Winter Abundance

Winter Abundance digital photography by Meera Rao 

I saw these berries weighing down the holly tree branch on my walk last week. For some reason the birds have not found that tree yet.  I understand cold winter frost makes the otherwise poisonous berries edible for the birds. 

Taking the photographs often is a lesson or practice sessions for me in how to compose, to get closer look at vast range in colors, light-shadow and variety of textures.  Sometimes I wonder though whether the camera makes me lazy about really paying attention to all that because  now I can just go back and refer the photos whenever I have a doubt, erasing a compelling reason to really observe for long or commit to memory much of the details......  

My curiosity lead me to research how and in what way photography changed paintings, in style and subject matter.  I came across some very interesting information in an article 'Painting and Photography'  written by Nancy Roth for Answers.com. : Photography arrived at a point in the history of European painting when Romanticism, as embodied in the turbulent fictions and exotic allegories of figures such as Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), was widely admired and commercially successful; realism, the painting of immediate visual experience, was beginning to coalesce into an oppositional movement, championed by the brash young Gustave Courbet (1819-77). Neither of these painters saw photography as a threat to painting. They, and others later, quickly embraced it as a means of referencing such details as facial expression, ephemeral light effects, and motion. Delacroix even wrote in his journal that ‘if a man of genius should use the daguerreotype as it ought to be used, he will raise himself to heights unknown to us’. Some painters, notably Edgar Degas, Pierre Bonnard, Edvard Munch, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, themselves became accomplished photographers. It was rather the popular Salon painter Paul Delaroche (1797-1856), celebrated for the technical precision of his work, who reportedly declared, on seeing his first daguerreotype, "From today painting is dead "   

I am so glad he was wrong :) 

The Power of Choice

Garuda Puppet  watermedia  22x30

So how long does it take me to complete a painting? - I started Garuda fifteen some years ago at the very first workshop I had signed up for.  We went to an antique shop and I sketched an Indonesian puppet in pen on a full sheet of Arches watercolor paper! Each participant then picked three colors from a basket to use as underpainting.  I ended up with Opera, Phthalo(more like acid)green and Aureolin yellow :)  Too meek to protest or cheat with tamer colors, I tried to do my best by really diluting the paints but still ended up with a very garish start. I remember very well trying to save the whites around the face of the puppet! But I never even attempted to complete the piece. Over the years, I could not discard it --the paper was too expensive, and I did not want to admit defeat! 

Yesterday I pulled out the piece. All my reference photos were lost somewhere in my studio. I decided to plunge by boldly covering the space and underpainting behind the puppet with opaque blue gouache. Things already looked better! Except for the face, the arm, and the hands, I glazed the background designs with a thin wash of ultramarine blue --that subdued the colors and pushed it back. I then defined some of the shapes with indigo violet, some with yellow ochre, remembering the  batik textile designs from the Indonesian island of Bali. Feeling a bit adventurous, I defined the eyebrow and the beak with a mix of opera and phthalo green. I finished by glazing the arm with yellow ochre and one last thin glaze of ultramarine blue on everything but the face and arms. I am pretty pleased with the rescue - mainly because I learnt so much in the process! Funny thing is that, all this took about 4 hours! And I really wish I had a 'before' photograph.

This painting session was the exact boost I needed desperately yesterday.  During the past month I had received one too many rejection notices for shows and someone from the artworld even questioned my commitment as an artist. As I thought through my experiences, I suddenly realized how far I had come in the fifteen years and how much I enjoy what I do. And talk about serendipity, I came across the wise words about 'social validation and false merit metric of prestige' at Brainpickings :What you should not do, I think, is worry about the opinion of anyone beyond your friends. You shouldn’t worry about prestige. Prestige is the opinion of the rest of the world.[…]Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like. - (Paul Graham on How to do what You Love). Tucked in the same site, TED talk by Alain de Botton about 'ideological fallacies of success.' was also just what I needed :)

So, I would like to really thank all of you who visit my blog and validate what I do here! I also  especially want to thank Aparna from Warli Soul for the 'Liebester Award' she gave me. Liebster is German for dearest, beloved or favorite. This award is bestowed on blogs with less than 200 followers but deserve more attention (-Serendipity again!) In my next post, I shall pass this along :) Meanwhile, do check out her beautiful 'Warli' art. 

Drama of Color and Texture

Mushrooms 2 watercolor on Yupo 5x7"

I loved painting the drama of color and texture of these mushrooms.  I had painted these mushrooms before  - ( reproduced also below) but I wanted to experiment and play with them again from a slightly different angle.  I tried more stylized repetition of shapes  and more intense hues.  Colors on Yupo dry deeper than on regular watercolor papers when the brush is loaded with straight color but not much water. Pressing with crumpled up tissue, misting with water and letting each layer of paint dry thoroughly before coming back with another layer of transparent paints resulted in the different textures. 

Bursting Colors watercolor on Yupo 5x7"

Last fall finding these mushrooms on one of my walks I had held my small camera close to the ground and taken a few photographs.  It was really fun to dramatically transform the already colorful mushrooms even further :)  

Mushrooms digital photography 

Run Me Out In The Cold Rain And Snow

Out in the Cold Rain and Snow Digital Photography 

“It was a rainy night. It was the myth of a rainy night.” 

― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

PS: I have tried to take away the two word thing on the comment form.  Please let me know if its working! If it is not working could you tell me what/how to do do it so it doesn't show up anymore?

Fascinatingly Beautiful

Orchid  watercolor 5x3" 

As I did a quick sketch of the orchid a few days ago using my water brush pen and sketch kit of limited paints, I vaguely remembered that the orchid varieties in number are almost double that of bird species. I went surfing to see if my recollection was right. 

My memory had served me well and  I also discovered that at 25,000+ species, there are four times more varieties of orchids as that of mammals!  More interesting was that 'the name comes from the Greek ὄρχις (órkhis), literally meaning "testicle", because of the shape of the root.'!  Greeks also thought if would-be fathers ate large new orchid tubers their child would be male and if mothers ate small tubers, the child would be female :)  The flavoring vanilla comes from one genus of Orchid -vanilla(of course). The Aztecs believed vanilla mixed with chocolate gave them great strength. In China however, orchids are a key ingredient in medicines for treating coughs and lung-related illnesses. It is also quite fascinating to read about pollination, propagation and seed production in orchids. Growing up in tropical India, I knew them as beautiful and colorful epiphytes and was fascinated how they grew on trees!  

I have a l wide collection of photos as well as few sketches of orchids and I hope to paint some larger varied flowers soon!

Remembrance, The Lasting Perfume

Memories of a bloom 2 watercolor on Yupo 5x7"

Pleasure is the flower that passes; remembrance, the lasting perfume.  ~Jean de Boufflers

I saw these stalks with dried out flower pods, petals, leaves still attached while on a walk couple of years ago in Colorado.  This painting is the second in the series capturing the memories of that cold crisp morning. I used the same techniques in this painting as in the earlier one.  My plan is to  change or add  one color to each of the painting to give each painting its uniqueness as well as making it a part of the series. They are small paintings but take time to complete since each layer has to dry completely before I lay the next one. You may check out the first painting here. 

Talking about memories I recently came across an article highlighting the fact that memories are not fixed but flexible and can be manipulated very easily: "....memories are surprisingly vulnerable and highly dynamic. In the lab they can be flicked on or dimmed with a simple dose of drugs. “For a hundred years, people thought memory was wired into the brain,” Nader says. “Instead, we find it can be rewired—you can add false information to it, make it stronger, make it weaker, and possibly even make it disappear.” Nader and Brunet are not the only ones to make this observation. One of the scietinsts, Nader further wonders:  "What actually happens when we recall the past? Does the very act of remembering undo what happened? Does a memory have to go through the consolidation process again? " 

A little further the article points out a fascinating point: "While neuroscientists were skeptical of Nader’s findings, cognitive scientists were immediately fascinated that memory might be constantly revamped. It certainly seemed to explain their observations: The home run you hit in Little League? Your first kiss? As you replay these memories, you reawaken and reconsolidate them hundreds of times. Each time, you replace the original with a slightly modified version. Eventually you are not really remembering what happened; you are remembering your story about it. “Reconsolidation suggests that when you use a memory, the one you had originally is no longer valid or maybe no longer accessible,” LeDoux says. “If you take it to the extreme, your memory is only as good as your last memory. The fewer times you use it, the more pristine it is. The more you use it, the more you change it.” We’ve all had the experience of repeating a dramatic story so many times that the events seem dead, as if they came from a novel rather than real life."

So I wonder, how much do I change my memory when I sketch and paint things I encounter?   

Dewy Feathers

Dewy Feathers Digital Photography 

Last week one morning when I went to get the paper, I found these beautiful dewy feathers strewn around  our driveway and lawn. It looked like there was some kind of struggle wherein a few feathers were lost ! I didn't see any other signs or bird parts and am hoping the creature escaped worse fate from whatever that was after it! When something like this happens, I always wonder whether I notice things around me since I took up photography or did I start toting a camera because I see things around me that I want to capture :) 

These beautiful feathers reminded me about something I read a while ago:  'feather money - tevau' from Solomon Islands. We are familiar how Native Americans, Indonesian Islanders, and many many others hold feathers in high regard and use them in rituals. But in Santa Cruz, Solomon Islands,  feather is currency!  As many as 50,000 feathers from smallest scarlet honeyeaterer birds are fashioned into coils and used 'as a form of currency for settling important obligations' .  Check the link to see a photo of the coil in the British Museum website.   In ancient Mayan culture, the quetzal bird's tail feathers were used as currency and hence the Guatemalan currency is known as 'quetzal' ! Its amazing how many little beautiful birds have been sacrificed not for food but for their treasured feathers by various 'collectors' all over the world.  

A Grand Little Bundle of Joy

Kallie watercolor study 4x6"

On Jan 26th we became grandparents for the first time - we now have precious little Kallie. The very next day I did the small study above --didn't think I could do a watercolor portrait but this little piece seemed to painted itself :) I forgot to take the final photograph -after I cleaned up some lines (by the nose bridge) etc before I framed it and gave it to the new parents ! Its been wonderful to hold, cuddle and love the little bundle of joy.

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