Under the Sea...Under the Sea...

From the Depths of My Heart's Ocean

So, its been a couple of weeks since I painted. Well, it took that long for my brain to communicate to my hands what was hidden deep inside and my "voice" to articulate it properly or not. Both are possibilities.

The colours swirled
In my mind's eye,
A lush dark green
Effortlessly transforming
A gentle blue into
A beautiful turquoise hue.

With the mild toss
Of  the time-turner
I find myself
Under the sea
Where the fishes
Were chosen to be.

My mind's eye
Saw the light,
Its caressing play
To coax the peace
Buried deep in my heart out.

The light spoke,
"Mind's eye, you must see,
The purple comfort within thee."
Twilight nudged me,
And I knew
The Dream was soon
To be seen.

A splitting headache, nudged awake from a light slumber and one hour later, the dream is being seen. :)

Brushes or Fingers???^.o

Loopy Loops

Its a strange feeling working in a room with a very high ceiling and in a warmer environment but the part where it was the middle of the night suited me just fine.  The craving was for the glossy shine of my gooey oil paints but since I was travelling last week with all kinds of things stuffed in my bags I refused to put myself to the torture of potential broken bottles of linseed oil and turpentine. Medium of inevitability - acrylics; but actually I was also excited about exploring this new medium. I started out with a brush in hand making the circular patterns seamlessly engraved in my head thanks to the thought of shells at the beach, the probability that a snake's going to turn up behind me while I chatter away on the phone and the fact that my brain is in a tizzy with excitement to start my French classes. Well, patience wore itself out while I detailed each brush stroke into the top bit of my painting. The "bloodlust" (in this case means the inability to stifle the urge to stick my fingers in the paint and smoosh, twirl, swirl, slap, slide...it on the canvas) took over. The paint dried so quickly that I couldn't indulge with the paints as much as I usually do with the poster paints. But I knew the loops in my head had a lot of heart and that's what I wanted to put out there. Lazy days, rest and relaxation and now I'm ready for 'What Comes Next...' Its time to mix it up before the paint dries. :)

A Spirit in my Bubble...?? o.o

Gaia

I remember watching Captain Planet when I was younger and thinking to myself what would the five elements(earth, wind, water, fire and heart) combine in colour other than the rather alien looking Captain Planet himself. I think finally its all combined into colour and I have no clue where it came from. All I know is somebody other than my inner "voice" said, "More Colour" and it appeared. Maybe it was working out in the pleasant afternoon sun on the balcony ledge, or maybe it was security I felt from the blue skies and white clouds who played peek-a-boo with Mr. Sun all afternoon, or perhaps it was the warmth that I felt from this hot ball of fire in the heart of the Milkyway. There are only hints or clues which do not answer but further intrigue my desire to explore the depths of my medium.

Gleam? Sparkle? Wonder? Reason? Choice?

Sparkly Reason

It boggled my mind again, this inner "voice" of mine. Constantly flashing colours, images, memories and thoughts. But the funny thing was, they were articulated towards one word that wasn't revealing itself. So I picked up a canvas, emptied out half a bottle of crimson poster paint on it, turned on the music and let my hands do the talking. Immersion was not instant but I knew as all my paintings do it would develop in its own time. Circles became curved crescents and those familiar rushes and then with a single move of my hand it was all gone in an instant. It occurred over and over again until my mind and hand agreed on what had resulted in their collaboration. As the paint slowly dried over the thinner areas, the word took form. 'Reason'. But the word did not fully support the piece. Every time I look at it I feel a sense of 'wonder' about everything around me, the clouds in the sky, the sound the patter of rain makes and the feeling that even when you feel like you're boxed in something always creeps up and there's more than one path to choose.


"Like a little child
With a sparkle in her eye
Her mind's window opened
To this crimson world's gleam.

Choice she heard, in one ear
Must be your own cheer.
Yet a craving she felt each night
To voice what she feared.

Then it was revealed
Wonder and reason must combine
For she would gain from it,
Something divine."

Expanding the Bubble...

Finding the Centre...

The urge that drives me paint often feels like the steam that builds up in a pressure cooker. But somehow, it slowly flows out like a tap dripping water creating a puddle. A puddle of paint on what seems to be growing canvas. And the "voice" at the back of my mind directed me away from the calm blues and led me to something more. It wasn't just about the creation of fluidity and movement but finding the whats underneath the smooth texture of the oil paint itself. The overlapping colours and the way they blended into each other were revealing the ever thinning layering of every moment in time itself. How every little thing matters but how it all has an origin.

Finding a Bigger Bubble...

More than two months passed before I picked up the paints again. The urge to paint was incredibly overwhelming but there was always something or the other standing in my way. I felt like I had regressed and needed a pick me up. I delved off the inspiration of my first monochrome painting, 'Touch' and the fact that the second one 'When Green turns out to be True Blue' was actually that I emptied out most of my poster green paint onto the canvas board. Working with my hands and poster paints with the music on sent me into a trance like state which even had me jump out of my skin when my dad came to speak to  me. :) An hour and forty five minutes later, I had this.

From the Rushes...

Every time I look at this piece, it gives me a sense of renewal, like a phoenix rising from the ashes or a child peeping from behind the rushes with a sparkle in his eye.

For the fascination that I had like the little child that appeared to me in my mind, when I did this, it just wasn't enough. I wanted to add more colour, I felt the need to intensify the next one. But one thing that stuck in my mind were the words 'Flow' and 'Fluidity'. It became my expression of how I have come to sense everything around me blended with the peace of mind I feel inside.

Finding the Flow...

While the big bold textures and hues of From the Rushes brought out one side of me Finding the Flow allowed to me to delve deeper. And more of the urge to be bold again was to spill over derived from the queer sensation that a purple sunrise instigated in me. 

Midnight Blue in Purple Sunrise

When one medium isn't enough...

Thoughts, patterns and motions embed themselves in the back of my mind constantly. Although I never know what they would emerge as, everything I sensed i.e. heard, saw, smelled, touched, tasted and felt always influenced the outcome. I found a friend in oil paints, its stifling smell of linseed oil and turpentine and all. The paintings that followed my textured paintings had all that I sensed, from listening to Paddy talk about water habitats to the way I felt conflicted and safe at the same time to watching the sun trying to peek out at down from behind the cumulonimbus at dawn. Colour has become my language and the brush strokes my words but the intensity of the unknown that lies beneath the surface has baffled me.

Fire and Ice??

Fishy Business

The Morning's here...

      

And the winds of change blend the windmill of colour...

Paper wasn't enough anymore... I needed more. Brushes were no longer enough. Patterns emerged in my mind and they wanted to be spilled out onto something more. Something that would endure longer than just sketch pad paper.

What got me to these textures and hues? Its been the constant movement of my mind in rhythm with the music that floats in the room while I indulge myself in the gooey texture of poster paints. Over the next few months, shades, tints, pattern, texture became all that mattered to me.

The layers and layers in each painting revealed more and more of myself and dared me to move beyond what I knew how to do.

Safe and Sound

Touch

Sunset Breeze

  

When Green Turns into True Blue 

Bubble Bubble...

A trip down memory lane always brings to light a new beginning. Way back when (that would be about 12 years ago) I sat in the doorway to a grill enclosed tiny balcony and painting quite a realistic hornbill. Where the painting has gone... God alone knows. It isn't the painting itself that brings me back to this memory...but the urge inside of me that burns to smear paint on my hands or pick up a brush or sponge and create fine strokes or dab in circular motions or simply feel the coolness of the paint on my hand when its mixed with water. Although the urge to continue to create was constant and the medium changed over the years several times, it is the combination of the media that has led me to be able to use colour as a form of expression.

What words cannot do, the language of colour does far more.

Painting itself was tucked far behind at the back of mind for quite sometime but it never stopped me from using words to express myself or keep the juices flowing by sketching in every book and in every corner. Over a year ago, I was at a desk job craving for a catharsis and definitely a deep need for a creative outburst. The catharsis I'm not so sure about but the creative outburst was a definite yes.

Hence I commenced once again, brush to paper, to find my centre and to feel the rhythm flowing through my mind, flow through my fingers and show itself in colour, texture and pattern.