A sketch and a request

I have a sketch today for Paint Party Friday. 

No...this is neither a WIP nor is the baby sleeping nor have I forgotten to sketch the eyes. The baby has no eyes. This is how a lot of babies born to victims of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy in 1984 and Agent Orange during the Vietnam War look like. Some don't have eyes, some have severe physical deformities to the extent of looking grotesque. Even today some babies are born with multiple heads, limbs protruding from various parts of the body and a large number have mental disabilities. And all this is years after the actual disasters- one claimed to be an accident and one a strategy of war. 

And the sad part is the parties responsible for these unpardonable acts are washing off their hands the whole thing. Union Carbide, through whose plant the leak at Bhopal happened has since been taken over by Dow Chemicals (Incidentally Dow was one of the manufacturers of Agent Orange too) Dow has been refusing to take responsibility for the plight of the Bhopal victims and their children. They are also going a step further and trying to clean their image by sponsoring the Paralympics 2012. 

The Paralympic games need funds and such big sponsors are hard to get. But, the world must know the truth about Dow Chemicals. 

I would request you all to read this online petition here and sign it if you think you support it. Thank you!

Don't we want the world to be full of cute babies like this?

A tree again!

Well, I'm at it again....my Project Watercolors....learning watercolor painting is a target I've set for myself. But apart from the Friday hurried painting (to be able to make it to Paint Party Friday), I hardly get time to paint. Last week I had made a watercolor tree almost in the middle of Friday night. This time I started and completed a couple of hours earlier. ;)

I checked out a few more techniques for painting trees and also clouds. Have tried to use them both here. But I wasn't bold enough with the clouds. :)

The result makes me conclude one thing - I need to get much thicker better paper for next time. This sketchbook, although is said to be for watercolors too, isn't too good. After drying the colors don't come out as intended. They become a couple of shades lighter.

Anyways, this time I took care of light and shadows to some extent. But I see the light on the tree and the shadows suggest slightly different angle of sunlight. Nevermind....I have moved one step ahead in my journey. 

Thank you all, who took time out to leave encouraging comments and really cool tips. I'd still love to hear from you and learn from you. Do check out the other lovely art at PPF.

Project Watercolors

No...This is not one of those smart projects that you artists are used to. I'm not hosting any watercolor event or challenge :) My Project Watercolors is for me to learn to paint with water colors. 

I'm learning from tutorials on the web especially on Youtube. I watched a few on painting trees. And then I tried painting one here -

And I'm not too happy with it. Nevertheless, it is a start.

Ever since I started getting into art a couple of months ago, I wanted to buy watercolors but wasn't getting the time to. I only had a Faber-Castell Watercolor Pencils set. I tried my hand with it while trying to color my earlier Nimbu Mirchi sketch and the result was pathetic -

It was the same in the Namaste piece I submitted to PPF and Soul Challenge last week. I wasn't able to render exactly what I had in mind because I just didn't know how to handle the Watercolor pencils.

The last time I'd tried my hand at watercolors was a few years ago with these daffodils -

It looked nice and colorful overall but there were no true watercolor techniques in it. It was more like coloring with crayons. Of course, I didn't have video tutorials then. 

So I've decided to take up this project of learning watercolors. I'm not fixing myself any deadline...at least not now. Please do give me any tips and suggestions you might have. Happy PPF!

Namaste

As you can make out from my blog, I have a lot of interest in all forms of art but haven't really tried my hand at too many things until now. But now I want to spend more time in learning and creating more art. And Paint Party Friday has become a weekly inspiration for me. I was wondering what to make for this week's party, when I came across the Soul Challenge. I was intrigued by the idea and wanted to give it a try. So here's what the word Soul means to me. It of course is influenced by the Indian beliefs of Aatma and Parmatma. 

According to the Indian philosophy, the Aatma or soul is a piece of the superior force that's present all around us - the Parmatma. This superior force is interpreted in different ways. Some call it God, others prefer other names. After all, matters of the soul are extremely personal preferences. Indian spiritual thinkers believe that all living things are mere tiny manifestations of the supreme force and once we die, the soul departs the physical body and blends back into the supreme force.I tend to think of God as a supreme force and visualize "it" as a very bright light. :)

The current Hindu religion is a pretty complex with centuries of interpretations and misinterpretations taking it away from the original ideas. However, there are a number of rituals that are practiced even today that emphasize the basic philosophy of the Aatma and the Parmatma. One such practice is the Indian form of greeting - Namaste. 

By greeting a fellow human being with a Namaste, we are actually acknowledging the supreme force present in him/her and bowing in front of it. So, here's how I look at these things -

So this one goes to both Paint Party Friday and The Soul Challenge at Artists in Blogland.

A paisley and a flower

I've been doodling again...Indian style! Happy PPF!

Nimbu Mirchi

I'm very late for the Party (PPF) of last week! I wanted to submit something on time but during the week, I didn't get any time. And I spent the weekend enjoying what others had submitted. But the desire to submit something was still there...suddenly an idea to go with the "Friday, the 13th" theme stuck me and I thought its ok if I'm late (very late actually). I just finished making this sketch of an Indian Evil Eye Warder - Nimbu Mirchi or Chillies & Lime.

Nimbu Mirchi Sketch

I would have loved to do it in water colors but I've not worked too much with them (same with any other medium as I'm new to art ;) ) and didn't want to risk it at 11:30 PM in the night. So I just made a pencil sketch. The original photo is here.

Traditionally, in India, chillies and a lime are strung on a string and hung in entrance of houses and shops with the belief that it'll ward off all evil eyes (or spirits). You can see them hanging in the front bumper of trucks too :) Once the chillies and lime start drying up, they are replaced with fresh ones. The old one are thrown away and you wouldn't want to step on them as all the evil spirits will now haunt you :)

Now there are a number of options if you are not too keen on fresh ones or are worried about buying new chillies and lime every week. You can choose from brass, oxidized metal, silk fibre, silver coated or ceramic chillies and lime.

Paint Party Friday # 43

I am an artist at heart but well disguised ;)

I've always wanted to draw well, paint well, sketch well... Lately the urge to do something was quite high, so I started this blog thinking this would encourage me to try my hand at art more often. And while browsing around, found PPF and was really interested. For the last 2 weeks I've been wanting to send an entry  but was very uncertain about myself. Will they even entertain such amateur art? They might be furious at my awkward creations. 

Well the only way to find out, I figured, was to try it! So here goes...

I used acrylics on canvas. The white is acrylic too but it was so old that it had become thick. 

Yoohoo! I did it! and now my fingers are crossed...