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.