Several years ago, I used to paint a lot. I used to make at least one painting a week, if not more. This was mostly during my time in India and this habit dropped significantly when I got to Singapore. In fact, I have probably made about 10 paintings in the last 12 years. That's all.
But today, I had a sudden desire to paint. Something. Anything.
It all started because I couldn't fall asleep - there was the jetlag but also, it was one of those days when you feel your day had nothing incredible about it and that you have so stupidly wasted it completely. It was midnight and I was wide awake.
So I decided to rummage through the boxes in the store room to see whether there are any paints and brushes that are still surviving after all these years. And to my surprise, I found that there indeed were quite a few! I chose a box of water colours and few brushes, made a palette out of a plastic plate, managed to find a reasonable sized plain piece of paper, got a bowl of water and a rag, and settled down to paint.
And then I realized I had no clue what to paint!
Usually I would have a good idea what I want to achieve. Then I will start with a sketch before dabbling with the colours. But today, I didn't have the patience for a sketch. All I wanted was to splash the colours all over the paper.
So I did just that. I chose two of my most favourite colours - prussian blue and crimson red - and splashed them left, right and centre, over the paper. The result was very satisfactory, at least in my eyes. Prussian blue and Crimson red can never go wrong!
Then I added a few layers of colours here and there and soon realized that the "painting" is turning out to be nothing. I am not a fan of "modern" art where random splashes of colours are viewed in awe. I like some kinda structure and recognizable form in my paintings. So this splashing of colours soon lost their charm and I wanted to make it look like something.
After turning the paper this way and that, I figured that this combination of colours could still be made to look like something. And that something was to be the face of a girl.
So yes, in the middle of the night, from an inexplicable sudden urge to see some colours, I painted the picture of a girl.
And here it is...
It's not the best work of art in the world, but it made me feel like life had some meaning and that the day wasn't completely wasted.
After that, it was easy to fall asleep.
438 more to go.
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