for each petal and was very happy with the result.

Flaming Petals watercolor 24 x 30"

Renaissance

Today I watched a documentary "Dalai Lama Renaissance." Forty of the West's leading, innovative thinkers in their fields met at Dalai Lama's residence in Dharmashala in Northern India to discusss the world's problems and to see how they could solve them. What happened there was a transformation - most notably of their egos. Dalai Lama's simple message was that people all over the world only want happiness and 'secular ethics' together with compassion is the way to go. Thats a journey everyone was invited to take to bring about greater consciousness and understanding. 

Lotus - in Hinduism and Buddhism represents beauty and non -attachment. It grows in mud but floats on the water and remains unaffected by either the wetness or the mud. We are urged to live in this world without attachment to our surroundings. Lotus is also a symbol for the centers of consciousness -chakras - in the body.  I painted Lotus in watercolors on masa paper as a part of the series of paintings I created for my November show on India and on Mandalas.  I noticed that I had missed including it in the slide show on my earlier entry - so here it is :)