Cooking Up a Painting

  Fruity Goodness watercolor 5x3"

Last week we bought some apricots and a week later they were still hard, not ripening and sour :( So two days ago I chopped them up, added pulp from one mango tucked away in the freezer last summer, mixed in  pomegranate juice, a bit of sugar, ginger and red pepper flecks.  A few minutes in the microwave gave me a bottle full of delicious chutney to be savored for a few days !!!  

As the jar sat on the kitchen counter basking in the sunlight, I quickly painted this small watercolor.  I used my water brush and the small field paint kit with mostly transparent colors. The glass jar was a bit daunting to capture but I am pleased with both my cooking and painting --a day well spent :) 

On the Train

Now Serving.. (Brindavan Express -somewhere between Bangaluru and Chennai) digital photography


“How do they taste? They taste like more.”
- H.L. Mencken

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. :) 

Spicing Up the Sketch Book

A Day in the Life - Sketchbook project page 25 color pencils 

The spice box has a place of honor in an Indian Kitchen and I treasure mine :) I knew from the beginning that I wanted to include it in my sketchbook project. 

I approached the subject with lots of anxiety but  really loved sketching my special shiny Indian Spice Box, its contents as well as the red peppers, tomatoes, lemons, chilies etc.  The different textures, colors, sizes and shapes were fun and a huge challenge to sketch.  The decision to just sketch the objects and not worry about background was freeing.  I learned that paying attention to  the mass of each variety of spice and hinting about the space between most individual mustard/cumin/coriander/dal gave the finished image more unified look. Spraying the finished sketch with Krylon Kamar varnish was a good idea too. Even though better  quality paper might have made a difference,  I am glad I put forth a lot of effort and time into this particular sketch :) 

Fleeting Patterns

 Fleeting Patterns  digital photography

I wonder if the little duckling was aware of distorted reflections, colors, and patterns around it as it swam about that particular morning  few months ago in San Antonio, Texas! Do ducks see color? depth? patterns? They must - because drakes - Mallards, Mandarin and Wood ducks are colorful and patterned. And I see duck hunters wearing camouflage and hide in covered boats.  Anyway, I am really grateful I was in the right place at the right time to capture a fleeting moment in time. 

Cheers to Potential and Possibilities!

Hofbrauhaus at Dusk  watermedia 12x9"

Sixty posts, twenty plus paintings, thirty some pages of color pencil 'sketches' and narrative to go with  them  for my sketchbook-fiction project  "A Day In The Life -In Blue Jeans with Gold Embroidery" and more on-the-go pencil sketches than any previous years makes me content with 2011 art-wise :)  This surely has been a year of experimenting for me with finishing an illustrated sketch/fiction book, yupo, deliberate washes and paint mixing, water brushes, field kits and working on patience! 

I am pleased to post this painting - done mostly with watercolors except the sky part where I used acrylics mixed with watercolor. The watercolor paper  was a 'test-paper' for colors by a young friend of mine who wanted to paint with me sometime ago. I pulled this paper out waiting for washes to dry on couple of Yupo paintings I was working on. I needed to keep my hands busy and away from the wet yupo. Using Masquepen Supernib I sketched free hand and then proceeded to play mostly with transparent watercolors in between the washes on Yupo. The reference was a photograph I took in Munich years ago.  The underpainting worked quite well, and I felt little stress since I was really  only 'playing' around. I am totally ignoring any problem areas in the painting and enjoying the smug feeling of rescuing a good paper :) 

 before

So, here is to a brand New Year full of potential and possibilities ! 

Shifting Perspective

A Day in the Life -sketchbook project page 24 color pencils 

All the good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow 

-Grant Wood, painter. 

From the book 'The Creative Spirit' by Daniel Goleman, Paul Kaufman and Michael Ray ( companion book to the PBS special from early 1990s with the same title) on the importance of being 'open to insights from the unconscious mind in moments of reverie, when we are not thinking of anything in particular' :  

News of the Creative Past: Well, the creative spirit has struck again, this time on a cool evening in 1865. The chemist Friedrich Kekule has just discovered the elusive structure of the benzene molecule, a major breakthrough in organic chemistry.  Kekule credits his breakthrough - and we will have to take his word on this- to a day dream.

Mr. Kekule reports that after a long day of thinking, he was relaxing in front of the fire, just watching embers fly up in a circular patterns. He says he then became transfixed and fell into a reverie, and as he half dozed, he began to see the sparks dance in a snakelike way. Suddenly, the sparks formed a whirling circle as if it were a snake biting its own tail. Kekule says he then awoke in a flash with a new, accurate picture of the structure of a benzene molecule: a ring! 

So, is there a better way to solve my problem than stretch on the sofa, put my feet up and daydream? 

A Magical Thing

Sunrise on the shortest day  digital photography 

Today is the first day of winter in the Northern hemisphere. But I like that today is the shortest day too :)  I shot this photograph through  the window pane with raindrops giving it a surreal feeling.  

Patience Is Not Passive

memories of a bloom  watercolor on yupo  7x5.5"

Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength. 

~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton

I have to fully agree with that quote! The little painting on Yupo took a couple of days and lots of determined patience on my part as I layered paint and waited; used a tooth brush to splatter some paint and waited;  dabbed with a wet tissue and waited; added paint in one section and took away paint in another. And repeated the process a few times!  I think finally I see the little plant in the sunshine with dried twigs and memories of a lush little field around it. 

Incubation Of An Idea

A Day in the Life   page 23 Sketch Book Project color pencils

Another sketchbook page to the rescue for this post. Picking up on the text of that page - how do you solve problems?  When do you get your best ideas? 

I read today about 'Bed, Bath and Bus Theory'  -" ....it’s the notion that the best ideas come when you least expect it, such as in the bath/shower, lying in bed or waiting for a bus." The article further stated that "we need two characteristics in particular to make incubation successful: patience and belief. Both of these are necessary for you to walk away from a problem that means a lot to you, that you really want to solve or that has a deadline."   The author of that article  Lucretia Torva concludes "One last thing to do. Assign this project to your subconscious. Literally tell your mind to take care of, then let it go. " 

I am glad to know that my coping mechanism of moving away is in a way looked upon as 'incubation of an idea' :)