Commission, Inktober and Hopes

The past couple of weeks has been really busy with a lot of stuff to do and not having enough time! I finished a commission work for a dear friend in Abu Dhabi. He had selected a work which was originally commissioned by another friend 7 years back when we were in Dubai. It was a gift for her daughter's teacher. So here I was working on it and it felt fabulous! I could see the changes in my work though I was working on the same painting. It's folk-inspired style as my friend had wanted it that way when I first painted it in 2011. In both pictures, however, the colours aren't true to what meets the eye. I don't know why that is so!

 I have used acrylics with gouache and embellished it with semi-precious stones for the ear studs and the nose-pin. It's A3 size.

2011

I am also preparing for Inktober, trying to select a theme of my own since I feel so restricted with the official prompts. I want to work on my shortcomings and what better way than to chose one's own theme to improve a particular skill or aspect of ones drawing/painting. Last year was the first time I participated and I had a whole lot of fun!!! I drew insects - "Tiny, But Me!" - 31 of them and yes!! I did complete the change! It was a great feeling! In case you want to check it out the rest, here it is - Week2, Week3, Week4 and Week5. I wrapped it up with an Inktober Insect series calendar. I was asked by many friends on why I didn't make a zine at the end of it...so this time I am thinking of making a zine as well. In case anyone is interested, do let me know.

"So anyone here joining Inktober?"

It would be great fun!

Thanks to Jake Parker for Inktober and here's what it's about and the official prompt list:

Currently, I am also doing small studies for potential paintings, projects that need some positive "Go ahead" green flags! Here's a sneak-peek...fingers crossed! 

Detail of a work in progress - study for a potential painting

Floods, Fluids and Flowers

It's over a month since I posted and I really can't pinpoint on one thing...I am really sorry guys for not having posted for that long! But seriously, I needed a break not from blogging as such but to help me stabilize on certain things. I was emotionally amock particularly with the floods in my region and the aftermath of it all. Our place and people are slowly recovering. We were in a safe area but there are loads of people who have suffered disastrously. We tried helping them out a bit by buying them the essentials like food and stuff, and dresses and also a bit through our art.

I seriously couldn't touch my paint and brush for almost a month other than the two flood relief ones, though I did sketch and splash colours casually to relax in between. 

Created these two paintings as part of raising funds for Flood Relief. The event was hosted and organized by Kalakar Keralam and Kerala Lalithakala Akademi in Durbar Hall Art Gallery premises and displayed in the Gallery. Around 500 artists from all over the State participated and collected around 7 Lakh rupees by the end of the fourth day of the 5-day event.

 My two paintings - The Lily pads in the first one is referred from Pearfluer and the girl in the boat (really tiny) is referred from Pinterest. Jellyfish are also referred from a photo on Pinterest.

On the walls of Durbar Hall Art Gallery. 

Both the works sold and the money went to the Chief Minister's Flood Relief Fund

Paul, studying in Grade 4 - my young buyer, youngest so far! 

Loved the zest in his sparkling eyes to get it! So extravagantly satisfying!

Just splashing some acrylic inks - fluid colours on postcards...to see where the colours travel...

Can you spot the hint of gold there?

'White Flowers in Glass Bottle'

I think I saw this picture in one of my Facebook friend's wall. 

Wanted to try the glass badly,

was trying glass for the first time and this was before the flood. 

Something pleasant to end with.

How have you all been doing?

Carpe diem!

Some posts are more organized and some just happen and this post belongs to the latter. Not a very happy post, let me say beforehand...Sometimes when there’s so much chaos around, you enter a state of mental ramblings...and you discover things you didn’t know existed. They may not have any particular form and yet they are very much there; if I am making sense! Our world now is so preoccupied with hatred and violence of all kinds and intensity that one feels agonized and repulsive to the core. Yet each one of us, I know, Hope...for something good and better. And it does exist in quintessential pockets in this very life...nuggets of happiness. As Horace said, Carpe diem (Seize the moment)! However, I don't think Horace meant to ignore the future but rather to be more aware of the present for a better future.

Before getting to those, let me thank each and every one of you who visited, took the time to comment and left me more inspired last week. Thanks to Nadya King for leaving such a beautiful link, info and comment. I immediately had to check them and what a beautiful story of Henrietta Leavitt! There are such gems and indeed that's one such nugget of happiness (for me!). In case anyone wants to check that out, here's the LINK.

Now leaving you with some of my ramblings in images and words...because I know not any other way...

{these are quick drawings done (within 2 or 3 minutes) without much thought...}

As if everything is not enough

From things around us

Now we pile violent hatred

Heaps and heaps on

One another for no reason

It’s as if the ‘new natural’

Why? I can’t contemplate

Everything is ‘taken into account’

And ‘acted’ upon

Why? I can’t contemplate

Even a simple smile

Is twisted and twitched

To suit ‘the other’ perspective

Why? I can’t contemplate

Why can’t people be what they are?

And the rest be whatever they want to be

Accept and be!

Live and let live!

Is it so hard to just ‘be’!

We can learn a thing or two from nature

Where everything grows, exists and die

Where ‘collective consciousness’ is not hypnotised

By outward sources or any ideology

It’s just accepting and be.

Linking it to PPF Girls! 

Nocturne Series - studying the celestial sky.

Nocturnes or Nightscapes have always fascinated me. There was a time when I used to think I could probably study Astronomy or celestial mechanics, as a girl. But then soon I found Literature and arts interested me more in terms of studies. But even now I simply love gazing at the sky - day and night; particularly night I guess. The sky, vast and expansive, with so many happenings occurring probably all the while and yet looks so serene and tranquil. Though the skies I have painted are not what I see in my region, I do love watching skies where such wonders happen... now that it’s available at our fingertips and within the comfort of our own room! I am like Jodie Foster in "Contact" in total awe when I look up (though that's a different storyline about extraterrestrial life)! So it's no surprise that at some point in time I would end up painting them or at intervals, if I may say. As a personal project that I started at the wake of this year, it was perhaps Whistler’s “Nocturne” that nudged me to make some of my own. 

*Click on the images to view it big*

This is the first of my Nocturne series and this is definitely inspired by Whistler while the rest are my own interpretations of some photographs mixed with creative liberty! 

 "Shooting up"

 “When the skies turned deep-blue

The Moon bloomed,

The earth shone,

The spell fell

And the magic happened!”

 Grey sky in showers

 It was when the Super blood moon happened early this year.

It was from the picture above I cropped the Moon and used it in my SuperBloodMoon (click to read) post if you remember. I edited it in Photoshop. These were the stages of my painting the Moon.

And finally the last of the series for now...I am still adding to the collection.

Which one is your favourite?? Would love to know.

Linking it to the Awesome PPF and the Incredible ladies there!!!