Messy Bed

Among all of the 'Everything' that I try to draw, this one - not particularly this same bed, but the topic - has been drawn quite a few times.. All the time, messy! I've never ever drawn a cleaned up bed in my house.. Not sure whether it is because I have never felt like drawing a clean one, or because it is so difficult to find a clean one. Ooops, did I open my mouth too wide?

Annaprasanam

Here is the painting that I made for the Temple. 

Krishna, the nurturer.

Krishna, is usually shown as a naughty little boy. 

Many times, as Gopi-Krishna, he can be seen dancing with gopis.

Gopala Krishna is another popular face where Krishna is depicted as a cowherd.

I wanted to draw another angle to his personality. What better, than to draw Krishna as a tender nurturer, to depict an idea that sparked on the event of Sooryansh's Annaprasanam

When we had been to Guruvayoor for Sooryansh's Annaprasanam, way back in 2013, I had this feeling that I should paint something to give to the Temple. For the ones who are not familiar with the term, the ceremony of feeding the first solid morsel - usually rice - to our child is called Annaprasanam, in Hindu culture. It is one of the samskaras that every human is expected to perform.

Ever since, I had been planning on what I should make. I knew it had to be watercolor, for I love the romance of it. I knew also, that it should be a theme that I have never seen anywhere. Hence, this little boy Krishna, with a look of care and love, feeding this little baby. Just like we believe as under the watchful care of the Lord in the Temple. 

I worked on this project when the kids had gone to their grandma's place, this year. Since it was made specifically for the Temple, I didn't want to share a print kind version of it. The little one is at home - it was a miniature one for color practice.

(Watercolor on A3 size CP watercolor paper)

Flora

I drew this one from a stalk of flower at home.. They looked lovely.. 

And here below is the lovely model.. standing all majestic! :)

I think I should buy more flowers... Oh and by the way, the vase in which this flower was restful, just broke today in a freak accident.. 

Watercolor on not-so-good cartridge journal paper

Dad and Son playing a game

Bhagini Rooftop

Something from last year. Just before this year's Father's Day. For this one, I made a record of the series of steps I took to come to this final look of the painting. I wish it was better paper. This is a cheap quality thin cartridge paper, which would not take washes. It had been generous that day to accommodate my attempt of splashing three colors on the building's window panes.

The initial pencil sketch on the crazy, already quite crumpled paper.

First wash

The actual finished painting - without the journal words...

Photograph comparison

Gouache Study

What? I didn't publish this post? This was just my first ever attempt at gouache. It's not like I have done too many pages with gouache, but I have done just enough to not think of gouache as some difficult project.

Gouache is a whole different animal compared with watercolor. And yet, look at the tender feel it has just like watercolor. I enjoyed making this page.

Apps and Games

Tanush loves to play with any kind of a hand held tablet.. He has games installed in all of them (well, except in my phone). He finds all kinds of excuses to be allowed to play with a tablet.. I can't call it an addiction considering how much lesser than other kids he is allowed to play on it.. but it irks me all the time that he gets even so much!!!

Tanush would wait for Saturdays so that he could get his Kinect time. In fact, throughout the week he would try to barter that hour for one of the weekday hours and make promises that he would really not ask for Kinect time on Saturday. But he would forget it the very next day. He loves it when I say, 'You are not well.. So you can't go out to play' because all he hears is, 'Tanush, guess what? It is your Kinect time today!!!! How about a Hi-Five? Yeaaahhhh' But I would be sobbing over the missed opportunity to go down and run with the wind on his face.. 

Grandpa's phone is like a personal den with all games installed. My dad's and my dad-in-law's phones always go out of charge or overloaded with a few games open and running at the same time. I find it hard to discipline him when I am at my dad's. And grandpa, being the loving grandpa, overrides my orders with sweet talks and gets Tanush what he wants. Again, there are only so many people the kids can throw their weight around, and more importantly, it is not too much, so I don't usually throw a fit. Did you read the word 'usually'? That's important, because I do make an interruption when I feel he's played for too long on a handheld.

Here's Tanush taking some time to play an app game after a hands-on craft making - He made the Traffic Police hat that he's wearing!

I make it a point to not offer them (S and T) my phone when we are waiting say, at the doctor's clinic or in traffic or wherever. We play some other games. Sometimes that gets on my nerves, for they need my absolute participation, but I think it is worth it. When I look around, though, I find kids on android devices, with their parents on their own cellphones trying to kill the waiting time without having to look at the world around them. I am not for it.. I like observing everything that goes on around me, and would like my kids to be able to do the same too.. Boredom should be treated with some respect!! Not everyone gets the chance to meet it. And it does wonders, at times, to your creativity!! Think Newton.

Baby Coconuts

Fixing the Unfix-able

Painting mistakes

It all started with wanting to sketch.. A terrible itch to sketch just about half hour before I had to go and bring back Tanush from his bus stop. Half an hour seems a good amount, if you don't have to spend the first 5 mins trying to find your supplies and the last 5 mins attending to your younger one's call to attend nature's call.. Nature seems like a good subject to sketch too with the afternoon sun lining the edges in lovely silver. 

I started the sketch in my person journal that's filled with (horrible) cartridge paper. Quick quick quick was my mantra.. A light satisfying pencil outline.. 

Wash.. 

Wash.. 

Detail.. 

Some more detail.. 

Hmm something wrong.. Fix!! 

Wash!!

Not blending!!

Yucky paper! I'll never forgive you for it!

Oops brush stroke on the careful silver lining! Oh well!! As though the rest of the painting was supporting it in any way!!

Now the paper's turn to not forgive me! It bled to the other side! 

Oops!

Wash!

"Maaa!!! You wann go poopy?" (that's my 2 yo's way of saying that HE needs to attend nature's call)

A quick dash here and there, I left the painting in its sorry state and went and picked up Tanush.. 

After we came back, Tanush looked at it ans asked, 'Ma, haven't you written anything on this page? What about your today's journal?' It was too sad a page to even see it once more. But oh well.. I just thought I'll scribble about all the mistakes I made to make this classic masterpiece.. 

I don't think it looks bad anymore!!

Cat and the Art of Ignoring

The unfriendly neighborhood Cat

We all could take some lessons from Cats.. If they don't want to see you, they will not see you. They'll roll their heads, look in your direction, and look right through you, but never will they see you even by mistake; if they won't want to.. 

Never will they put on a show like, 'Ah!! How did I miss you standing there!?' That's for us humans.. 

A cat will proudly sit right in front of you, proclaim in his majestic silence that you are trespassing his territory and that it will never be the other way round.. 

A snob!

He'll make you wish that you'd better vanish somehow than be humiliated this way!

And the puny domestic cat is not even the King - that's for a bigger cat - But he'll hold the airs of one!

Now, that's the kind of a fierce feline egotism (read self esteem) that we sometimes need for ourselves.. 

Custard Apples and Eaters

Custard Apples

Anyone who has relished the custard apple, knows that these fruits are full - and really full - of seeds. In fact, you get more seed than the fruit! I know of people who have varying attitudes on how they enjoy the fruit (or not)...

There are some who just can't resist the fruit. So, they take the fruit, stand near a trash bin and enjoy it standing. They don't mind the discomforts of having to stand, with no company and, if really unlucky, then taking in the fruit fragrance with the smells that emanate from where a trash can is kept (yeah, eww..)!

Then, there are some who like to think smart and take a small vessel in hand to spit out the number of seeds.

And then, there are a few who are so intimidated by the huge number of spitting they'd have to do, and so would just satisfy themselves by taking in the fragrance and talking about how they had enjoyed the fruit so much with their friends when they were young (read, children).

Well, there are those who can not take the pains of a messy meal, pop that custard apple - flesh, seed and all - into a juicer with some milk, a little more sugar and turn it into a milk shake. They just love how they were smart to add that dairy - more nutrition!!

There are also some, who, because of the sheer mess that seems, like to just say,'I don't really like the custard apple.... by, the way, how do they really taste?' I know some in that set too! Almost all of them hadn't had a custard apple and don't even know what they are missing. They like to make it look like it doesn't matter either. Yes, if you are reading this, I did mean you!!

Me? I like to pinch a fruit open, hold it into a cup, sit by the balcony with Tanush and savor every corn that's there, in its most natural self.. Tanush and I love to call it Dragon's Tooth, for each corn looks like a tooth out of Godzilla's mouth..

Did you find yourself there too?

Stage Fear - (gulp) - yet again!

Sooryansh, at work (or is it play?)

So, how do you come back on stage to face the crowd?

I have been away for so very long.. Many times I'll take my sketchbook to make a new sketch; open it and then close it.. Many times I'd open my blog to put up a new scribble, and then look at my sketch and go, 'Nah, that doesn't really look so good..' I'd yawn and browse other websites and then shut down the computer feeling sick about the time wasted on browsing.. Sometimes I'll post one sketch.. and then feel something odd about how I haven't really shown my face for so long, and now.. a sketch? Eeek!! Oh! And, I stopped telling the story long long back...

But really, what is it that holds me back?

What is it that holds anyone back from making a comeback? Is it the feeling that, when I do come back, there would be no one looking for me? Is it the feeling that the world has meanwhile changed and I may not know this new world? Is it the feeling that I am still at the same place while the world around has moved leaps and paces ahead, and, let alone me catching up, the world would see how I haven't grown? Is it the feeling that someone might ask, ' Do I know you?' Is it the feeling that I may actually have been forgotten?

What is it?

I figured out that the only way to get back on the wagon, is to simply, just get back on it.. Just jump in..!! And then who knows..? I may meet old friends. I may make new ones. I may fall off the wagon yet again. But at least I'll know I can always get back on!!! Welcoming what comes...