The journey of this painting began on 27TH October 2018. It was not just the day I started painting it but also my first snowfall experience. It has been a wonderful experience painting this and a lot of things happened in these 136 days! Right from finishing a semester, to travelling half way across the globe to see my family, to building a family here with amazing new friends and seeing nature at its coldest and its been a roller coaster ride!
Right at the top there is Om Symbol, which is called the Shabda-Brahman (Brahma as sound).It is there in order to seek his blessings, without which even a single stroke would have been impossible. Then the Snake primarily represents rebirth, death and mortality, due to its casting of its skin and being symbolically "reborn".
The Buddha taught that all forms of life partake of the same fundamental spiritual source, that he called the enlightened nature taught that peaceful minds lead to peaceful speech and peaceful actions and that’s why he is at the centre of my painting to try and bring peace to everyone who sees it and are around it.
History says that world's famous civilization Indus valley was established in India. Since then Indian art got influenced by different cultures . In simple words, Indian language, culture and religion have influenced Indian paintings. To know India in a better way, Indian artworks and paintings would be the perfect media
The major art form around it in the yellow and red are Warli art, a style of Tribal art mostly created by the tribal people from the North Sahyadri Range in India.The yellow region depicts it in their traditional way , where they depicted day to day activities.
The outer most ring of fishes are painted in Madhubani style,it is practiced in the Mithila region of Bihar and Nepal, it is also called Mithila Art.
The outermost blue region at the bottom has 10 Hridaya Kamalams. They are a type of kolams that are drawn to ensure success and wealth in front sacred places.
The inner most blue have peacocks, not just because it is such a graceful bird and the national bird, but because that’s Swapnasrushti!
The orange is more or less henna designs! Both the greens are filled with flowers and leaves because they have a language of their own.
Coming to the technical aspects of the painting , it is a 3-D painting, that works on the principle of micro-optics.The 3-D glasses exacerbate chromatic aberration and give the illusion of colors taking up different positions in space, with red being in front, and blue being behind.This concept was used to make micro films of prisms by US researcher, Richard Steenblik, who spearheaded the making of these glases along with the binary optics technique developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). So the credit of it being 3-D and looking good goes to these people who worked for years to make it a reality and certainly not me. Ofcourse credits go to ‘the world’s most versatile Artist ‘ – Leslie Thyagarajan, for showing me his paintings, that gave me an idea and later he guided me with the finer aspects of this style. And of course my parents deserve every credit for this work because without their support, encouragement and blessings this would have never happened. Maybe they may not do a painting this way but had it not been for them, I could never have done it. So a huge Thank You to you!
It is a 3 ½ X 2 ½ feet dimensioned painting, made purely of acrylic colours and Heavy body Acrylics, a new venture by Camlin, India. This painting has been a great company and it inspires me to do better.
Copyright © Swapnasrushti. Please do not pictorially edit or copy this work.
Thank you so much 😊
Dear Rakshi - I can clearly see such a great improvement of this art work moving from 'A scared partnership between spirituality and Art'.
Mixing different art form from different regions of India has also exposed your acceptance and openness to other culture - just like the country and people. It's a pity that I'm not standing in front of the original to appreciate it even better with a 3Dglass - it's truly an engaging and thought provoking piece of art. Looking forward to the next one....You have really made the parents and family very proud.
Thank you so much. Really happy that you liked it.
Rakshi - I absolutely love this! Your Essay is equally mesmerizing on how this painting became a reality on your "roller coaster ride." They say (in these parts - the cold part of the world) that the first snowfall of the year has magic in it - that don't matter how old you are in the future when you experience it again you will remember the smells, sounds, and the sights of when you first saw it. How ironic that you began this painting on your first snowfall and you captured the magic and beauty of home! Simply amazing!
Dear Chitra aunty , Thank you so much for those amazing words. 😊I’m really glad that you liked it. Well as of now I don’t know Kalamkari style and to the best of my knowledge, it is a machilipatlam style and is just penwork, that I never got a chance to learn! But, maybe in the future, why not ! Thank you again.