A Week of Art....

It has been an unusually fast paced week for me as the school hosted its annual Festival of Arts week and I hosted my second solo art exhibition at the Alliance Francaise centre. The Festival of Arts week at school is a celebration of visual arts, music and drama in which the school week contains workshops with local artists, music performances, talent shows, and finally ends with an artist's fair and the school play on the weekend. Between helping to organize the event, making the sets for the play and painting my final pieces for my art show...sleep became a nonpriority activity. But it was a lot of fun and definitely worth the effort ...all in the name of celebrating the arts. Here are some pics from the week:

From top: Face painting at the festival - butterfly; the artist fair held at school at which many different artists came to demonstrate their talents and sell their wares; me and the drama teacher preparing the sets for the play; a scene from "Into The Woods" - the school play; my grade 10 class standing in front their year-end art display of their works; Girls in Green - vicki, andrea and heather standing with my last art work for my show at alliance - a portrait of miss angel.; myself on the opening of my art show; a scene from the opening ceremony of the festival of the arts; a potter at the artist's fair; a scene from a particulary heavy monsoon rain on the streets of yehalanka.

Back to pastel...I wanted to keep my hand in the medium because I've been trying to keep a balance in my collection of the watercolour, pastel and acrylic paint that i've been learning with. However, i also though this portrait of jazz flutist and saxophonist, Eric Dolphy, would look best in this medium because I wanted the look of his portrait to be a bit dark and shadowy and I think that mood can be achieved by texturing oil pastel (like I did in the background colour) After finishing the portrait, I thought that the mood kind of reminded me of Marc Chagall and the colour he used in his paintings. Cloudy and velvety.

Another kind of portrait...Hugo hard at work in his version of a classroom.

Still painting....

This is my most recent painting i just finished...one of my favorite guitarists...Mr. Mel Brown. Thought I'd add to the collection as I have another art show coming up on the 24th of May at the Alliance Francaise of Bangalore.
http://www.france-in-india.org/en/article.php3?id_article=1757
(advertised on the web site of the french embassy in india....)

Did i mention its mango season?

The Infamous Goa....

Well, I thought i might leave india without seeing Goa...a place known for its portuguese cultural influences, resorts, and more than lax attitudes towards western customs...but me and Hugo up ended having our chance at india's playground last weekend. Turns out....the season was over, and there was a local, 3 day election in which the sale of alcohol was banned. So...the weekend was a quiet, relaxing one....still pretty good....

Relaxing on the balcony; me and my rented scooty-cum-dirtbike; a cooler path from the hut to the water; me enjoying the view of the ocean from our apartment; somebody's laundry...; a church on a lake; fishing on a sunday afternoon