Working on two pieces

Well, I'm working on two paintings..struggling a bit with both, though happier with the effects I'm managing to get with the sunflowers. Acrylics is both fun and liberating, as well as damned frustrating.. as I keep saying, it just dries up too fast, and the lower layers seem to absorb the pigments I put on subsequent layers, dulling and darkening them. But the big plus point is, it's so forgiving.. so I shall persist. I love that I don't have to deal with the fumes of turpentine, and that I don't have to worry about things getting muddied as I work almost immediately on layers.

The beginning stages of paintings are always scary..one really doesn't know how it will end up.. a disaster or a success..

Ahhh, Pune..!

Ahhh, Pune..! I don't quite know what it is about this place, but I just feel I belong. There is deep peace.. I really don't know how to describe it.. My soul is smiling quietly.. is the best way I can put it :)

I and two crows and various tiny birds that flitted into the little trays of water I keep for them in the garden (they love wiggling into them to bathe) and two cats, one named Big-Grey, the other, Fluff-Grey.. all of us spent quality time in the garden early yesterday morning. Me doing yoga first, then sipping my pudina chai after, sitting crosslegged, very Buddha-like. Big-Grey and Fluff-Grey are not my pets, they just hang around the place since I toss them some fish when I'm here. Though they seem quite able to take care of themselves because they look in pretty good shape despite my long absence from here. I'm wary of Big-Grey (a male) who has almost sliced my fingers off occasionally if my hand strays too close to his face when I toss fish, plus he bullies Fluff-Grey (a female) to grab all the fish. Fluff-Grey is wary of me, obviously doesn't trust us humans.. very intelligent.

I checked out all my plants, watered and looked after by Hira-bai, my maid, in my absence. She doesn't much care for the cats though.. always complains bitterly about the cats I always seem to collect. I don't know why, but cats seem to gravitate to me.. I must have been a cat in some past life, perhaps they know that.. Cats know everything! You can tell by gazing into their knowing eyes.. Big-Grey's eyes are green like new leaves when the sun shines through them. Fluff-Grey's are brown, like a muddy lake.

There's a slight chill in the early morning air, harbinger of the winter, though the rest of the day was beautifully warm and sun-filled. I spent most of it in the garden, pottering about amongst my plant pots. Also started a new painting, sunflowers in a vase, which I will probably finish later today, after I go and do my bit at the polling booth.

And now, for a hot cup of pudina chai, and then, after the sky lightens a little, my yoga in the garden.

I am in peace and joy :)

Feeling fulfilled

My life now is totally about sipping endless cups of tea, allowing it to go tepid, then cold, while I paint and paint and paint.. to my heart's content. Just finished an abstract-ish bunch of purple and white flowers in a flower pot, and I'm feeling as content as a cat that has lapped a bellyful of milk and  then stretches out in the sun and yawns herself into a blissful nap. Only difference is, my mind is so energised that sleep is eluding me. So, instead, I begin ruminating, as usual, about this mysterious effect painting has on me.. I guess on all artists, whatever their field.

Why do I do it.. paint..? It's not that I need the paintings I do.. it's not that I sell my stuff (except for one or two).. I haven't even bothered to start trying to sell them. Like most artists, I'm totally not clued into the commercial aspects of life, especially about my artwork. So here I am, painting off and on over the years, my canvases, papers, pieces of wood on which I do them collecting in cupboards, on cupboards, under the bed, leaning on walls, on every spare surface I can find to keep them. Why, what is this need that drives me to do something that seems so useless, purposeless?

The answer, I think, is the great need I have to create. Painting is like magic for me.. to watch formless paint turn into a flower, a mountain, a tree on a flat featureless surface is sheer magic. Plus, painting, creating these forms, or just abstract forms using colours and brush strokes to create mystery, is a challenge.. and I love challenges. The challenge of mastering an intricate rose, for example.. or a landscape.. keeps me interested in life.. keeps my child-like sense of wonder at watching, examining the creation all around me alive. When I am in painting mode, my senses are constantly alive.. when I see a sunset, I wonder what colours I would need to capture the beauty.. every leaf, stone, puddle of water is about shape, form, shades, colours that exist in my paintbox, and the end of my paintbrush with which I recreate them on my canvas.. What can be more fulfilling than that?

There's no wifi here, so though I've clicked them on my iPad, I can't post the pictures of my paintings yet here. Tried my camera, but something's wrong with the battery... I need to buy a new one... I also need to buy a phone which could be the means of posting my pics... which I just don't have the time for.. So until I get a wifi connection, or a new battery, or a new phone, I guess I'll just talk about my paintings.