In quest of a colour

A painting by Paul Gauguin "When will you marry" from paintings done in Tahiti by the artist. I love the warmth of the orange and red.

Champaka flower (Michelia champaca).  Mixed media. Paper, wire and floral tape. Painted with acrylic colours. Namitha (January 2011)        

Champaka flower juxtaposed on a b/w family photo.

In my online group explorations on the Chakras, I try to relate what I learn to my life. Although it isn’t part of the assignment, I like to  do things with my hands and make something that signifies what I feel.  It’s both meditative and really enables me to feel much more deeply and focus on the learnings.

The second chakra’s colour strikes a chord with me above all else. I associate the colour orange-ochre  with spirituality above all else. It is the colour of idols of gods like Hanuman or Ganesha in temples especially in the north of India. Then I associate the colour with the earthy warmth felt in the Tahiti paintings of Gauguin, in particular the painting appearing first in this post. It's titled “When will you marry” and I have a tiny copy of this in my home - it appeared in a diary and I hoarded it for many years before decoupaging it onto a wooden chest in 2008.

For an image for this chakra, I tried to imagine what a Gauguin painting would signify to me as someone living here in India… and the hues translated in my mind into a flower. I thought of a flower which would signify tropical  earthiness,   and also reflect this colour palette, a distinct orange-ochre permeating the scene, and all the things that go with it in my mind. 

Only one flower emerged after some thought. It is so deeply connected with my home town Bangalore (there’s even a road named after this flower). This is the flower Champaka (Michelia champaca) – it is a offered as a flower in worship, worn in the hair by women sometimes either in S. India or Bengal. It is mentioned in ancient texts and also appears in sculptures adorning the hair of women. It has a perfume that grows on you – even one flower is enough to permeate the air with its scent. Interestingly, when I read up a little more about this flower, I learnt that it is used to create perfumes – it is one of the notes in the perfume “Sira des Indes” (Jean Patou) and Ormonde Jaynes “Champaca” which no doubt are sold by the milliliter for a lot of money. I found this absolutely riveting information – of the two sides of the coin or this colour  – spirituality and materialism – that is to me at least, the overpowering learning of this second chakra. 

I couldn’t readily obtain a flower here, so I made one out of paper.  

I studied pictures of the flower, and remembered having  held them, inhaled their fragrance. I know how the petals lay when you hold them so I worked towards that.  Based on this, I chose  drawing paper torn from my son’s old drawing book over anything more textured. I painted the exact shade I wanted of both ochre and green. Then cut out the shapes of the petals and a leaf.  It’s not exactly to scale, although I  am certain that full bloom could be as large as this (This paper flower is about 4-5 cm from base of flower to tip).

Champaka petals. An initial layer of burnt sienna painted over with yellow

I painted  over the petals and leaf again to cover any white. Then I  assembled the whole thing, using a bit of wire and floral tape.  Ages ago, I attended a small session held in a bookshop in Bangalore. A young girl taught us how to make flowers out of fabric. It was just something so random, and free for the visitors to the bookstore to top it all. In half an hour I learnt how to make flowers, and I can’t even recall the countless times I’ve used this technique for different kinds of flowers, and also taught it to others. It reminds me how important it is to teach something to someone without any monetary consideration, just for the sake of spreading some joy.

Anyway, I selected an old photograph of our family. It was the not the actual photograph I wanted, but since the other one was not available here in Delhi, I went with this one.

I juxtaposed the Champaka flower against the photograph. It's of the four of us taken ages ago of my parents and my younger sister and myself in front of my grandparents house in Bangalore. I like how beautiful and relaxed my parents look. My sister looks a lot like my son did at that age, and it's amazing how family resemblances carry on. As for me, there I am looking as serious and intense-eyed as ever. I like the effect it has of bright light permeating the picture from the right side.

It’s just very symbolic, as I believe the second chakra has influenced us as a family deeply – issues of kinship-friendships-judgement-trust-finance. Although hard lessons were learned through the vicissitudes of life, they are important lessons, and I move forward knowing this, and knowing too that there were some important beliefs and ethics we clung to, and if we had to do all over again, we’d probably not do much differently. It’s important to be clear about what you won’t do  …at times it’s much more important than knowing what you will do or can do.  

2012

I wish you and your families peace and joy in 2012. Thank you for visiting my blog this past year. I will try my best to update more regularly this year. Best wishes-Namitha

Do you see the Painted Stork?

I took along sketch book and oil pastels during a recent birding day trip. 

On a tiny promontory, my son and I sat down near the lake’s edge and trained our eyes to look for the birds. At a distance was a mud island on which was a large tree on which were perched some Painted Storks. Painted Storks are large birds, and their colouring is somewhat similar to flamingoes…a dash of that beautiful rosy pink is distinctly visible. But there the resemblance ends. While flamingoes are quiet waders, just feeding endlessly a few metres from the shore, Painted Storks are quite active. They  fly about and perch on large trees where they roost and look after their young. They are quite vocal too raising quite a cacophony in the nesting season. 

Anyway, while I was focusing on one Painted Stork that had just landed, suddenly the whole scene in front of me appeared just  in the form of colours. I tried to capture it  roughly – using oil pastels for the first time is not child’s play – but anyway, a rough sketch of the colours resulted, more like an aide memoire for me later.

Surprisingly, the sensation only got  more vivid, and I could recollect the palette of the landscape even days later.  So I put it down a little more neatly this time, again using oil pastels. They still aren’t easy to use, but the effect is suitable for what I want to convey.  

Around the perimeter was the land, we had plants along the shore, different shades of green, moved into the water which reflected the overcast sky, with highlights of black and sunshine. We moved past this to the mud island, on which the tree stood. On the tree was the Painted Stork. 

Do you see it now? 

Some time ago, I was reading about the artist S.H. Raza and there were some photographs of his famous works in the series “Bindu”.  He used acrylics on canvas and used geometric shapes in almost childlike manner, but there is something deeply spiritual about these images. 

My earliest memory of  art classes at school was when we'd each be given a sheet of paper and asked to draw whatever we wanted. I remember always starting from the top left corner with an arc and colouring it in boldly, adding another arc, and then another..all of different colours. It’s something like that, but in this case it was really graphic representation of a landscape that was actually in front of my eyes. It was an interesting sensation indeed, and  I'm dying to do this again.

Flash of pink, white and black...Painted Stork on the tree. Photo by Anant.

Roots

Anant and I attended an event called Bal Sangam held during mid-November at the Crafts Museum in Delhi. Although it was fairly lack-lustre compared to some other events, we still tried to use the opportunity to do wander around looking at things.   

First he learnt how to make a puppet – a fairly large one out of newspaper and string – this was an eye-opener for us, because normally we just use papier mache and that does take some time.   After a session of origami, we landed up at a stall where a lady had displayed terracotta items. She also had a rustic table with a big mound of clay and kids were having a gala time making objects out of this clay. An assortment of instruments like a rolling pin, knives and scalpels were set out. For some reason, even with the November chill in the air, all of us, adults and children just wanted to feel the wet clay and make something out of it. So you had adults trying to get some space on the table, kids showing their creations, people just asking her questions about where they could get clay like this to use at home.  We all became kids again, and she patiently answered our questions, while we made whatever we felt like.

Tiny clay bust of a monster-man. Air dried terracotta clay made by Anant (November 2011)

 The first photograph shows what  Anant made - a man’s head.  When we talk about people shrinking as they age, this is exactly what happened to this clay bust. It had so many little attachments – he was trying to make something like a monster with large ears, horns and a pipe in its mouth, and all kinds of things. But while bringing it back home, some stuff fell off. And as it sat on the cabinet, aging and drying up, bits and pieces fell off almost day by day…and this is all that remains.  Hmm. We could get all philosophical and say, what remains is the essence of that man, and what remains would probably last for ages. But I’d rather just say….  we  need to learn how to work better with wet clay.   

As a medium it is not as easy to use as we expect. It’s  just a whole lot of sandy clay, like the mud found on the banks of a river. How difficult can it be to work with? Look at the photograph to understand this.

Four beads and a rose. Air dried terracotta clay. Made by Namitha (November 2011)

The rose was much easier to make. Just rolling the clay to make the beads and passing a toothpick through the centre should really have been child’s play – but each bead ended up different even though I was actually aiming at some uniformity. 

Over the past few months when I’ve tried to blog about some of the craft I’ve made, I’ve realized that there are some things that I just am not every good at – cutting paper is one of them – I’m atrocious at it; and the other is rolling clay to make beads. Yet, I’m drawn to these things, especially working with paper.  

Anyway, so there I was with four air-dried terracotta beads, however they are, all quirky and unique. Astonishing how hard they are, despite not being fired. What do I make with them? 

I tried to meld some of the things that have been in my mind for a while, especially what I’ve learnt from my online group explorations on Chakras. Although we are on to the second chakra, I felt that I would like to commemorate the session with the root chakra in some way. The root chakra is related to origins and family, and  tribes and the ancient bonds that link people together. This is the very first exposure to the world outside that a child receives. Working with clay was a trigger – it may have been no different from a girl in the ancient times, making a toy for herself, shaping the wet clay from the river bank into some piece of jewellery even.  So I went with the root chakra colour – which is red, and painted them with acrylic paint  – a bright red colour, vermilion actually. 

Then it was just a matter of picking up material  and fashioning a necklace out of it. I knew I was on the right track when Anant came and saw what I was doing, and held the necklace against himself and said “Jinga la la hoo Hoo”. Sometimes we don’t need intelligible words to communicate, my boy and I.  (Note to others: This is the chorus of a film song in Hindi which is picturised with a tribal dance. It is rather cliched and may be seen as a bit strange in modern times, but just that phrase has become a bit popular to convey "tribal dance"!)

Anyway, so here is what I came up with - people who know me well would feel that this is not me. I look good in red, I've been told that, but it is not a colour I wear often.  It's  not a colour I would instinctively pick – that is actually the energy of red – it has something we fear and admire and aspire to, but we know that it would be actually walking on a tightrope  when we do have that energy. 

Tribal Roots neckpiece. Terracotta clay beads, camel-dung paper beads and flower. Acrylic paints. All strung on undyed camel wool yarn. Made by Namitha (December 2011)

I could only handle this colour in bits – so that’s why I’ve used the camel-dung paper to tone it down a bit.  I’ve gifted all the paper flowers away, so I made a small one for myself, and used acrylic paint to match the colours. The paper beads are made by just rolling up a small length of camel-dung paper and using PVA glue to secure it. Finally, everything was strung up on a length of camel wool yarn on which I applied some more glue to make it stiff  to be able to pass it through the tiny holes on the terracotta beads. 

So here is my Tribal Roots neckpiece –  the roots are not visible - they don't need to be visible really. But every single thing about this piece is to do with touching and feeling and respecting the earth. It has everything to do with  roots and the ancient past...my roots and my ancient past.

Crafty shoppers

The Dastkar Crafts Mela concluded yesterday in Delhi. An annual event, this year the theme was “the camel”.   Besides the personal interest in this theme of camel as my friends  were present at the Camel Charisma stall, this annual mela is always something we look forward to as a family. It reminds us of life before the concept of malls hit us hard. Long leisurely walks in the sun just beginning to feel  the change in the weather, the interesting and innovative buys, always some fun conversations and interesting people to run into, and of course, the brown paper bags with the Dastkar logo on them – one can never have enough of these paper bags.  It just is so heartening to see some of the products, the care taken to create these products, display them, and impart some information to the buyers about their uniqueness. You may never see some of these products in the larger stores when you walk around with the glare of lights and glass and air-conditioned comfort in malls. Or they may not have the same allure.

A very interesting feature of Dastkar is that every evening, there are workshops of about 1-2 hours in art and craft organized by masters. Last year, Anant and I attended a short workshop on Madhubani painting. This year, as I was  having fun at the  Camel Charisma stall (how wonderful it sounds), Anant went alone for the Phad painting workshop. The master artist painstakingly explained the various nuances to the children of the history and technique of Phad painting of scrolls, an ancient craft from Rajasthan. He supervised and assisted the children to create their own greeting card with a figure painted in the Phad style.

Here is the figure he painted. It’s not easy to work with these paints, made from natural pigments, actually they are more like inks, and that’s why they have that translucent quality about them.

Phad style painting by Anant. Natural inks on card. Phad painting is  the scroll painting technique from Rajasthan used to depict folk legends.

Apart from that, I will get to the serious buying we always end up doing. I mean, guys, I am not a frivolous shopper, and I  do think before buying stuff. Do we really need this? What do we need to get rid of before we can get this? Would I use it? All these questions do run through my mind, but there are just some things that are irresistible. Here’s a view of some of the stuff we bought. Seriously, the amount of thought that’s gone into some of them makes me feel good about supporting some initiatives. It also gives me loads of ideas to mull over. 

From Uttar Pradesh, a fresh stock of clay figurines depicting Freedom Fighters. These shall be included in next years Navratri doll display.

Fresh bright red chillies and ragi flour from Uttarakhan. The Beej Bachao Andolan stall had plenty to keep us and Anant occupied. Lots of stuff to touch and ask about, and friendly volunteers.

A little booklet on the Beej Bachao Andolan (Save Seeds Movement)

Traditional Andhra pickles packed in a ceramic jar, and covered with Kalamkari fabric. An example of  traditional design and materials meeting modern entrepreneurship.

Favourite favourite favourite. A real find. Paints made from natural material like plant extracts, seashell, turmeric etc. packed well just like any other box of paints. Dying to try this out.

One advantage of having your sandals get broken in such a place - is to to be able to pick up a new pair of joothis - mocassins.

This is just the wrapper - a cloth bag used to pack the actual purchase. See below.

An applique quilt from Rajasthan.

A cute little teapot perched on a cup. Just right for the person who loves HIS Darjeeling tea in the morning.

At the same place I bought my crochet necklace last year, I found this pair of origami crane earrings. Imagine how small they are.

The blank kaavad - a portable shrine which can be used for story telling when its painted with pictures on its panels. Usually the deities are placed in the innermost central panel which is painted last. This is from Rajasthan too.

And for the absolute piece de resistance - it was the Kaavad which is a portable shrine which is usually painted with images to depict a story. Storytellers wandered about with this apparatus telling their stories, by opening out the panels in sequence. Now of course with the advent of TV, this is really a novelty. I managed to find a completely made up kaavad, with its panels, even primed so that the final coat of paint can go on. The only thing is: I need to find a story to put on it. Do come back to see what I do with it.

Bird tee 2

It is that time of the year again. Birthday time, and bird tee time. Following my successful attempt last year to paint a bird on a t-shirt, I tried it once again. Again using  a photograph taken by Anant of a Crested Serpent Eagle.  I would have preferred a darker coloured t-shirt but there was this last one remaining that just needed to be used before he outgrows it. I need to work on proportions more, but I think I've done ok with the head, and some of the shading. I just love doing this, it is so meditative, and if you have a willing kid who is so happy with the result it makes it much more fun.

 Crested Serpent Eagle  on T-shirt. Acrylic on cotton. by Namitha

Based on photo of Crested Serpent Eagle at Bandipur Wildlife Sanctuary by Anant.

For the post about the other T-shirt click here.

Accordion Book on bird shapes

At some point, I would like to pen the book “What the well-equipped child needs for school” on the lines of the article penned by Bertie Wooster.  If I consider the items my child has been asked to take to school over the years, apart from the regularly school books and stationery, no doubt it will be quite a lengthy document.  ....Read further

New blog

I've just realised that I've completed 50 posts on this blog. Thanks so much to all of you who've bothered to come over and read the blog. Some of you have left comments, and I'm really grateful for all the encouraging words -  I derive a lot of happiness from browsing through my own blog and looking at some of the comments. It's been really a record of my journey in art and craft over the past few months.

My little boy's growing up fast, and I've realised that we need some space for slightly longer posts, maybe with more photographs. I've begun one called IMPRINT - it stands for so much, the way we learn when we're together, psychology, an impression in your mind, or an imprint of words etched into a surface. It will contain essays, photographs and posts specifically about handmade books.  I'll continue posting here about small projects, but please take a moment to check out the other blog as well.

Imprint - click here to visit my new blog

Pixie tales

I wondered what a pixie would write a note on if she was sending some iced cupcakes over to a little girl's birthday party.
 
I thought perhaps she'd pluck a leaf and write on it with freshly squeezed berry juice sitting by a river side surrounded by bluebells and fairy dust.

I used Lokta paper to make this leaf and painted on it with watercolours.

It was a rather speedy job, so forgive the not so perfect look. The different coloured stains on it are meant to represent berry juice.

The note accompanied some cupcakes, iced for the first time with buttercream icing, inspired by my friend Kamini's recently begun initiative, 22 Baker Street. Only one is shown here for obvious reasons - the rest were not up to scratch at least in photographs, although they were enjoyed by all present there. 

Accompanying craft - I took along butterfly templates and strips of paper. The girls made little umbrella like flowers on which the butterflies perched.

All in all, I think my rhyme was better than my cupcakes, and that's saying a lot.

Delhi: Photo Essay 1

Photography by Anant
Text by Namitha

I wanted to record our impressions on a leisurely Sunday of a curious city that seems to be a common transit point, but rarely the final destination in the lives of people.

It was supposed to be a casual walk in Connaught Place to take photographs of this city celebrating its centenary as the capital of India.  

Over three hours later,  the two of us realised that our walk has “mentally” been sidetracked by Anna Hazare’s campaign – wherever we went, we could not escape the signs that something was happening in this city. 

 
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