Charcoal drawing of Evergreen Trees

Yesterday I had set aside some time to paint. Yet I felt very lazy to go downstairs where the sink is located to get water for painting. So I decided to do a charcoal drawing because all the supplies --two charcoal pencils, sharpener and eraser were nearby. My inspiration was this picture I saw in Hobby Lobby. For the foggy look I just rubbed a piece of paper all over the page after I drew the trees.

Supplies from Hobby Lobby

A few things I bought from Hobby Lobby recently. The painting book is $9.99 each but since it was 40% off I got two for $11.00. I bought an individual tube of green paint, a shade of green I did not have before. I think this green is different from the greens in the two painting sets I have. Two bottles from which I can pour water into the dish for painting. And a hello kitty crew socks. All this came to $19.00 and a few cents.

Tree with Dark Pink Flowers

I photographed this tree yesterday. I really like the color of these flowers. Flowering trees are so awesome. This time of the year there are many trees in iowa city with a ton of flowers.

Kuyil

These are pictures of a park I photographed two days or so ago in Iowa City. Just the fact that there are so many trees reminds me of some tranquil yard in a countryside in Kerala, India. My grandparents homes had lots of trees. Here is something I wrote about childhood memories of visiting my grandparents homes. I always noticed my cousins were so much closer to nature than me.

In Udayamperoor on lazy afternoons if we sit and listen we can hear a bird call. The name of the bird is kuyil. We can call back to the bird in a similar way. When we mimic the bird call, the bird responds and makes another call. We can again respond. And the bird will respond too. The frequency and speed of the calls gradually increases. Then suddenly the bird flies away. My cousin rubeena taught me this-- to listen carefully to the kuyil and respond to the kuyil. My cousins who grew up in Udayamperoor and Thyccattussery knew more about the mysteries of nature than me. During my visits they would share this knowledge they had with me. They knew the names of trees, they knew how to make aquariums with glass jars, they knew how to find saplings of cashews, they knew how to make home made henna, they knew how to make home made shampoo with the leaves of hibiscus, they knew how to cure irritation in the eyes with the juice of the parijata flowers, they knew how to feed chickens with rice, they knew to find the eggs laid by the hens somewhere in the backyard, the knew about butterflies and dragon flies. They knew that goats only eat the leaves of jackfruit trees. I was always amazed after interacting with my cousins. Milk from rubber trees collected in coconut shells, different types of shell fish washed ashore on the brims of paddy fields, to listen to the sound of the sea in a seashell shaped like a conch. It was so idyllic.

Clouds

I painted these clouds two days ago. I looked at a picture of a kid's drawing of clouds which I found in the internet to paint this. I was trying to paint a picture of a painting in hobby lobby. In that picture the clouds are round and billowy. But I was not able to get that look. So I searched in the internet and found this picture and painted it.

This is the painting I painted which had clouds that were difficult to paint.

This is the inspiration for that painting.

Character of the Shepherd and the Shepherd's son in the Winter's Tale

I jotted down these points about the character of the Shepherd and the Shepherd's son on March 10 this year. It is a collection of impressions about these two characters in The Winter's Tale

The shepherd is very noble.

When he saw an infant in the savage land he could have chosen to give the infant away to someone else or could be like the characters in the story of the good Samaritan who did not help the man in the street and he could have walked away from the infant thinking someone else would help.

Instead he chose to pick up the child and raise the child as his own.

He did a good job because Perdita grew up to be a good young person.

In the sheep shearing feast he encourages Perdita to play the part of the hostess.

This gesture tells us that he wants her to take leadership positions.

He is generous in praising her.

When Polixenes compliments her dancing he says she is good in everything.

Just as Florizell and Perdita are getting married he vows to make her an equal heir with his own son.

She is only adopted.

But he gives her full status as his own child.

For this he is willing to give the inheritance that is his son's to her.

Perhaps he does this because he feels she is a girl who needs his protection.

Or because he feels love for her because he raised her for all these years.

And she would leave him to be with Florizell so he could not bear to send her without giving her full inheritance as his child.

I also liked his relationship with his son.

Together they make the most hilarious twosome in the play.

They are so gullible and get taken in by every tale told them by Autolychus.

When they decide to tell the king that Perdita is not their flesh and blood the conversation they have is very funny.

The conversation they have with Autolychus shows how worldly wise they are not.

Finally in the end of the play they are made gentlemen because they are related to Perdita and their simple joy shows that their sincerity.

Only once does the shepherd get angry.

And that is a righteous anger.

It was when Polixenes gets angry at the engagement of Florizell and Perdita and threatens to punish Florizell Perdita and the shepherd and he scolds Perdita for liking a prince and for not understanding her station in life.

The Shepherd takes the initiative to go to the king and tell all about where he found Perdita so he could be saved from punishment.

The Shepherd's son is also a laudable character.

We meet the Shepherd's son in the scene where the Shepherd finds Perdita.

The Shepherd's son at this time witnesses a gory scene and the father says to the son you see things dying and I see things new born.

Then during the prep to the sheep shearing feast the Shepherd's son faithfully buys everything in the list given to him by his sister.

On the way he meets Autolychus who claims to be waylaid by robbers and he goes out of his way to help Autolychus.

He does this without realizing Autolychus has robbed him.

It was his idea to save his father by telling the king Perdita is not their flesh and blood.

He believed that once this was disclosed his father would be saved from the kings wrath.

He does not resent his father wanting to give Perdita a share in the inheritance although it would have made his inheritance lesser.

This shows that he does not have avarice and is willing to share.

He is excited to become a gentleman.

In the class ridden society that Shakespeare wrote in to become a gentleman is the ultimate social accomplishment.

When he and his father were made gentlemen he says that only after becoming gentlemen could he shed real gentlemen tears.

This shows that even a normal human emotion like crying is connected to your social status.

Although both the Shepherd and the Shepherd's son had no dearth of human emotions like kindness and compassion.

It was the person in the highest class the king Leontes who lost all human emotion because he was consumed by jealousy and suspicion.

He became so cruel that he banished a newborn to a savage land.

A few photos of Trees

These photographs were taken by me last week. I had to bend my head backwards to photograph these to get the upper branches and the very top of the tree.

I had edited and cropped these photos to give them the look of photos in flickr and posted a few of them a day ago. These are the same photos except these are unedited.

Avalosunda

I made this old world sweet yesterday. If you are a Malayalee, from the south Indian state of Kerala, chances are you have been served this traditional sweet called avalosunda at some point of time in your life. An avalosunda, a sphere or ball made with roasted rice flour, grated coconut, jaggery and a few cumin seeds is the hardest thing you will ever eat. Usually it is served on a plate over a small pile of avalose podi. Here is a very likely imaginary scenario when an unda is served if you are visiting a relative's house. "Please have," your relatives persuade you. "Ok," you say in agreement and you reach out for an unda. You put the unda in your mouth and bite. It is the hardest thing ever. "Ayyo you are not able to eat it? they smile. "Come, give it to me," they say. They bring a heavy metal spoon. The spoon is as heavy as a hammer and they beat the unda. The unda is unbreakable. They bring an actual hammer. They place a paper towel over the unda and hammer away. Finally the unda breaks into a few pieces. It is small enough to place in your mouth. The unda is soft only for a few hours after you make it. Within a day it becomes the hardest thing in the world. Other communities in India have their ball snacks. The laddoo, the coconut laddo, the rawa laddu and the besan laddu are all spheres. They are not hard at all. But the Avalosunda is the hardest. The ones I made were thankfully not very hard.

Photos of branches of Trees

I photographed these pictures yesterday. These branches are from a tree in the park. The color of the leaves is light green. It is nice to look at the sky through the network of the branches. I liked how blurry the last photo looks.

Poetic Genius and Imagination

The role of poetic genius and imagination in creating good poetry:

According to Samuel Taylor Coleridge (STC)the poetic genius or the ability to create poetry, sustains and modifies the images, thoughts and emotions of the poet's own mind.

The ideal poet, brings "the whole soul of man into activity."

According to STC an important aspect of poetic genius is the imagination. According to STC the imagination is a synthetic and magical power. It "diffuses a tone and spirit of unity that blends and fuses" disparate aspects in the poets mind.

This power first put "in action by the will and understanding and retained under their irremissive though gentle and unnoticed control it reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities", according to STC.

The discordant qualities that imagination blends are as follows. Sameness with difference

General with the concrete.

Idea with the image.

The individual with the representative.

The sense of novelty and freshness

With old and familiar objects

A more than usual state of emotion.

With more than usual order

Judgement ever awake

And steady self possession.

With enthusiasm and feeling profound and vehement.

And while it blends and harmonizes the natural and artificial.

At the same time subordinates art to nature.

The manner to the matter

Our admiration of the poet to the sympathy with poetry.

Finally, "Good sense is the body of poetic genius.

Fancy is it's drapery

Motion it's life.

Imagination the soul that is everywhere and in each.

And forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole."

All this info is from the Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Philosophical Definition of a Poem

Philosophical definition of a poem, according to Samuel Taylor Coleridge(STC): What is poetry in kind and essence? According to STC  a poem contains the same elements as a prose composition. 

The difference between poem and prose is caused by the different combination of the elements  because the aim of prose and the aim of poetry are different. The combination of various elements is a function of the difference of the aim of poetry and aim of prose. What could be the different objectives of a composition? The goal of a composition could be just to facilitate the recollection of given facts or observations by the  arrangement of words and the composition will be a poem because it is distinguished from prose by metre or by rhyme or both jointly. 

According to STC a composition that appears to be a poem because of rhyming words, while they do give a certain pleasure have only   a superficial form of poetry. Communication of truths-- either  absolute truths or demonstrable truths as in science or  recorded as in history could be the goal of a composition. I think STC believes that it need not necessarily be the objective of poetry. I think STC believed that communication of pleasure or pleasure is the goal of poetry. Other kinds of compositions such as novels can bring pleasure too. 

So pleasure is not the exclusive domain of poetry. Communication of pleasure may be the immediate purpose of works which do not have metre yet they are not poems but instead they are novels and romances. Can we add metre and rhyming words to a novel and make it a poem? STC's answer is that nothing can permanently please which does not contain in itself the reason why it is so and not otherwise. The definition of poetry that STC finally reached after these arguments is this:  A poem is that species of composition which is opposed to works of science by proposing for its immediate object pleasure and not truth. Also poems as a whole give delight and the distinct parts of a poem give gratification. When reading a poem the reader should be carried forward not merely or chiefly by curiosity or by a restless desire to arrive at the final solution but by the "pleasurable activity of a mind excited by the journey itself." STC also said that poetry of the highest kind can exist without metre and even without the contra-distinguishing objects of a poem. The first chapter of Isaiah from the Bible, "indeed a very large proportion of the whole book is poetry in the most emphatic sense yet it would not be less irrational than strange to assert that pleasure and not truth was the immediate object of the prophet." STC addresses the question of if a poem of a certain length is all poetry. STC says that the question What is poetry? Is so nearly the same as what is a poet? That the answer to the one is involved in the solution to the other. 

The question and answer in this post are inspired by the ideas in STC's Biographia Literaria. 

Painting about A Walk Through Trees

I completed this painting yesterday. This painting was inspired by a painting in Hobby Lobby. As soon as I saw this painting I remembered something from my childhood- staying in my grandmothers younger sisters house and my grandfathers younger brother's house which was nestled in a rubber plantation. Here is the painting from Hobby Lobby which inspired this painting.

I am posting this again because the post about this painting along with the writing is very long and hence does not show in my phone. Hence posting the painting and writing in different posts.

Painting that reminds me of a saree

I made this painting a few days ago. After I painted this I realised that these bright colors remind me of the colors of a kancheepuram saree. It is very difficult to paint a kancheepuram saree, I think. The colors are so exquisite and because it is woven with silk and gold threads it is very difficult to get that exact same gleam and shine of the silk and the gold. So I have a long way to go to learn to really paint a kancheepuram saree.