Day 5 of 10 - I do have my own Art Guru...

A mere copy of Uttam's original painting
Poster colors on Paper (8" x 10").   

Back to 1988...

After a couple of years exploration of watercolor painting for the material and resources, I finally found a resource and met my Guru as well.

Andhra Bhoomi Telugu weekly magazine - My best resource at that time

Seriously, Andhra Bhoomi Telugu weekly magazine was my best and primary reference and resource for learning Watercolor Painting. Those were the years that Telugu weekly magazines enjoyed the best weekly circulation numbers and market share of all time. A new generation of young male story tellers and writers changed the world of "Telugu novels". They brought in new wave, taking away readers' minds from imaginary world into a new world of thinking. పాఠకుల్ని ఊహా లోకం నుంచి ఆలోచనా లోకం వైపుకి మళ్ళించారు.

The new interestingly innovative way they narrated stories by making readers to think clearly put an end to an era, and started a new era. "Andhra Bhoomi" weekly magazine was the front runner in the new era. It was so popular, and would get sold-out by the same-day-evening after hitting the market. This was the case every single week in every single town in AP state. Some of the writers' names I still remember are: యండమూరి వీరేంద్రనాథ్ గారు, కొమ్మనాపల్లి గణపతి రావు గారు, సూర్యదేవర రామ్మోహన రావు గారు. With the new thinking wave, came in the new illustrators and artists. "Andhra Bhoomi" also had the best-in-class artists and finest illustrators of all-time.

Back then, I wanted to paint like those artists, and I had no reason to give up...

Found my Art Guru - Uttam Kumar (ఉత్తమ్ కుమార్) 

పేరుకి తగ్గట్టే ఉత్తమ "పెయింటింగ్ ఇలస్ట్రేషన్స్" వేస్తూ తెలుగు పత్రికా లోకంలో కొత్త ఒరవడి సృష్టించిన ఆర్టిస్ట్. His mesmerizing and beautiful paintings printed mostly in black and white every week, and occasionally in color in Andhra Bhoomi weekly became my weekly Art lessons. The magazine became my study guide and Uttam was my teacher in there. I was his sincere student observing, studying and practicing every little detail, every single painting, and every single week for a couple of years.

His paintings pulled me into watercolor painting in my second-year of four-year Engineering College. I first started learning painting by copying his paintings. I copied and reproduced quite a few of his works that looked exactly like his originals. Copying is in fact the best way to do a deeper study of masters in Art, especially when you are learning, you must at least try to copy some masters' works. It helps a lot in the initial period before you find out and meet with your own style. I would say, never be afraid to imitate the style of an Artist you admire, that is the way you learn the best.

I continued learning from Uttam's paintings rest of my college years. After that suddenly his illustrations and cartoons started to slow down and disappeared from the magazine. I was wondering "why" for quite sometime. One day I cam e to know when I went to meet సికరాజు గారు (సి. కనకాంబర రాజు) Editor of Andhra Bhoomi in Secunderabad Deccan Chronicle office (will share those details on some other time) that he went to USA to work in Hollywood. After 2 years or so, I read a 3-page article about him in Andhra Bhoomi weekly. I came to know little more details that he settled in Hollywood working as an Art Director for Steven Spielberg, and was the only Indian artist working among 70,000 employees. I felt both happy and sad, happy that his talent took him all the way there, sad I didn't get a chance to meet him. Then after I came to USA, I searched internet (before Google era) a lot to find any details about him and found nothing. Even now if you google, you will you will not find much.

Mighty Hanuman (a comic book series)

I am not sure how many Indians had seen this comic series that Uttam painted for and released  probably only one in the series before he left for USA to work in Hollywood. That was one of the best I had seen in my life. I bought a copy and I still have it. It has hundreds of his wonderful Hanuman paintings.

I was fortunate

I was happy one day to see Uttam's comment on a drawing that my son Bhuvan did which I posted on his little blog. Here is the link: http://bhuvan-arts.blogspot.com/search/label/Uttam. That was one of the happiest moments in my life. I sent him an email and got a reply. I was going on vacation to India and shared my contact number in India with him. He did call me and even talked with Bhuvan. It was a very precious few-minutes-of-time in my life for me. I was very fortunate.

For many years his paintings remained the main source of reference for me.  Later on, I continued to draw and paint once in a while, but slowed down a lot as life put me on the fast-track to keep running for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I completely stopped doing any Art in between several years, in that phase for almost 20 years.

Testing abilities

Having the fire-of-desire inside to learn anything is only a thing, but letting it out and taking it for a ride to test is's abilities is something and the main thing. One needs right kind of resources and opportunities to test one's own abilities.

ఉత్తమ్ గారి ప్రభావం నా బొమ్మలపై చాలా ఉంది. ఆయన పెయింటింగ్స్ చాలా అందంగా ఉండేవి, ముఖ్యంగా ఆయన పెయింటింగ్స్ లో తెలుగు అమ్మాయిలు ప్రత్యేకమైన అందంతో కనిపించేవారు. ఆ ప్రభావమేనేమో, పెయింటింగ్ అంటే "అందం" గానే ఉండాలన్న భావన నాలో బలంగా నాటుకుపోయింది. అందంగా లేని పెయింటింగ్స్ నన్ను అంతగా ఇంప్రెస్ చెయ్యలేవు, ఎక్కువగా ప్రభావితం చెయ్యలేవు.

In Art, I always look for one word: "Beautiful",  before I look for anything else. 

The Painting I shared in this post is merely a copy of Uttam's original painting. This one went on for display on our college literary-club-news-board just for a couple of days.

I have been a self-learner in Art. But I do have my own Art Guru and I am his Ekalavya sishya!

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