Day 7 of 10 - My experiments in Art...

Pooja Bedi - 1991
Poster colors on Paper (11" x 14")    

Experiment leads to discovery, and discovery leads to invention. An Artist goes through this process of natural phenomena if continued to experiment with Art for a longer period of time. I had gone through this process in my own way for many years. Now, when I go back and look into my early years of drawings and paintings, I do discover my experiments in many of those.

Back to 1991...

Change is always good. With change comes new energy, new ways to experiment, new opportunities to explore, new experiences to go through, and new knowledge to gain. There is no better place than "A Home" on earth. That statement holds good even for experiments. Home is where we live and our life is deeply connected into.

After my college, we moved to our new home in Janata Pet; Kavali, leaving away all my childhood Art memories at that rented home we lived in for 10 years, of course I did carry with mr in my (he)art. Till then, I used to come home 2 or 3 times a year, for every school/college vacations. Soon after I finished my Engineering, I got into my first job and used to come to my home in my home-town, Kavali for only Sankranthi festival or for any special occasions. All through those years, our home was my Art place for many of my Art works, and my vacation was my full-time art period.

My experiments...

This painting of "Pooja Bedi" was done during my short Sankranthi vacation at our new home in Kavali. It was based on a picture I found in a 12 page picture-wall-calendar, I think it had 12 different poses of "Pooja Bedi" exclusively done for McDowells Ad. This one inspired me to experiment with the same opaque "poster colors" that I used to.

Till then I used to leave all the space around a portrait untouched. I started experimenting by adding different kinds of backgrounds. This one was first-of-its-kind with horizontal lines. Later I extended my experiment to few more paintings by adding a similar background of stripes, in different angles, with different widths and spaces in between. Interestingly some came out very nicely and helped the subject to stand out.

I didn't know any of art vocabulary like composition, value, subject, stand-out etc, and knew nothing about standard sizes. Unknowingly, I was trying to make my subjects stand out in this by adding some kind of background. Also interestingly, the size of this Painting was done in a standard size of 11" x 14", my own cut-size for this particular painting. I used my then favorite "Ivory Board", a wedding card thick paper for this. That paper used to come in large standard watercolor paper of size 22" x 30", called "full-size" (learned this standard word used in watercolor painting, few years ago). I used to cut paper into the size I'd like to, no standards. I still remember, sometimes when I did not have a scale/ruler handy, I used to make my own by folding a newspaper, several folds, and used to use that to cut the paper or even for drawing any straight lines.

I also started to get some of my Paintings framed around that time. I remember my search for a good framing shop in Hyderabad. After enquiring and searching a lot, found a framing shop in Abids along the road of CHERMAS, and one more in Kachiguda near the railway station. I got this painting laminated in a thick plastic paper at Sangareddy, my first-job-place. This was the only painting I went for lamination. Don't know why, I guess I was experimenting with ways to protect and hang my paintings onto walls. Also, I guess, I could afford as I started working. ;)

Change leads to experiment, experiment leads to discovery, discovery lead to invention and invention leads to innovation.

Be changing, experimenting, discovering, inventing and innovating...