People and more people

I have never in my life painted so many people. They are not very detailed but still, they have to look right. I have a couple of references, I was lucky that I took so many pictures the last time I was in Kashmir at the Havan (fire ceremony) and those come handy now because of course, I want them to look like they are people from the area. I am not sure if I am very good at it though, they seem to end up looking like they are coming from all over the world, which is not too bad either. Abhinavagupta, after all, was well known in his times. I even have some Japanese looking girl in there. Oh well, so be it.

acrylic on wood board, 4 x 4 feet

I finally got some space and time to myself for painting today, which is a very rare item in my life at the moment, so I am especially grateful for it. I had the whole day of solitude. Well not exactly because the morning kind of got eaten up mostly by washing clothes and breakfast and there was life going on outside the closed door of the room but I could focus almost entirely on painting, and it showed, I think. It seems to disrupt me and stop the flow of painting when people walk in and out of the room and stuff is going on all around me. I don’t do well with that. Some people might thrive on it, I don’t. So I am happy, with my day and with the result.

Oh, and tomorrow is our master’s grandmaster’s (Swami Ram) Mahasamadhi (time of leaving the body), so we are going to have a fast all day (“only” french fries and dairy, no grain!) and a feast of Kashmiri dishes in the evening. Yummy!

PS. Swami Ram was the one that made the birth of our spiritual teacher possible by giving an almond to his mother so she could conceive a boy. Here is a painting I did of the event of the birth and him dancing…