Paint my soul

M. F. Husain once said, “Hold the sky in your hands when I paint, coz I do not know the limits of my canvas.” Painting is a love affair. If you do it, you do it whole heartedly. Painting is one of the forms of expression of soul amongst many others. Art, as I see it, is the expression of my soul. If I can express it correctly, I am a good artist. Expression could take any platform; dance, music, words or anything else. It is important that you express, as an artist.

I recently took up painting and graffiti again. I used to do it some time ago and then I got busy with other stuff. I started it again. To help me experiment with it and to help me improve my skills in the area I compiled a list of different styles of painting and sketching. This helps me practice, to experiment, to be able to know my stuff. Eventually, you do not need any styles. You develop one of your own. This will take time and effort and most importantly heart. Artists are not heartless persons, remember. They are sensitive to nature.

1. Paint a non living subject.
2. Paint a living subject (portrait/landscape).
3. Free style painting (Picasso).
4. Throwing paint on the canvas directly, without using brush (Pollock).
5. Paint with hands. Once you learn to paint with hands and fingers, trust me, brushes won’t be necessary.
6. Sketch from memory. Paint it.
7. Paint directly from memory.
8. Paint from a picture.
9. Sketch from a photograph, paint it.
10. Explore different materials. Some of them could be: pastels, charcoal, color pencils, water soluble colors pencils, fountain pen, poster colors, water colors, oil colors, leaves, flowers, fruits, vegetables, aerosol sprays etc.
11. Sketch a moving object. Paint it. Remember, animation is concentration.
12. Paint hands and feet. Hands and feet are one of the most difficult subjects to paint.
13. Paint robes. Robes have enough curves, folds for you to practice.
14. Paint with only one color. Use the background as the second color.
15. Paint on glass.
16. Sketch cartoons/caricature.
17. Paint on wall (Graffiti).
18. Depict a story/poem in the painting.
19. Paint self portrait using a mirror.
20. Paint self portrait using a photograph.
21. Paint self portrait at different ages. Grid or accordion style could be used.
22. Paint portraits of loved ones.
23. Spray painting. Aerosol spray paints could be used.
24. Paint your room with your stuff in it. (One of the famous Van Gogh painting).
25. Experiment with light and shadow principle.
26. Observe deeply. Photograph often. Learn by doing. Remember, painting is to paint and not some thing to read about.
27. Body painting.
28. Paint nudes. Try to get the curvatures and veins structure right.
29. Paint greeting cards, book covers etc.

Give me a break

Yes, this is not another list of those easy going, heard everyday and found everywhere thoughts and quotes. This is a list of resolutions I have made so far ever since my dogie ran away with that short German bitch.

• All that glitters is not gold, but all that matters is Gold!
• Don’t Give Me Red! Go Green! Plant a tree and adopt some saplings!
• Look before you leap, and keep the first aid ready, just in case!
• Think before you speak, and stand up to your deeds.
• The point is not that the world is a better place to live or not, but the point is if we have options.
• Don’t chase your dreams, instead chase the reality. Dreams are mere a shadow of what is really bothering you around in bones and flesh.
• Brain is one of the best mysterious boons organisms have been gifted with. Tear open every cell and measure the frequency that every nerve is carrying to millions of places in your body every nanosecond. Explore it. Be in control.
• Think big! At least that way you have better dreams.
• It is not about the truth or the lies. It is about what you Feel and what is really important.
• Talk to yourself during a problem. It is you, who knows, how you screwed it up in the first place.
• Beauty is in the eyes of the Camera Holder.
• Silence is Golden, Science, well, not always!
• Computers are a boon. Well, depends on your RAM and processor power.
• Let’s make things better! Yes, they do need a lot of improvement.
• An idea can change your life; only if you apply for a patent at the right time.

A Dark Confession

O’ my mother, the goddess of darkness
Spread your dusky gaze all around,
The feelings of agonies and pains
Which in my heart have been so profound

You have been a mystery all this time
Reveal yourself to me now
These bright lights have not amused me at all
I want to explore and feel you, enlighten how

In my wildest of dreams and imaginations
You are the source of deepest sensations

Your magic and charm is everywhere
You mean so real to me and so I care
You are no absence of light, but a presence
Of all the senses combined in, right and unfair

They are scared to accept you with an open heart
Coz you shake their fake worlds and beliefs
But I worship you deep within
In all the aesthetics and ugly mischiefs

I feel the best of me in your arms
The peace of three and unseen worlds
Noises and colours appear so dull
When I embrace you and kiss your pearls

You are all around and inside me by all means
to know you more everyday I have been keen
thinking of you every moment and playing in your arms
could never let you go coz in me, you have been.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

It is a book of substance; a book of meaning; a book for life. That’s all I can say for Jonathan Livingston Seagull, one of the best books I have ever read; a gifted writer, a gifted story and a gifted truth; what a rare combination. The book was one of the bestsellers and this by any means and in no ways, a compensation reward for the story and the meaning behind it. The success of the writer and the book will only be accomplished only and only if a few could find the real Jonathan within them.

The book is a fiction story by Richard Bach, one of the great writers, world has ever produced. The first time I read the book, it started a thought process in me; it made me think beyond my life style, my daily routines. It made me think the purpose of this life. It made me realize that there is so much to live, so much to find, so much to explore. The book added lots of efficacious and dynamic words in my vocabulary. Some of them being:

Experiment, Explore, Experience – The perfect E’s
Practice, Perfection – Best P’s
“The more you learn, the more you grow, the more you grow, the more is the joy in living, the more is the joy, the perfect your life is”.

It really helps us visualize living a perfect and immortal life.

Some of the great punches from the book which inspired me most are given below:

“I don’t mind being bone and feathers, mom. I just want to know what I can do in the air and what I can’t, that’s all. I just want to know.”

“His thought was triumph. Terminal velocity! A seagull at two hundred fourteen miles per hour! It was breakthrough, the greatest single moment in the history of the Flock, and in that moment a new age opened for Jonathan Gull.”

“Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the flock?”

“Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time, Heaven is being perfect.”

The book has still occupied us in thousands of shades of our lives and will keep us occupied eternally.

http://books.google.com/books?id=C19aAAAAMAAJ&q=jonathan+livingston+seagull&dq=jonathan+livingston+seagull&pgis=1

There is so much more to life!

Have you ever imagined how beautiful life is? All what you can see, hear and feel is a very small part of all what can be seen, heard and felt. A big portion of the nature and life is unseen, unfelt, untouched. It is waiting for us.

Have you ever seen the beauty of wet shining leaves when they shed off their dirt during monsoon? Have you checked the black clouds singing and asking the monsoon to pour on them? There is so much more to life than you can imagine. Explore new things. Explore new activities. Learn new things. There is a famous old story about a frog considering his small well as the entire world; once he comes out of his well, he realizes the world is so big. There is so much around to be explored. Our lives are like that. We are living like a frog considering our small well of illusion and experiences as the whole world. We never know what is going to happen next. Keep jumping for chances. They don’t have to hit you always. You should hit on them.

Check out the bright sun rising everyday and giving energy to the whole universe. We don’t remind Sun to rise everyday. Nobody does and nobody can. It does its duty duly and respectfully everyday without anybody’s reminders. The Moon shines everyday and fills the world with its beautiful, holy and peace giving moonlight. No body bothers about it. The stars shine like pearls and rubies in the sky. People are busy collecting useless, perishable rubies and diamonds. Have you ever bothered about how many stars are in the sky? Have you ever given a thought about any more planets like Earth, having any existence of life? Nature has so much to tell you. Walk around. Break old illusions, crap traditions. Remember a rule is something which somebody felt was right, he jotted it down. You may feel something else is right. Don’t trust or follow other’s rules and regulations blindly. Crave your own path.

Not only God Made entities are beautiful. Man made entities are also beautiful. Try to see a five star hotel shining with thousands of small lights appearing as shining dots from a plane in the night; ever heard of Taj Mahal, Pyramids etc. Why are they called wonders? They are really wonderful! All the verses of the “Quran”, the holy epic of Mohammedan’s, is carved on the walls of the Taj Mahal, the Indian wonder.

Listen to the birds singing in the evening. See the thousands of penguins filling the seacoast like a painting done in black and white. Feel the chilling breeze touching your face when you drive a bike at a high speed. Ride above at a height in the night and check out the traffic on the road. It creates an illusion of a train of candles moving slowly. There is so much to live and experience. Find your passions, discover your interests. Create new interests.

Life has so much so much to say about it. Check out! Open your eyes.