There’s always a first time…

"Saturday- Sunday, Children’s Batch mein aana padega… chalega na?" My Sir asked when I called him up for enrolling. For a minute I was like "What? Children’s Batch? No ways!!" But then I had no other option. Weekdays it was not possible for me (and not for children either…since they have school) so it had to be on weekends!
I wanted to learn different forms of painting since long, but either I didn’t have time or lacked the required focus. Besides, I was getting pretty bored with the routine life. "Enough!!" I said to myself. "Mamta, this is the time. If not now then when will you learn it? Life is too short. Why don’t you pursue it right away? What are you waiting for?" To my surprise, an imaginary bell rang in my mind, and that very moment, yes, that very moment I had called up my Drawing Sir, and enrolled for the class!

"Finnnaaallly!!"said my ‘Antaratma’ giving a BIG grin! :)

Packed the material and off to classes!! Haha!! Felt like back to school. Ditto! Even when I entered the classroom - the sight - all kids ranging from standard 1 to 7 sitting diligently on the makeshift benches, engrossed in their artwork, some standing in queue to get it reviewed by Sir. Felt a bit out of place initially, as all faces turned to me. “Who is she? Our new Drawing Teacher or what?” seemed to be written on their face. After the initial discussion about the batch, duration, fees and stuff, Sir zeroed in on one of the paintings done by some Western renowned Artist and I had to replicate it exactly! Quite a task, coz the last time I remember working on a painting was almost 15 years back!


Now this is where I started missing my office daily activities. Firstly, 3 salutes to PHOTOSHOP :)God!!! Haven’t missed something so badly, lately, that I can write an essay on ‘Life without Photoshop’! Just as I started doing a rough sketch of the painting, I realized some strokes had gone wrong. My fingers searched for the virtual keyboard and wanted to do ‘ctrl+z’ and ‘alt+ctrl+z’! Then, I had screwed up the height of a bridge. It was proportionately bigger than the one in the reference painting. I wished I could do a simple ‘ctrl T’ and scale it down. My pencil became blunt in a while and I didn’t carry a sharpener. I wish I could decrease the point size by just selecting it from the tool palette. Sigh!! “Ohh! Phtotoshop where are you..I miss you I miss you I miss you!”

Finally after much hesitation I decided to borrow it from a little toddler sitting adjacent to me. He was so engrossed in his ‘artwork’ – looked almost like he is sleeping –his head on the desk, tilted, his hand holding a color pastel moving zig -zag on paper. May be that was his ‘ishtyle’ of coloring. ‘Budding Artist’ I tell you! But to my amusement or rather shock, he was painting the Penguin in ORANGE color! I felt like scolding him for not doing his ‘Content Gathering’ and directly starting with the ‘Development’. Did he have any clue what amount of ‘Re-work’ will that involve? "Hellooo!! Wake up Mamta! You not in office!" My 'Antaratma' yelled at me! "And please spare that poor baby.. he must be just 5!". Back to my 'senses' I quietly asked for the sharpener. He carefully took it out from a double sided, magnetic, Mickey Mouse compass box and handed it to me smiling proudly as if I had committed some crime by not carrying it! I couldn’t help but fall for his cute smile :)

The sketch was almost done. I virtually did a ‘ctrl +s’ and went to Sir. Now was the real interesting part that I had been waiting for! WATER COLORS! Wow! The enthusiasm of opening the freshly packed box and recalling all those colors by their shades - Ochre Yellow, Burnt Sienna, Cobalt Blue, Vermillion Red - every little thing was taking me back to school days! And the thought that I am going to use these colors soon was even more exciting!

"Yeh White dekh rahi ho.. this is not the color, it’s the light" Sir explained referring to the reference pic. "Tumhe bilkul aise hi white chhodke baki sab color karna hai. And remember water colors are transparent, so ekbar jo kar diya so kar diya, uske upar dubara koi color nai daal sakte". As usual I reciprocated with my eyebrows raised to maximum heights! "Kyaaaaaa?? Aur agar galti ho gayi toh?" He gave me a firm look and said, "Galti honi hi nai chahiye!" "Okaaayyyyy"I said to my self. Sir had told me a couple of things which I had somehow managed to jot down in my mind. However, just wished there should have been one excel sheet of his comments, where, as I do those ‘Changes’ I could have marked ‘Done’ against them!

"Enough!!" said my ‘Antaratma’. "Get a life Dear! You are missing more and enjoying less!" “. Quite right. Actually! I became serious. Slowly I started liking working within those limitations. Filling the color and carefully leaving the white, exploring the brushes, depicting darkness and light. (Wow! Am I turning a poet now? ;)) Soon got so engrossed that had almost finished a section of the painting. Now again was the turn for review. "Achha hai. Paani ka force itna nai chahiye. Par theek hai, feel achha aaya hai. Next time dhyan rakhna. Now we will start with the 'wash'". He explained me how important it was to get it right the first time. And the ‘wash’ has to be very quick! Remember - very quick! I went to my table, super confident, prepared the color, took a 12no. Flat brush, and started applying it zip zap zoom…. And Booooom! I fell short of the color and the one I had just applied on just around 1/4th of section, dried up before I could count 1 to 10! I prepared the mixture again and re-applied it. It was not getting any better, in fact it started looking patchy. I was like "SHITT!! Now what?" I badly wanted to close the file – save changes –no! Went to Sir, like some student not doing the homework. I thought he will yell at me. But to my relief nothing like that happened. Though he told me to be careful next time, but also said that it’s ok, this is your first time. This is how you will learn. He showed me how to correct it. Though it won’t be perfect, but still nice! :)

Finally, I completed my first water color painting! It was a great feeling of accomplishment that I can’t explain in words. How much ever one may miss the powerful hold technology has in one’s daily life, but the joy or sheer pleasure in something handmade is ANY DAY superior! Hands down! Meanwhile was just looking at the painting and wondering, "Isn’t Life just like this painting? Initially you so excited, but sometimes things go wrong. You want to ‘undo’ certain things but it’s just not possible. Then you realize this is how you will learn, you will grow. You may not have all the things to mend it back to place. But there will always be someone around to guide you, to make things better. It won’t be perfect, but it will be still nice. Just like this…:)"