Portrait Art – Hats that women wear: Hat No. 2

Women wear different hats for different occasions and at different ages. The hats also change form on the basis of what society expects from them at a particular forum.

The hats that I paint are the ones that women wear inside, those that are made of the thoughts that crowd a woman’s mind – some of these thoughts are fearsome, others delightful; some are crazy enough to border on the loony, others are balanced and rational; a few of these thoughts must arise to meet the challenges that life throws upon the thinker, and many that are woven with the threads of the wearer’s dreams.

Here’s the second hat.

 

I leave the interpretation to my visitors as our past experiences could help each one of us interpret this hat differently.

Does this hat belong to you? or to someone you think you know well? If it does…you are right, because women don different hats at different stages and phases of their lives, and many of us have worn this hat too – not very willingly though.

The hats are still torturing me. They make me paint them…they steal my hours and my days, the time that must go into more productive affairs – and yet there isn’t much that I can do, except do their bidding.

Advertisement

Portrait Art – Hats that Women Wear: Hat No. 1

The hat is an odd accessory. For men, it’s utilitarian. It protects them from the sun – and that’s all that it means to them. For a woman, a hat is a lot more than a sun-screen – it is a fashion-accessory, an art-piece, a status-symbol, and for all these reasons a woman’s hat expands to an incredible size and becomes a weight that must be carried around carefully and sometimes unwillingly.

When I look at women in hats, I think of their heads and what must go within. I begin to wonder if the pictures in these women’s minds were to replace their hats, what kind of image would I see.

Here’s one of those images.

Figuring out the hat isn’t easy, unless you are a woman, or a man who understands women. The clues are in the colors and the imagery of the hat – and I’ve tried to hide them as best as I could – just as a woman hides her woes behind her smile. I know that tomes can be written about the burden that women carry but if a picture is worth a thousand words, every woman should find her story – in this hat or in those that I am yet to paint…because the hats aren’t allowing my imagination any rest – they creep into my dreams and they wake me up at will.

You’ve got a similar hat…but you’d rather not talk about it – would you?

The Caricaturist develops a hobby and goes to the Dark-side…

The folksy-folks aren’t going to like it one bit. The caricaturist they knew so well has gone to the dark-side. The dark-dorks are going to love me for it. They loved me when I drew Ozzy Osbourne and I know they are going to be super-pleased with me when they see the dark child of my artistic labor.

Among other things that I’ve been either working on or trying hard to work on, is developing a hobby. Developing a hobby is easy when you do mundane stuff all through the day and you want a break so you do something colorful and interesting that relaxes you – but when all you ever do is scribble, draw, paint, write, and doodle….you’ve exhausted all that’s colorful – so either you must do something terribly boring for a hobby (Cooking and cleaning?) or you must stretch one of the things that you do to a point where it becomes even more colorful…and then you do it without the pressure of meeting deadlines.   I chose the second – and I painted flowers – then I moved to painting houses…

And the best part of hobby-drawing is – you don’t have to show it to anyone 🙂 So…no links!

Wowie!

PS: I’ve acquired this hobby recently, and like a newly acquired puppy, my hobby needs to be trained – it must understand that I cannot indulge it whenever it fancies – but until I am able to train it…I must give in, so I must return and complete the witch-house that I am painting 🙂

Caricature Illustration: Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson for the TBP Magazine.

Last month I did a full-page inner illustration with a caricature of the Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson for the May/June issue of Talk Business and Politics Magazine. It accompanies the feature article “82 Days At The State Capitol” by Steve Brawner.

Here’s the illustration.

The Drawing/Painting Experience:

Right from the beginning, the concept pulled me in. I like to draw animals and I love to experiment with angles (a three-fourth view of the human face is far more interesting than its side-profile,) and perspectives (the illusion of depth). This artwork promised to enthrall me on all counts. To make matters more interesting, this artwork had to be loaded with tons of information. It was supposed to encapsulate everything that Asa and his team focused upon, since they got down to work some three months ago. My job was to figure everything in, without compromising the integrity and the aesthetics of the artwork.

The objects that are being flung around the state capitol building, present the story: the spying drones, the ten commandments, the urine samples from the homeless (trafficking of clean-urine? What is the world coming to?), gay-marriages, cursive-writing/computer-coding in schools (cursive writing has been made part of the curriculum in Arkansas schools – thank god for small mercies!)…and so on.

All this and the Caduceus, the dollar-plant, the task-force carpet…and of course, the trundling Capitol Hill building…they all add to the dynamics of the scene.

Now I must don my writer-hat and return to my writing desk. The Caricaturist has evolved, the Cartoonist is next in line 🙂

Kentucky Derby, The American Pharaoh, and Jimmy Fallon’s Puppy Predictors!

Saturday was a big day!

1. Floyd Mayweather beat Manny Pacquiao in what is being called the “Fight of the Century.”
   
2. Kate Middleton and Prince William had another child, a royal baby girl, which is now fourth in the line for the British crown.
3. The American Pharaoh won the Kentucky Derby, an event that was accurately predicted by Jimmy Fallon and his super cute pups on the Tonight show!

Without contest, the third news-byte is the best! A dog predicts the outcome of the Kentucky Derby a week in advance? Now that’s something, isn’t it? How many astrologers got it right? I have no idea, nor am I interested in finding out. All I am going to do before the next Derby is watch Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show and hope that he and his pups repeat their performance.

Come to think of it – I always liked Jimmy Fallon. In fact, since after his recent astrological feat, I have begun to like him better than Jay Leno.

The Kentucky Derby winner American Pharaoh…or not.

If you haven’t seen the video of the predicting pups, you’ve missed something; and if you had watched the Tonight Show with the predicting pups and failed to act on their advice, you’ve missed a lot! I don’t really want to rub it in, but just think about it…if you had taken the pups seriously…you could’ve struck it rich. Perhaps not as rich as Floyd Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao, who despite losing the fight, goes home $200 Million richer; nor as rich as Kate Middleton and Prince William who takes home another royal baby – but rich enough.

Readers, we’ve got to take pup-predictors very seriously. This evening, I am going to use my month’s savings to buy my dog a silk cushion and a crystal ball. What are you going to do?

PS:

Speaking of the royal couple, I am reminded of the caricature that I did for the royal couple (seen here on this royal wedding invitation card.) Oh…I suddenly realized that it’s been just four years since their wedding…and they’ve already produced two additional heirs to the throne. A couple of hardworking royals…aren’t they?

Invitation for the Royal Wedding – 2011

I’ll see you again…with another work that I did recently…until then…get serious, watch some pup-predictors, and make money!