Another try at art - Peacock feather

Since my maternity leave started, I have been wanting to do some art work. Also the upstairs bedroom really needed some kind of color in it. I searched around quite a bit on net, and finally found something that I could try out. I am not this great artist or anything, so I can only confidently try out simpler stuff which does not require too much of art work. Finally i saw this

http://diyshowoff.com/2012/03/25/diy-project-parade-peacock-feather-triptych-canvases/

So seeing this i thought this was achievable and when I told Sree, he was all for it.

So instead of Vinyl, I was able to find self adhesive kitchen contact paper in the garage. So I used that to draw the peacock feather.

We went to michaels and got yellow, blue and purple acrylic paints. We also got an extraction knife.

I practiced drawing a peacock feather few times, and then drew it on to the back side of the contact sheet. The next day, me and sree sat and cut it out using a extraction knife.

Once the stencil was cut, we cut the right pieces and stuck it onto the canvas. Once those were stuck, we sat and painted each canvas with the respective color. We got cadmium yellow, purple and crimson blue. Here is the snap of the final product, and we did multiple coats of paint for a more finished look.
Sree helped me paint multiple coats and it was fun to see him enjoying this.
Super excited about the final product.! We placed it in the upstairs guest room where my parents were going to stay.

Halloween!

Today is Taru's first Halloween. Since she is too small to go for trick or treat, we just decided to celebrate it by making a halloween costume for her. I went to target to check for costumes and did not find anything for her size, and also when i checked online, the prices are crazy. So since it is just for a day, and we can never use it again, i decided to make a small design on one of her onesies.

Here is what I did

For the doc - thank you!

My post partum visit to the doctor was scheduled after 6 weeks of delivering my little girl. Dr Menon is a great person and she was a big support and was awesome in the delivery room! I wanted to thank her and hence drew the below pic for her.

Thank you Dr Menon!

The new Malayalam movies, vineeth,Fahad and the rest

I was inspired to come back to my blog and pen down my thoughts immediately because I read Vineeth Srinivasan's blog and in one of his posts he had mentioned that its better to capture when your mind wanders. Many a time I feel about something very deeply, but due to my sheer laziness I keep postponing my writing.  I also have a daily journal, which has now become a few times in a month( I have an iPad, an iPhone and a laptop, but no technology can overcome laziness)

I do have a quite a bit of free time over weekends now and hence was browsing through latest Malayalam movies. With chappa-kurishu and 22 female kottayam, salt and pepper which I had seen earlier in the year, I had started to notice a trend in malayalam movies where quality and realism/good entertainment with new subjects were coming about. I welcomed this, because I had started to feel a little disconnected with the formula films, because they just go over the same subjects again and again.

Malayalam cinema was at this heights in the 80's and early 90's where good movies of Mohanlal, Jayaram, Mammutty etc came about. If you see those movies like Sanmassulavarku Samadhanam, mazhavil kavadi they have such good acting, story, humor and the directors and actors gave a lot of importance to sticking to the story line. I remember the days when my dad, mom and myself used to sit and watch the movies repeatedly. This was esp me and my dad and we were fans of Mohanlal and Jayaram movies because of the humor in them.

Malayalam movies were known for their strong subjects then. But somewhere down the line, we lost the rhythm and many formula movies started to come about and this i believe is mostly connected with satellite value or so. The audience too accepted a few of these, but many started to come in the same pattern where it lost its appeal. There were few years between 2000 and 2005 or 2006, where we could count the number of good movies. Movies ran, but audiences like me started to lose hope. I was not able to relate to many of the masala movies and stopped following many of the movies that got released.

Since I moved to US, I don't even know which are the new movies that gets released in Malayalam. And recently a few friends happened to mention a few good movies and I started watching Malayalam movies again. Among the few I watched was 22FK, Chappa Kurishu, Traffic etc. I felt really proud that malayalam industry is slowly getting penetrated with this set of youngsters like Vineeth Srinivasan, Fahad Fazil, Ashique Abu who knows what they want to make out of a story or cinema. This group do not believe in doing movies for the sake of doing. They value the script. They are not scared to explore unexplored story lines and they also cast the right people in the script. And moreover, the most amusing thing about these people are, they are all sons of established directors or actors, but the humility that they portray when they speak, their body language during interviews, makes us feel like they are just one of us. They don't have airs or egos, but the way they speak, the stuff they think of, the passion towards what they do speaks volumes about how talented these young people are.

This is actually a very pleasant change to malayalam cinema I feel. The storyline is getting much more realistic and entertaining and slowly I have started taking an interest in catching up on malayalam movies again. I feel we are slowly headed back to where it was in the 80's and early 90's and hopefully we would see great stories and subjects being explored in Mollywood again.

Fall Leaves Project 2

So after brooding over the canvases for a long time, I just realized I did not like them anymore, So I did the whole thing again with a different view. I still need to make few more changes to these, but below is the final result.

The Fall Leaves Project

We have a blank kitchen wall. We had done nothing to that space as we had thoughts of buying a small shelf there, which we never did for the past one year.I tried convincing Sree that we would hang some wall art on it, now that its almost a year and I know we won't end up buying any wall unit there. He told me to create another painting or so to put up there, since I already had the canvas for it ( I am sure he thought he will save some money here). This was sometime back, but then when I found some free time on one of the weekends, I started looking around for something to paint.
I stumbled across this link
http://sparklepantsgirl.com/2011/09/falling-leaves/

I liked the idea behind this and since fall was soon coming, I decided I'll create something similar.
I was always fascinated by fall colors - the yellows, greens , oranges and I was sure, I did not want to do anything completely white as done in the above link, as it just does not suit my imagination regarding fall leaves.

So off I went to Michaels one day and got the stuff required. I also wanted to improvise a bit to add my touch so bought some brick like tiles from Lowe's as well.

After a hectic few weeks at work, I finally got a Sunday completely free, so I decided to start on the project. I told Sree I would need his help to cut out the leaves that I drew.
We went off to work around 11 in the morning and I started off with tracing out the leaves onto the foam sheets. I found different kinds of leaves to trace out. It was very strenuous for Sree to cut these with scissors first, and then I gave him the idea to use a small knife in the tool kit to carve these out. That actually worked and he became much faster. After all leaves were cut out, we arranged the boards on the wall to get an idea of how we want to go about this. I wanted to arrange this in a different way which is more symmetric but Sree convinced me to go random here and he placed the boards on.

Below is the initial setting

The beginning

Then I went about coloring the leaves. I just randomly colored using the same brush 90% of the time. I did not care about cleaning the brush completely because you really don't need to worry too much about the colors getting mixed and resulting in different shades. Because that was the whole point.

Sree joined after a while and it was funny to see him paint actually. He was so carefully doing it like a kid trying to create the most perfect leaf. He totally enjoyed this and was very proud of the leaves he did.

We took down the canvases and laid them flat and were randomly throwing down the leaves onto them and where ever they fell, we just stuck them with a cello tape. The moment we start thinking and doing this, the whole randomness just goes off and we end up doing it symmetrically. Guess that is how your minds are tuned.

Random drops!

We kept the boards on the wall after the leaves were stuck and I immediately knew I did not want the white background, also it looked kinda odd. So we added more boards brought them closer to see if that would look better, and we felt it did.

I had no patience to sit and paint all the canvases a background shade, so the easiest solution was to run to Lowe's and get spray paint. We got a dull yellow shade and spray painted all the canvases. It took just 10 minutes for the entire process and I had no complaints about how the canvases turned out.

I aligned all the canvases on the wall with a leveler. This was the toughest part( during this time Sree conveniently took his power nap for the day). Its very frustrating to level all the canvases and it took a good 20-30 minutes or so.

After this, me and Sree created more leaves as they were required and also stuck some backsplash tiles that I got from Lowe's to the bottom one to depict "ground"

You can find the pics below

Painting the last set of leaves

The process

I cut all of these and many more!

After the final leaves were painted, we just randomly placed the leaves on the boards again. We tried our best to not to think at all to make this as random as possible. I have an eye for symmetry so Sree had to remind me multiple times not to look at symmetry. Finally we completed it and stood there staring at what we created and immediately I started having second thoughts. First thing was I could not accept the multiple shades going on and thought I should have just stuck to one shade of leaves. Secondly, I thought if the canvases had to be symmetric and also if the leaves should be smaller . Sree was so exhausted, he was in no mood to judge anything, and he just loved the way things came about.

We took a snap next to it, and off we went to sleep.

capturing all the frames

after the work...

 In the morning, I stared at it more, and I was still not convinced. Later in the evening, when the sun was shining through I just kept looking at it and  realized that whatever it was I just loved the whole process of doing this with Sree and that it just need not be perfect. It can be just what it is.And the whole art just depicts what really fall is - Random!!!

I might still end up playing around with the leaves here and there, and even taking out few and replacing with few others and changing around the boards a little, and that is just me and that is the idea behind creating something on your own.

I am extremely happy that one day was spent exactly like I wanted to spend it. Working together with Sree on something and whole process was very relaxing and rewarding. It was fun!

A pic taken in the evening sun

Pic taken in the evening sun

Inspiration

There are days, when I completely feel lost. Lets say that this is the case with most of the days. Either you have to keep me super busy, which fortunately or unfortunately I am mostly, or I should have a well written plan of what to do during the day. If either of these are not in place, then until I sit down and do some thinking, I am pretty much blank.  Having no idea of what to do, gives you a feeling that you have time to laze around, but after a point, it turns into boredom and even frustration. Even if I know this,  I am too lazy to think what needs to be done, and I  end up watching TV through out and wasting the entire day, which then continues for the whole week..or more weeks...until I am  forced to do some thinking and planning out of guilt of wasting away days together. Cant we waste days? Yes of course, but in my case, I waste away my time, even when I have loads of stuff pending. Its during these times, that I seek for inspiration. When you are inspired, you try to do things better.

I get inspired by people,talent, determination, time management and clear thinking. Let me stop there, I am inspired by many more, but the above forms the base. The reason why I get inspired by these, is because I know these are the areas, where I can improve a lot. There are so much more I can learn in life, about myself, about people in general, learning something new and also learning how to balance everything in your life.

When you watch people, doing the impossible in spite of all the odds, its really really inspiring. At that moment, you would think, you have so much more to go in life. This does not mean you should kill yourself trying to do a lot of things at the same time, but it sure is enough to push yourself.  I believe you have to enjoy each day, because when you look back after 30-40 years, you want to feel that you lived your life, you gave it your all... it does not matter whether you are a winner for others, you should be a winner for yourself.

Stenciling

One of my friends painted on her bedroom wall with the help of a wall stencil. It came out so beautifully that I borrowed the same from her and decided to make one of my bedroom wall too.

Stencilling

It took me on the whole 4 hours to stencil and paint the picture. It spans over 6 canvases but still, it was very easy. I cannot take any credit of the drawing, but can take credit for the colors :)

What you feel now, is what you write now.

Believe me, I have been wanting to write something for a very long time. This blog has not seen a post for atleast a year now.Many thoughts did come to my mind. but I have been waving them away, because the time the thought strikes and I make a note to pen it down and by the time I actually pick up laptop to write them, the thought already feels, not having enough substance to write about. Eh??

The problem which I have observed with me is, the importance of a thought changes very drastically within my mind. What I feel now is not what I will feel about it in 6 hrs. And I refuse to write anything in a blog that I don't strongly feel about. I feel it is kind of unfair to write about a subject regarding which you felt strongly 2 days back and not actually at the time of writing. It is ok that I strongly felt about something and I wrote it down, and if my thoughts change later on with hours,months or years regarding the same.
So if I do check my blogposts, there is atleast 10-15 of them in drafts, which I just left in the middle, because I could not justify continuing on.. partly laziness to really think through it I could say.

So this one is a short one for the time being, because, if I think more about this, I might just have to leave this one in draft phase too...:)

Hi Dance!

Myself and Dance have come a long way.Its almost as if she is my best friend.I have tried my best to be in constant touch with her but I do agree there has been spans in life where I hardly communicated with dance.Well, after each such span, she has made sure that she makes me go through a tough few months before I speak her language fluently.

Our association started when I was 4 years of age. My parents decided to teach me dance and this was when we had newly shifted to our sweet home in HillGardens, Thrissur.  At 4, you really don't expect yourself to be too thrilled about learning anything seriously, and I was pretty non-opinionated when my parents decided that they should try my interest in dance. My mom was pretty sure that I had some interest because of the numerous times she has seen me swaying in front of the mirror with some song on my lips. Mothers!

I met my Sir. He was an 18 year old boy then whose eyes gleamed with passion for this amazing art form.But at that age, all I could think of is why in the world would a stranger want to come to my house, and try to teach me dance, when I was already pretty happy about my own choreography in front of the mirror.
Little did I know that what  I did in front of the mirror was nothing compared to what I was showed and taught later on.

I remember my parents took myself and Sir to the terrace and they sat around to see the first class.Their keen eyes were on each action of mine in front of my Sir, with my mom eying me to behave myself. I was so busy playing with Barbie that I had no interest in what ever was going to happen.

Sir gave me a smile and asked me my name and I meekly replied. Then the usual question, "which class are you in ?" for which I answered "LKG A".
Oh god, I have this new "cooking set" to play with, when can I get back to that?.
He told me we will begin and I was asked to bend down and get his blessings first. Once that was done, he told me it is essential to get blessings from mother Earth, before you stamp on her and he showed me a very interesting movement where he spread his knees and sat with only his toes touching the ground. I tried to imitate him, but was almost falling off on my butt. After we tried this a few times, he said for the first class this should be enough and ended the lesson.
I remember thinking that it didn't look so tough after all and has some interesting sways, so might as well do it the next time he comes home.

The next day, again he came exactly when I was playing with the new "cooking set" and I almost glared at my mom. Again the blessings were done and he said we are going to the first set of steps. Man! I had not prepared for this. Basically, you are supposed to sit with your feet spread apart and it looks like you are sitting on an invisible bench and keep stamping your foot according to his tapping speed. And you just cant stand up from this bench and relax until the counts are done. And to my annoyance, Sir's counts were strictly 16 and with 4 speeds. Those of you who have learned classical dance, you would agree with me that this was the most dreadful set of days. I totally hated this as my legs pained and me,who is this plump kid almost had my cheeks red with exhaustion. This was too much exercise than I ever wanted.

The next week, he came again. The moment I saw him opening the gate, I ran to the bathroom and closed my door. My mom tried her best to get me out of the bathroom, but no way I was coming out. Finally, my dad, the super man came and told me sternly to get out. I came out with tears in my eyes. I remember Sir telling my dad that he would come another day to teach me. My mom convinced it should be fine, and sent me to class.
I was so upset, that I hardly listened to him. Fortunately, he was a patient man. If it was me in his place, I would have just left the house instead of putting up with a kid who has no interest. But he stayed. And to this day, I thank him for staying...and not losing hope..

He came regularly to teach me in spite of my tantrums of hiding in the bathroom and taught me the little I allowed in between my whining, and leg pain excuses. By the end of 2-3 months, we were done with this first set of tough ones and he started with hand movements. This looked more interesting, at least you had something to relate the so called "footwork" with. I did feel some connection now, because when you do movements with hands, you do feel you are doing something, there is something to show people. In my tiny mind, I started developing few theories about how I could do each step with little effort, much to my Sir's annoyance. He repeatedly corrected me patiently. But still I used to get away with few things here and there.

As the years passed, I started understanding this language better and I found myself really looking forward to the classes. Once a full fledged dance piece starts, you really are telling a story to the audience, so it makes it more interesting. Well, now I can appreciate a piece much more, but then, all it meant was that you have some story to think of, instead of just steps. And with story comes, parts where you can actually  catch some breadth;).


But even after graduating to more challenging pieces,there has  been many a time, when I did convince Sir to count the clouds in the sky, before I agreed to do one of the tougher ones. Yes, I know you must be thinking, "Poor Sir", he is the target of your sympathy now and I really do feel the same way too.


I had my share of dancing on stage, with school competitions, occasional temple performances and school events. And I want to thank my parents here. They have been there for every performance of mine, in spite of their busy schedules. I feel so happy when I think of this now, and I don't think I could have asked for anything more than their constant support from the moment they realized that I was developing interest in this. There was no pressure to be the best, and that I feel was amazing as it really allows you to enjoy what you learn with full freedom.

Thank you Dad, Mom and Cheri.

Years passed by, in the midst of exams and classes, I still managed not to avoid the dance classes, for two important reasons, one for the love for my Sir and secondly for the love for Dance. Through school, through college, I still kept in touch with this art, as much as I could, for the pure fact that I thoroughly enjoyed whenever I was involved in any activity related to Dance. I don't know when I realized that this was one thing which gave me great happiness and peace.

This time when I went back to India, I made it a point to visit my Sir. I went to his place, the place where we used to have our summer dance classes and where I used to run around and pick up the tamarind seeds dropped under the tree, the umpteen number of times Sir's mom has fed me,place where we had all our rehearsals. It was great. The place has changed a lot with Sir renovating the dance school and roads widened. The students have changed. I don't know any of the new students now.But I knew one thing that hasn't changed and  that was my Sir. The same passion in his eyes, the same patience, the same love. Felt really happy to have met him after a long time.

Now when I look back, I am glad, that my parents forced me into this, glad that my Sir patiently stayed along, glad that I made so many friends through this, and mostly glad that it gives me great pleasure and gifted me with a whole lot of amazing memories. I am not sure, how much time one would have to invest in this art form in future, but whatever it left me with was well worth not having played with the kitchen set for 3 hours a week :)

Below is a pic of my sir and his niece in dance costume

 

The 2 weeks of bachelorhood

This happened 6 months back and I had drafted this post then, but I completed it only today.

The title says bachelorhood, and I am a girl....contradicting? Well I am using the word bachelorhood, because I am not very sure if there is a word  called spinsterhood and even if there is, I don't like the sound of it. So sticking to bachelorhood.
 I am married  for almost 2 years now  and have been totally dependent on my husband for everything since the wedding. Its not that I have not lived alone before. I have, when I did work in India, Shanghai and also the initial one year I was in US. It's partly because I just don't want to grow up that if there is someone to make decisions for me, I just let them do that job. So when there were some visa issues when we went over to India in May 2010 and Sree couldn't make it back to the US with me, I was totally upset. Actually was paranoid about how I am gonna be alone at home without him and how I am gonna get things done. I remember, the first night I spent alone in the apartment, I cried.But, after the initial 2-3 days, I  actually got  adjusted.
Yes, there is this constant anxiety of how and when he is going to join me, or if plans are going to change and all, but the things I thought would be extremely difficult for me turned out to be manageable.

The comfort of getting a drop to cal-train station for commuting to work was no longer there. Thankfully my apartment was next to the cal-train station, so I walked to the station daily. It was a good one mile walk, but fortunately the weather was amazing. And after a few days it became a routine. After reaching back home, generally either me or Sree usually take turns in cooking( ok, I agree, most of the days its him), but now I hardly bothered about cooking. I just browse channels, do some pending work or surf the net and and then go to sleep. Time just flew. Also during weekends, I  packed my bags and went to my friend's place and stayed over there for a day. She is an amazing cook, so yummy food was always around. And everyday I had constant phone calls with Sree to catch up on all the news. I also did a good amount of driving as there was no other option. So ya, situations just force you get out of your comfort zone.Well, after around 10 days, though I was doing things my own, I just wanted him to reach back soon to get back to my comfort zone.

After two weeks, we heard back from the consulate and he could travel the following week. Was pretty much thrilled and I don't want this to happen ever in my life again. I don't mind not having this space for myself.Still, I am happy that it made me realize that I can manage stuff on my own, even though some of it was hard initially. So next time he needs to go for an official trip, I am no longer worried as I know what it is like.