Tag Archives: artist

Book Review: ‘Think Like An Artist Don’t Act Like One’ By Koos De Wilt

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I am not sure whether I understood the the book Think Like An Artist Don’t Act Like One by Koos De Wilt correctly. The title seems to suggest aspiring artists not to consider their art merely as a set of skills or their profession, instead to inculcate an artistic mindset and lifestyle so that everything one does has an aesthetic or an artistic element in it. I was sure that this is what the book is about and that it would be full of motivating, inspiring and stimulating passages that would keep the creative fire aflame within me. This is important because in arts, like in any creative pursuit including science, it is very common to succumb to monotony and lose interest or initial vigour. Thus, any words of encouragement and inspiration are always helpful. I wonder how far would creative people go when left only to their own inner fire, without any encouragement from outside.

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Book Review: ‘All The Colors Of Life’ By Lisa Aisato

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In my early youth, I loved strolling on my terrace looking at stars, enjoying cool breeze and letting my mind wander off in random thoughts. This favourite pastime got interrupted when I entered PhD. But I remember that day when, without any thought or intention, I climbed up the stairs to the hostel terrace and spent not just couple of minutes, instead around 2 – 3 hours. However, this time they were not random thoughts, instead I was looking at my life lived till that day. It had been a long journey and hopefully I still had a long way to go. To my own surprise, I had a strong memory and recollected quite well all the major and minor incidents of my life. It was a refreshing experience as it put my whole life into proper perspective showing the journey of life as a single showreel.

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Book Review: ‘Invitation to Draw’ By Jean Van’t Hul

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In my conversations with parents concerned about their children’s future, I always advise them to make their children invest in arts and books. Here I use art in the broadest possible sense, which includes fine arts as well as performing arts. If you indeed love your children, you must think of their future, and provide them with something which would support them whole life. 

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Book Review: ‘301 Things To Draw’ By Editors Of Chartwell Books

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If you want to be successful in any form of art, you need to practise it regularly in order to hone up your skill. Otherwise, any gap in your practice would slide you back and erase whatever little progress you had made. This way you would find yourself forever beginning from scratch and never making any considerable progress. But easier said than done. If you are an artist, you would know that making a piece of art is easy when you are in mood or it is your hobby, but it loses its charm when you have to perform on demand. And here the demand is ‘regular practice’. Sometimes you do have the will and discipline to get up and sit at your working table, but have no idea where to start — what to draw and how to start with it. Note that here the first stroke is the most difficult step, for once you have overcome that hurdle, then the art would by itself pull you into it. Thereafter it becomes easy. But the first step — the artist’s block as it is called — is the most difficult phase. If you ask me, personally I do not consider it to be any issue. While sketching, I start drawing whatever object is lying in front of me.

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Why You Should Turn Your Passion Into Profession And What Makes It Difficult

Once question keeps popping up in my mind every now and then. Let me put it in this way. Everyone of us is educated, enters into some profession and earns a living. The rest of life is spent working hard, earning money which soon transforms into accumulating wealth, and then it all ends when we are old or retired, or both. Whenever someone asks why we undertake so much hardship, our quick answer is — financial security, our family responsibility, and above all, happiness. In a way, all reasons are related to each other and imply the same thing — happiness. My question is, instead of working so hard on something which we do not enjoy in order to earn a living so that we could be happy, why not start with happiness itself, i.e., do things that we enjoy and turn it into profession? That way life indeed would become fun and work would no longer be a labour. In fact, most of the time when we say we are tired, we actually mean that we are bored.

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Book Review: ‘The Urban Sketching Handbook: Drawing with a Tablet’ By Uma Kelkar

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Our occupations may not allow us to be regular in practice of art, mainly because a lot of time is wasted in avoidable activities. For example, you work in an office and travel to work by metro or local train, and it is not possible for you to take all your art equipment with you, or may be your business allows you tiny fractions of time which are not sufficient to arrange your equipment and do reasonable amount of work. Continue reading

Book Review: ‘Manet And Modern Beauty’ By Scott Allan, Emily A Beeny, Gloria Groom (Editors)

Manet

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Book writing and publishing is an art. Nothing gives more pleasure than holding a book which has been put together with utmost care, compiled with clear illustrations, written by experts in the field who exercise restraint and do not give in to the temptation of showing off their knowledge and expertise before general audience. Books teach and books charm. This was the impression I formed after going through the book Manet and Modern Beauty by Scott Allan, Emily A Beeny, Gloria Groom (Editors). Continue reading

Three Takes On ‘The Artist In You’

30379756720_867fa6819f_nThere are two parts of any artistic pursuit — one is skill and the other is art. As you might have guessed, art is the soul of the work whereas skill lends an aesthetic appeal to the piece of art. It is just like the body which lends a basis for the human soul to live in —  without body the soul cannot stay; yet, without soul, the body has no value. Continue reading

Tunneling Through The Language Barrier With Voice Over Artists

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P. Ravishankar gave voice to Sonu Sood to create Pasupathi, the epitome of terror, in the movie Arundhati. Photo source:- P. Ravishankar: Alchetron, Sonu Sood: Pinterest, Sonu Sood in Arundhati: YouTube.

After handing over the items to me, the shop assistant turned to his colleague and in a low voice said:

Dangerous Khiladi. That is the title. Watch it.

I was startled, and looking at him, asked –

— Have you seen it? Continue reading