Growing an Idea

Cabbage Concerto in Red Again  mixed media 10x15" by Meera Rao 

Sometime in the past few years, I had started a painting - there was some watercolor and a collage of rice paper (see below). Until earlier this year it was buried in my pile of unfinished paintings.  Even after staring at it for too long, I could not remember my plans for it.  By then it did not really matter anyway! 

watercolor background with rice paper collage 

The colorful lettuce growing in our garden gave me an idea and reminded me of a painting I had done many years ago. After mulling over for a few more days I thoroughly enjoyed painting a much smaller more colorful version of that painting 'Cabbage Concerto in Red' which has found a home with a friend. Exploring the same subject and coming to it from a different place was a fun exercise.  The title for the first painting was courtesy of my son who was in high-school then! I wrote about it here.

Colorful lettuce in my garden

”I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.” -- Picasso.

Passage of Time

Whiling the Morning Away watercolor and ink by Meera Rao

India Art Journal 2015

Under the shades of huge trees in parks or elsewhere there are always elderly men mostly in crisp white shirts, wearing traditional white "Dhoti" (click on link for simple version) or western style pants sitting and whiling away their time - keeping up with friendships, resting after their daily walks, discussing world affairs and may be just fighting off loneliness. I saw this group daily while out on my errands and had to record it :)  

I feel a pang as I post this last sketch from my 2015 summer journal from India. The past four summers I went to India to take care of my Mother-in-law and started sketching daily as a way to keep up with my art. I compulsively sketched almost every single day when I was in India - something sadly I don't seem to be able to do now. As my Mother-in-law passed away late last year I won't be staying for extended period in Mysuru this summer. 

During those stays, I filled five sketchbooks with around 250 sketches - the first year I had done 124 sketches -small 2.7x4" in Strathmore 5.5x8" Visual Journal watercolor 140lbs- one for every day of my stay. It was easy to keep up with daily sketching as my only concern was to sketch every day! 

The second year feeling ambitious, instead of four sketches on the page like the past year, I decided to draw bigger 5"x4" sketches. I ended up with half as many sketches as most could not be completed in the allotted time each day. I had to resort to sketch one day and finish water-coloring them the next. 

The year after, I was a bit more adventurous filling in two Japanese style moleskine accordion sketchbooks - not restricting myself to any particular size within the sketchbook. I still finished around 40 vignettes. 

It was harder to sketch everyday in 2015 - I managed about 22- 5.5x8" sketches taking two to three days to finish each  - even working on the last few after my return as I unable to sketch on many days during my stay. On the whole, keeping the sketchbooks was definitely one of the best decisions I made.It helped see a bigger picture of life. I noticed and experienced things differently and the many fast disappearing vignettes of daily life are now not just only in my sketchbook but are etched in my memory.   

The past few months though I have spent more time reading and looking at art than picking up a pencil or paintbrush. Now finally I am beginning to feel an urgency and renewed enthusiasm to shake off my lethargy, to get back to sketching and painting every day. 

Artists don't get to work

Until the pain of working is exceeded 

by the pain of not working 

~Stephen DeStaebler~ 

Whiling the Morning Away 5.5x8" watercolor and ink on 140 lb Strathmore visual Journal

Simple Times

A Tire, A Street and A Buddy watercolor and ink by Meera Rao

India Art Journal 2015

Simple times and carefree days.  I watched them roll the tire back and forth down a quiet lane, laugh and squeal in delight. Pretty soon they had mastered the art of keeping the tire rolling without a break. I was a witness to a sealing of friendship, memories in the making and developing skills and imagination :) Definitely 'just playing' is really a lot of 'work' as well! 

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." 

Plato

 A Tire, A Street and A Buddy 5.5x8" watercolor and ink on 140 lb Strathmore visual Journal

Under the Mid-day Sun

Under the Mid-day Sun watercolor and ink by Meera Rao

India Art Journal 2015

To work under hot mid day sun is just plain hard work.  These two ladies were making plaster cast and clay statues for sale by a busy road side. They are migrants who traveled from northern states  to south in search for a better living. They had taken over the sidewalk, set up tents and a business. It is a difficult ethical problem - shouldn't the city evict them for blocking the roads for pedestrians like me who now have to walk on the edge of the road  with traffic whizzing by or do you applaud them because they are entrepreneurs  trying to make a decent wage by working and producing. For now, the only solution I saw was to capture them in my sketchbook.


Under the Mid-day sun 5.5x8" watercolor and ink on 140 lb Strathmore visual Journal

    

Water for Today

Water for Today watercolor and ink by Meera Rao

India Art Journal 2015

When you see water in a stream

you say: oh, this is stream

water; 

When you see water in the river

you say: oh, this is water

of the river; 

When you see ocean

water

you say: This is the ocean's

water! 

But actually water is always

only itself

and does not belong

to any of these containers

though it creates them.

And so it is with you. 

Alice Walker

Water for Today 5.5x8" watercolor and ink on 140 lb Strathmore visual Journal

A Colorful Cover-up

A Colorful Cover-up watercolor and ink by Meera Rao

India Art Journal 2015

It looked like a giant colorful caterpillar from a distance making me stop in my tracks. A long multicolored striped cotton floor mat (jamkane in local Kannada language) covering a vehicle protecting it from the hot sun and any mess dropped by birds sitting in the near by tree! It was by the front door of a school and my guess is that the car belonged to some 'important' visitor.  A dog was happily lying down by it too. 

I had sketched those mats a few times before - it was covering the stage platform and risers in a 'Yakshagana' performance  where the musicians were seated. Those mats come in different sizes and are workhorses - spread on the floor at functions for people to sit on, at many homes and on most train journeys they are the base layer for bedding for people to sleep on, for covering a pile of boxes or suitcases to keep dust away in some homes, as yoga mats etc.. 

A Colorful Cover-up, 5.5x8" watercolor and ink on 140 lb Strathmore visual Journal

Evening Shadows

Evening Shadows watercolor and ink by Meera Rao

India Art Journal 2015 

Sunday evenings the roads are relatively empty and I was fortunate to come across this scene on my daily walk.  The beauty of this play of light and shadow will remain etched in my memory even if I may not have done justice to the original scenery.   

I have realized over the years that, my vision is always ahead of what really ends up on the paper ! Here is a story from the book Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland :  More often, though, fears rise in those entirely appropriate (and frequently recurring) moments when vision races ahead of execution. Consider the story of the young student – well, David Bayles, to be exact – who began piano studies with a Master. After a few months’ practice, David lamented to his teacher, “But I can hear the music so much better in my head than I can get out of my fingers.”

To which the Master replied, “What makes you think that ever changes?”

That’s why they’re called Masters. When he raised David’s discovery from an expression of self-doubt to a simple observation of reality, uncertainty became an asset. Lesson for the day: vision is always ahead of execution — and it should be. Vision, Uncertainty, and Knowledge of Materials are inevitabilities that all artists must acknowledge and learn from: vision is always ahead of execution, knowledge of materials is your contact with reality, and uncertainty is a virtue.

To quote Ira Glass about the 'gap' in taste and skill:  It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. 

So on to marching towards my 10,000 sketches...... 

Evening Shadows 5.5x8" watercolor and ink on 140 lb Strathmore visual Journal

Ironing The Wrinkles Out

Ironing the Wrinkles Out watercolor and ink by Meera Rao

India Art Journal 2015 

I have sketched a neighbourhood ironing lady before in 2013 and a young boy ironing in 2012.  This man had his 'shop' in a tiny little structure with a board to iron on and a shelf to stack up the finished items. There was a small tin box outside the shack where he was tending coals for the iron. All are enterprising people who fill a heavy iron with hot coals and iron out the wrinkles from shirts, pants, kids uniforms and ladies sarees to make a living. They pick up the laundered clothes from their customers and drop them off later crisply ironed, folded and ready to wear. Most of the vendors keep a rotating schedule of certain days and times during the week in a couple different neighborhoods. They have bare bones set up and work diligently. The young lady had proudly told me how careful she is to avoid any burn holes from hot coals in the clothes she is ironing.   

For many among us ironing is a dreaded chore but it is 'work' for these people. And to Pablo Naruda, it is poetry  :

In Praise of Ironing

by Pablo Neruda

translated by Alastair Reid

Poetry is pure white.

It emerges from water covered with drops,

is wrinkled, all in a heap.

It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet,

has to be ironed out, the sea's whiteness;

and the hands keep moving, moving,

the holy surfaces are smoothed out,

and that is how things are accomplished.

Every day, hands are creating the world,

fire is married to steel,

and canvas, linen, and cotton come back

from the skirmishings of the laundries,

and out of light a dove is born -

pure innocence returns out of the swirl.

Ironing the Wrinkles Out 5.5x8" watercolor and ink on 140 lb Strathmore visual Journal

Daily Chores

Daily Chore  watercolor and ink by Meera Rao

India Art Journal 2015 

This is the story of many women all around the world - gathering water is a daily chore.  The technological advances are in the background but have not fully touched the daily life yet for these two girls. They are part of migrant worker families that lived by the street in illegally propped up tents. To get a candid shot I photographed this from a distance when I happened on the scene while out on my daily errands.  I liked how the streaming light and bright colors highlight the beauty in this mundane activity. I loved the movement of the fabric  billowing in the wind, the motorcycles zooming away as ladies carefully made their way across the street. 

I got curious as to how much water do we need to survive and how much water we actually use. Here are some facts I discovered in my search :

From www.waterinfo.org : Three-quarters of the Earth's surface is covered with water, yet 98 percent is salt water and not fit for consumption.

Less than one percent of all the water on Earth is freshwater available for human consumption.

The human body is more than 60 percent water. Blood is 92 percent water, the brain and muscles are 75 percent water, and bones are about 22 percent water.

A human can survive for a month or more without eating food, but only a week or so without drinking water.

From http://water.usgs.gov/edu/qa-home-percapita.html : An average person in US uses about 80-100 gallons a day, largest use is for flushing the toilets!  On average a bath can use around 36 gallons while showers need 2-5 gallons/minute. So showers are better only if you take short ones!  Please check out the table in the link to see the water consumption for daily chores like brushing teeth, washing dishes, clothes, and watering lawns etc and tips for water conservation. 

http://wecalc.org/calc/#  This website WECalc, has a Water-Energy-Climate Calculator that you can check out to estimate your average consumption. 

Daily Chores 5.5x8" watercolor and ink on 140 lb Strathmore visual Journal

Flying Jewel

White Throated Kingfisher watercolor and ink by Meera Rao

India Art Journal 2015 

Everyday at the same time this kingfisher perched conspicuously on a thick cable wire by my window. With a clear view of the road below and all the neighboring yards, it could look for its pray of small rodents, earthworms, large insects, snakes, fish and frogs, but I never saw it catch anything.  Mostly it looked like the bird stopped to rest for just a few minutes on its way from or to someplace else - probably to the huge Kukkare Halli Lake a few miles away. With its brilliant colors of teal, chestnut, and white body with a red beak it looks like a flying jewel! Here is a link for the Kingfisher calls if you want to listen how it sounds like :) I had hoped to catch a glimpse of the bird flying off so I could see how the teal wings looked like but never managed that :( 

This is one of the subjects I had to sketch more than once - as I was never satisfied with how the colors looked on the paper. The brilliant beautiful shimmering colors of the bird are a sight to behold.  

White Throated Kingfisher 5.5x8" watercolor and ink on 140 lb Strathmore visual Journal