Sneak Peek

I started this painting sometime last year and completed it this weekend (just few touch ups here and there). Its like she is never done for me!!

I will share the complete picture once I get my big camera back from Arun!! Yay, he is returning from his long business trip soon :)
 

Project - "Knowledge of the Land" Week 2 - Toor Dal (Pigeon pea)

Imagine my happiness when we accidentally walked in to this beautiful farm producing the most beautiful and flavorful Lentil - Toor Dal (Pigeon pea)

Toor Dal (Pigeon pea)

 The farm caretaker explained that the plant is still young and will require couple of months to ripe and dry. Post which the beans are split, seeds are separated, cleaned, polished, packed and are made ready for the market

I found below pics from net on various stages of peas (fresh, dried and split). This amazing pic (in centr) is from the site "Mahanandi Living in Consciousness ~ Indi(r)a’s Food and Garden Weblog" found via this link http://www.nandyala.org/mahanandi/archives/2007/12/02/toor-dal-fresh-dry-and-split/

 The more I started venturing inside this farm, well I was chased out by a big over sized bee (bhavra), how embarrassing!!!!

Meet Torty - My first artwork from the Clay Modelling class!

Once upon a time there was "Torty" a cute little adorable tortoise

Adorable but slow Torty surprisingly won the race against the fast hare named "Hary" and was presented with a pretty round hat which he took home with him and stayed happily thereafter :)

Doesn't he look cute??!!

Terracotta clay
~ 8 inches

Its Abstract time!!

This is going to be a quick update

I had a good relaxing 5 day trip to the beautiful, artistic pink city - Jaipur last year around this time. This abstract is influenced by the Jaipuri style art work from my hotel room (No body knew the name of the artist to give him/ her the credit)

Project - "Knowledge of the Land" - SPA for my Senses and Soul

Nature is critical to people’s lives

Nature is critical to people’s lives

Nature is critical to people’s lives

Sometime back on a road trip (Bangalore - Bandipur - Ooty - Bandipur - Bangalore) I had a strange experience. I was next to the drivers seat enjoying the green, beautiful, rich and resourceful land of Karnataka and suddenly I experienced what I call a brain freeze (not sure of a medical term for this situation, but I bet it exist). For few seconds I did not realize what happened and why but all my senses momentarily suddenly shut down, literally!!

Once back to normal (just a matter of few seconds) I realized what had hit me, it was the drastic - immediate change between the "Deep Green Forest" to " Concrete Forest". The difference between green graze land, clean air, acres of forest land, pure flowing river water and detoxifying-healing smell of nature to utter deforestation, barren land, dust and pollution.

I believe that "Nature is critical to people’s lives", however I realized the impact of this statement that day.

Having this experience in mind, I decided to indulge myself in to the beauty of nature and get a SPA for my senses as frequently as I can (aim - Weekly!!). Hence Arun and I kick started this new project called "Knowledge of the Land". In this project we roam in and around Bangalore over the weekend to understand the land - Flora, Fauna, what the land bear, local culture, art etc

 

Here is my first assignment "The vineyard". Bangalore is famous for its local wine - red, white and rose. Most of the vineyards being few kilometers away from my place, this was 1st on my list. Key natural aspects required for grown good quality grapes -
1. Climate - There are three categories of the climate that prospective vineyardists have to consider: macroclimate, mesoclimate and microclimate
2. Soil requirement - Grapevines are grown in a wide range of soil types around the world. Soil affects grapevine productivity and wine quality and it is comprised of many components like water drainage, organic matter, texture
I expect to get better with this project with time. May be make it more objective driven!

Planning for a nice vineyard day tour this/ next weekend. Will keep you all posted.