Self portrait as someone else

This time the self portrait is to be painted as someone else. I decided to paint myself as a kathakali dancer. The makeup and head dress is very detailed. In this form of dance, a story from Mahabharata or Ramayana is told. The good characters have green makeup. The bad or angry characters have red makeup. The very bad or evil characters have black makeup. The holy characters have yellow makeup.
When I painted myself green, my daughters did not like it at all. But I enjoyed doing it.

Nirbhaya

Nirbhaya was a sensitive topic. We were supposed to make a painting based on an event. On December 2012, a girl was violently raped. She did not survive. I decided to make a painting in her honor. She was given many names by the public. I chose Nirbhaya as the title of this painting. I tried to keep a positive note.

The green boxes are the letters of the Rape. Respect for R and I used synonyms for Respect and continued with that thread for rest of the letters A, P, and E. I also wrote them in Hindi.
The big eye is the eye of the man, how he looks at a woman.
The big door is closed which means that there are several things that are still not open to women. The small door is slightly open, showing that there is hope.
Dresses modern and traditional. Girls like to dress in contemporary fashion, like to do makeup. But when incidents like this happen, then girls are blamed, and the society becomes more cautious.
Sports, education, cooking, Technology, everything a girl/woman is capable to do and should continue doing.
The face shows the despair.
The noose shows that severe punishment should be given to the rapists.
Each box is outlined with traditional rangoli borders. 

Wooden box painting

The theme was Day of the Dead. In my culture also we honor our ancestors. We were to get any box and paint all sides of the box except the inside and the bottom. I got the box from Michaels. Then we primed it. I decided to do the box in memory of my dad.

This is the front and top of the box. The skull is made of all the plants that my father grew in the farm. On the top there are rudraksha beads that he used to wear. The white lines represent the thread that he used to spin.

This side represented his love for travel. He used to travel a lot and appreciated the nature and its beauty. The yellow flowers are daffodils. He used to like the poem "Daffodils".

This side shows his love for his country, so the flag is there. He always welcomed guests and the flowers and mango leaves show that. There is generally a garland of mango leaves on the front doors. The yellow flowers on the side are cotton flowers and other flowers are Sonchafa.

His favorite cows are on this side.

The top part showing part of the skull.

Bike to School

Myself and my brother Atul used to bike to school together. This is the time when we were at Indore, India. We had a dog named Jenny. Every morning when we would start to go to school, she would break her chain and run after us. So we would have to come back home again and ask our mom to hold her so she wouldn't run after us.
This sculpture was very difficult and challenging. I had to make 2 bikes, 2 figures and try to balance them as well. The bike kept falling apart while I was making it in wax. The base plate is aluminum and the bikes and the dog are bolted to the base.

Series in memory of my Dad

For the final assignment, it was a free choice. I decided to do a series of paintings that involved memories of my dad.

He used to take walks in the fields. His dog would follow him everywhere. Whenever I was with him, I would join him too. The big tree is the mango tree where he had taken me and my daughters.

He loved cutting vegetables. Here he is cutting raw mangoes to make pickles. On the walls are his favorite rose flowers.

Another favorite past time was playing cards. He especially liked solitaire or patience. With my mom he would play rummy. There is a big swing in the front room and he used to sit there to play cards.

My dad was a follower of Gandhiji. He only wore Khadi or handspun cloth. He used to spin his own thread from cotton. In the painting, he is spinning thread on the charkha.

My dad loved his cows, calves, and bulls. He always insisted his workers to feed them green grass or leaves. During his walks, he always collected grass to feed them.

Self Portrait- Narrative

Time to do another self portrait. This time I decided to keep my glasses on. We had to include 2 things that related to us. I chose my garden with vegetables and jasmine flowers. Also I like to make Rangoli ( a welcome design done at the front of the door). On my shirt, I represented my family by their names. I like to play word games, so I made words from all of our names. I used Dorland's wax to create texture.

Planar - potatoes

The idea in this assignment was to think of an object in terms of planes. We used potatoes as the objects. It was tough to think in those terms, choosing a color palette. But I liked the end result.

Sound abstract

The objective was to visualize a sound and create an abstract painting. I chose the sound of the heartbeat. I visualized the shape as a circle and a line. I had some old bracelets of my daughter, which I used in this painting.

Still Life - Reflections

Another difficult assignment. The still life included variety of bottles with colored liquid in them. It helped me understand how light is reflected and how there are so many reflections.

Still Life - white

This painting involved a still life of white objects. The challenge was to add color, yet the objects should still appear white. Also we were given sufficient time to do this assignment.