Fishing Eyes

I subscribe to e-mails from TED  - an organization that spreads most innovative ideas by the world's leading thinkers, artists, scientists and others. The videos are anywhere from 5 minutes to hour long and are amazingly inspiring. Just yesterday I watched one by David Gallo with footage of wonderful sea creatures.  

Fishing Eyes is a mixed media piece using watercolors and color pencils on masa paper(size 14 x 18".) I painted it a few years ago, framed it and put it aside.  A year ago I took it out of its frame and changed the parts that were bothering me a bit. I think I am happy with it now. 

Blessings

Going to Temple is a daily ritual for many in India. You can see the gopuram of the temple round the corner in most neighborhoods and if you don't have the time to go inside and offer a prayer, its not a problem. Often you see cars and bikes stop in front of the temple gates just for second or two and after quick bowing of the head, they scoot off to their daily chores. I did that fairly regularly during my college days :).

For the past year I have had the ritual of visiting a special website freerice.com  and I start my day by giving rice. Actually  I test my vocabulary or art knowledge and for every correct answer I click on, they donate 20 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program. It feels pretty close to visiting a temple - I feel blessed to be able to share in a small way every day.

 

Temple is done in watercolors and color pencils on masa paper.  15x 11"

Daily Walk

I love to go on walks and I try put at least ten thousand steps on my pedometer everyday.  Where I live its a celebration when it snows and that happens only a few times each winter. I don't know if I could walk outside on a regular basis like this lady was doing at Grant Park, Chicago. The red canopy on the stroller, the little dog,  bare trees, white snow and long shadows made a wonderful winter scene. This was a fast, loose painting with no sketching. 

Daily Walk  - in watercolor on masa paper.  8x10"  

My Paintings in the art show

Here it is.

A New Adventure

Finally I have decided to post. I have been very hesitant and feeling very unqualified to do a blog. I saw an exhibit by Botero at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art last week and realised I only have to answer to myself.

Right now I am especially pleased with my little show at the local public library which generously offers a wall to an artist a month. That has been my primary showcase motivating me to draw and paint so I will have all new pieces for each show every year. For this year's show the focus turned out to be on India - scenes from our various trips and on mandala creation. The Buddhist monks visit our area once a year and I am reminded once again of beauty and impermanence of the world around us. I paint mostly in watercolors and color pencils, often mix the two and my subjects are varied - anything that catches my fancy. This time I experimented with using Masa paper for my paintings on scenes from India giving them a batik look.