Colours

She is Draupadi. I painted her yesterday. It took me five hours of paint brush and an almost three feet canvas to finish her. In the end, I felt very uncomfortable. Something about her straight hair, wide eyes, full lips and a workable nose made me uneasy. It was the first time I painted a full face. May be that was it.

I never sketch. I feel that it bounds me. The lines control the possibilities of what could have been. That's why I just paint. I love the vibrancy with which the colours overtake the dull stretched cotton, the way they amalgamate together irrespective of the relationship with each other, expressing without any complication the basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on. The most amazing thing about colours is that even though there are only five colours the combination of them create hues never seen. This reminds me of what Julia Cameron said, "Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite-getting something down." I believe that. Colours have this uncanny ability to bring out what is hidden in your subconscious and then follow those emotions till the time you get them right on the blank canvas. Its only then, I believe, one can keep the brush down. That's why I like painting. Its like colours have this possession over me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me. Like my mom always told me- "the true meaning of painting comes into existence when Colour and the being become one. That's when one becomes a painter." I am not an artist. I am a painter. Colours not only provides me with an assurance that even though I have brought to the surface my subconscious, my thoughts are still safe and free, flowing in whatever direction they wish to choose. May be that is also the reason I dislike giving names to my painting.

But yesterday, it came out all in open. Even though I didn't sketch, there was this huge set of questioning eyes that I painted and felt answerable to. As if they were asking, "Everything in your heart will flow through my eyes. How do you like it?" I felt I had painted my inability to speak through her closed lips and life tangled in customs through vermillion, nose ring and the pattern on her neck. I felt bound and held together. I felt betrayed. I kept the brush aside. With colours all over my legs and hands, I stepped a little away to have a better look. As I was looking at her, I realised my choice of colours. Her face was orange, her neck had a pattern. I thought hard. Fire. The word came to my lips. Fire has shape, an ever changing one. Did my painting has one too? I didn't know. So I turned off the bulbs, open the blinders and looked at it in the natural light. It looked more peaceful. I turned the bulb on, it looked aggressive. Yes like fire, I decided, "my painting, too, have a shape, an ever changing one." That's when it hit me. The colour, flowing hair, open eyes and the pattern on the neck which is supposed to be on the feet- its all against the tide, yet glowing- Draupadi. The colours have done me justice once again.