Universe at your feet

The idiom generally means if everything is going well and the future looks full of opportunity, you have the world or Universe at your feet! and then we have His footprints for Janmashtami drawn to show His arrival... the world full of opportunity and at our feet!

I was looking at other idioms on feet, atleast the positive ones.. land on our feet, find your feet, light on your feet, get your feet wet.. they all make me relate them to Krishna in some way!

My creed

                 

 

               

   

One in Many - Pointillism

Bharati triggered the thought.. (one of many to be truthful, she is like my muse now.. if you see a sudden increase in my Krishnas you know it is because of her!)

Seeing One in many - what better than Pointillism to prove the theory of vedanta! The dots all become Him..

Pointillism takes advantage of the way our eyes work with our brains. It is just a matter of tuning..

This was a quick sketch using my acrylic paint pens.

Churning of the Cosmos

It started with one canvas.. one ripple.. it got me thinking what could have caused the ripple. A drop of water.. one from many drops when the water was thrashing as Lord Krishna was dancing on Kaliya's head! And so I painted the next canvas with more ripples and the next had to have Kaliya to tell my story. If you see carefully, you will Krishna Himself.

And this is the churning of the Cosmos.

Feeling the Blues..

Everyday I feel His grace in many ways..To touch His hands and turn blue and unlimited....

 

Avatar 8.5

Avatar 8.5 was what my brother named this painting. At first I thought it was to do with the characters in the Avatar movie but then I realized it is Krishna (avatar 8) becoming Buddha (avatar 9) Mind-blowing ..I loved the name!! I had to paint the concept of Buddha playing the flute like Krishna but he is Krishna being meditative like Buddha. I worked this in acrylics and it evolved over 2 weeks. I added the lotus for Buddha and debated about adding a peacock feather and did not.. maybe at a later date.

Inspired by Keshav

Keshav is an AMAZING artist who I follow on facebook (obviously so does my beloved sister-in-law! as this request came from her to paint a similar Krishna like his!)


Both of these Krishnas are my adaptations from Keshav with a different touch :) One is with watercolor pencils and the second (Egyptian-like Krishna) is with acrylics and sharpies for the zentangle.





If you want to explore more of Keshav's work, please check out:  http://www.kamadenu.blogspot.in/

Lost in Krishna with Rumi as companion

"In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art." - Rumi

The moment i read this quote, i knew that one day it will come back to me when i draw Lord Krishna. And then when i sketched Krishna's lotus feet in a bed of flowers, there was a ecstatic feeling when the quote came back to me. Rumi's poetry then started me off on this journey of sketches. It was so amazing how each poem just blended so beautifully with each sketch.







"I once had a thousand desires.But in my one desire to know you, all else melted away" - Rumi

The concept of the Lord's hand alone reaching to take butter from pots of butter was mind boggling. This is by far, my favorite in the series.I had another view.. how jealous the other pots must have felt when He took pot from that specific special pot and not the others!

 "Love calls - everywhere and always.
We're sky bound.
Are you coming?" - Rumi

The flute represents being hollow and empty so that He can play His beautiful music through us. When the sketch of His hands playing the flute was done, i wanted to fill the empty white space around it. i went freehand with paisleys and swirls and went berserk with colors. Like dreams --- drifting.

 "I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home." - Rumi

The peacock feather - a symbol of integrity and beauty showing what we can achieve when we truly endeavor and show our true colors. And end up adorning His head. The colors were enchanting. To think I had 12 color pencils and still looks so colorful!

"You think you are alive
because you breathe air?
Shame on you,
that you are alive in such a limited way.
Don't be without Love,
so you wont feel dead.
Die in Love and stay alive forever." - Rumi

This was a simple fun sketch. His tiny dancing feet trampling our senses which sometimes go haywire without control was a joy to put in paper.

 "This is how I would die
into the Love I have for you:
As pieces of cloud
dissolve in sunlight." - Rumi

With rains pounding outside the windows, i could not but think of His little finger holding the Govardhan mountain protecting the Brijwasis from the great deluge.

"You are not a drop in the ocean.
You are the entire ocean in a drop." - Rumi

Ras lila - the dance that symbolizes the soul's unceasing struggle to break clear of the constraints of the body, to make contact with the supreme reality. And this abstraction is symbolized by the supreme reality personifying and dancing with everyone and everywhere where there is this intense longing for Him. The thought behind the sketch started with Radha's and Krishna's feet.and then the reflection with the multiple Krishnas with Gopis came with a spark.

Hide and seek with Krishna.. how He plays with me..

Krishna made me do this!                    I started on this project for Ram and Suma as they had wanted a Zentangled Ganesha but the flute just landed in His hands and the peacock feather just settled to crown His head! It was like Krishna wanted to be part of the art and wanted me to find Him in those lines. The paper was spray painted with blues and yellows - a leftover from an earlier project ;) I used black paint pens to fill in the details of this flute playing Ganesha..or a modak eating Krishna... Oh I Love Him so - the games He plays and the way He makes me smile.. no.. i am not losing it.. just gaining it ;)

A Burst of Colors in a Feather

We wandered into the Temple of 10,000 Buddhas in August (no, I did not add an extra 0 by mistake, it was 10,000 Buddhas and it was the most serene place ever!) and the campus was filled with peacocks. It is said Buddhists associate "openness" with peacocks since the birds display their entire plummage with pride and openness!! The beauty lingered in the mind and a few days back, a friend suggested an idea of Krishna and I wanted to do more of a symbolism rather than paint the Lord Himself. The peacock came back strutting into the mind and dropped a feather :)

I painted the peacock feather in bright hues with turquoises, cerulean blues, phthalo greens, violets and burnt sienna. Each stroke of the acrylic made the feather brilliant and vibrant and I completed it in 3 hours. The effect is beautiful from far and when one ventures closer, the squiggliness of the brush strokes are quite evident. I wondered later if the strokes could have been sharper and defined perhaps in oil or even with oil pastels; but acrylics have always been my first love in paints.

And then Krishna wanted to be obviously visually present there on the feather. Aditi suggested painting Him on the stem of the feather or inside the eye of the feather. But I added a 3D version by painting Him in black on cardstock, cutting the image out and you can see Him perched on top of the painting. To give you a sense of dimensions, the Krishna cutout is about 6 inches from toe to his peacock feather) I love this painting even more now with him playing His flute and it adorns our mantlepiece. May His flute music fill our lives...

A Playful Krishna

This one was easy and the effect is stunning. He is identified by a flute, a peacock feather and an attitude!! Vignesh may differ with this opinion as he questions me why I let people wonder what I paint! I would rather they wonder at what I paint :) Got it?

I cut Krishna's silhoutte in the black foam board (similar to what I used for my other Krishnas) and glued it to a Red Poster Board on which I used oil pastels to create a semblance of sunset ;)

The tree of Lilas

This series of paintings was a spiritual journey for me which I may not be able to explain in a blog or in conversation.








The painting with Radha on a swing was the second after the Kaliya-Mardana and it sparked an idea to use the tree as a continuing theme to connect the different Lilas of Bhagwan. So I followed it up with Krishna playing the flute with a cow lovingly curled around his feet. The tree was coming to the ground.




The other side of the tree is where Mother Yashoda tried to tie Him. It was a joy for me also to try tying Him. But as the story goes, it works when He permits and for those brief moments, it worked.




This painting of the peacock on top of the tree was a highlight as I played with the subject. Spot Krishna if you can on this painting :) I just could not resist it and that night I hardly slept with the thought of Him being there and only I knew it.

The entire series is on the wall- photo below. The paintings are on black foam with acrylics taped to the wall with painter's tape. So simple yet effective.

The tree will continue with more paintings added as days go by if He gives me the inspiration.

Krishna's lilas

After Krishna defeated the serpent Kaliya which had poisoned the waters of the Yamuna river, He danced on it's heads. What a dance that must have been!

I used a black foam board and acrylic paints to draw the Kaliya Mardana dance. I had outlined the drawing with pencil and as I proceeded, I decided not to paint Krishna's face and body. It is left to the imagination of the devotee. Close your eyes and you can see Krishna :)

This I hope is a beginning of a series. I already have a idea to paint on the similar black foam board, Krishna and Radha on a Swing, then Yashoda chasing Krishna....