Art and Painting-A lost passion.. found

This picture has a bit of a story. I was on an official tour near a small town in Ajmer. I had to stay there for a couple of months for completion of a project.

It all started when I went to a local shop to buy some stationery items required for official purpose. There, I spotted a “Camel artists’ water colour” tube set. It took me down the memory lane to my school days when I used to buy a new colour set or any stationery items and how excited I felt about it!

I was passionate about drawing at a certain point of time in my life. Last time I had painted something was somewhere around 2001. After that, my colours dried up. Thereafter, I never got a chance to paint.
I immediately bought the colours with a firm determination of using it in some way. And it is pretty boring to be hooked to the cell phone for everything.

It is worth mentioning here that, for entertainment purpose during our official tours, a cell phone (read: Smart phone with a fast internet connection) is pretty much the only available option.

So, during one of my ‘binge’ sessions, I was watching a series called ‘Stories by Rabindranath Tagore’ in Netflix. This particular scene of episode no. 2 caught my fancy so much that I instantly decided to put it down on paper (at least try!).

So, I started to sketch the outline of the scene. I could not finish the painting during my tour as I got busy winding up the project. This drawing took me about 10 hrs of time, spread over a year.

The credit goes to my ‘better half’ for constantly inspiring me to complete it. She felt in love with the drawing before I even started colouring it. Her constant support boosted my morale and so I could finish it. I used mixed medium, majorly water colour, with acrylic to draw the shadow and textures. And finally, black hi- tech point pilot pen (my fav part ).

The painting came out quite well almost as I had expected it to be. I think I could maintain the basic perspective of the scene in an animated way.

I added some of my imaginations in this painting. The colour scheme here is my own. Certain details are from my childhood memories and my love for nature which got expression through my brush.

I would like to draw your attention towards the right side of the picture, which was filled with shadow in the original scene. It was too dark for my liking (the truth is that I cannot draw shadows properly yet!). Hence, the detailing.

There was a spot beside the stairs which looked kind of empty. So I drew a small cupboard from my memory which interestingly is still present back home. The cupboard is very memorable to me and my siblings because of two main reasons.

Firstly, it was there at home from before I was born and I have seen it my whole life. Secondly, it was the store house of all goodies like cookies, sweets, nuts, milk powder, sugar etc. which had to be kept under ‘lock and key’ 😀

So all in all this was an amazing experience recreating this scene and all my friends/colleagues who saw it loved it. So, I am happy😊.
I dedicate this to all the actors/ producer/ directors/cast & crew for weaving out a wonderful series from an even wonderful bundle of stories by none other than the legendary R.N. Tagore.