Cactus Monday

Another Cactus Monday!This is Viveck's favourite plant...It has traveled with us from one place to the other during our postings! It gives out little shoots which we transplant into other pots and give it to friends. I think the reason Viveck likes this so much is because this little cactai with the thick stiff leaves, every so often,  gives out this one long fine stem with these tine mauve flowers...

Weekend Painting

I have started my Saturday painting classes again, and am loving it. I did quite a bit of painting this weekend. The first is the silk cotton flowers, I tried to capture the vibrant reds of the flowers and the many greens around it.

The next one is a picture of a plant...'the crown of thorns' which I did at painting class. The plant was put near a window with the light shining on it from one side.  I am really happy with this picture as I wanted to catch the lights and shadows and have managed to do that! I also got the really nasty thorns quite well!

Cactus Monday again!

Its time for another cactus painting for the Cactus Monday Challenge. Not sure what this plant is called, but I know its of the cactus family and the bright red flowers are a constant reminder of when I was a little girl! We were in Burma, I must have been around 8 or 9, and my father was the military attache there. We had a big pot of this plant growing at home. I remember making button holes with the flowers (often getting pricked by the really vicious thorns!) attaching it to a small fern and wrapping the stems with a piece of silver paper.....for my father when he went out in the evening for a formal occasion.  He would wait till I put it onto his coat! I have my plant growing in a little pot...and gives me a good feeling whenever I look at it! I thought I would do this as a 20 minute challenge, but it took a little longer, but I enjoyed painting it!

the View from the window

I have been staying with Nitasha for a month. She lives on the 11th floor, and I have been watching the trees from her window...change colour and now start to bloom. Mumbai is a concrete mess...but some how this view with the national park, in the middle, somehow takes me away from the harshness of the tall sky scrapers...and I see the beauty of the wonderful gulmohar trees....in hues of  vibrant red and orange.Right in the middle is those old buildings...some kind of warehouse which have remained intact...such a contrast with the buildings in the back!

Cactus Monday

I've become a member of a group called Cactus Monday. Since I love plants anyway. its great to be looking out for cacti! I'm always fascinated by the fact that cacti plants grow in hot humid climates like Mumbai and Kolkata! Smita has a wonderful collection on the 28th floor!  I enjoyed painting this,  trying to get the colours and the thorns and the bright sunlight!

Orchids

We bought these orchids to welcome Nitasha and Sufi home. 2 weeks later the colours are still so bright, I had to paint them...and did it as a 20 min challenge! They grow so abundantly in Assam and seeing them here just brings all those wonderful memories back...the fabulous garden, the mulberry tree laden with fruit, the surrounding green hills...and just the joy of living in a place filled with greenery!!

The Dhobi Ghat

The Dhobi Ghat viewed from my bedroom window! I believe Bangalore doesn't have dhobis anymore, everyone uses washing machines or laundries! How sad is that, an entire trade vanishing because of the world getting modernized. However Kolkata remains a great mixture of the old and new...so we look upon the dhobi ghat from my window! It made a lovely picture with the laburnum tree in full bloom, a hot bright day and all the clothes drying on the line!
I took pictures, and thought I would paint it, but had to put it aside till today! Had to rush to Mumbai for Nitasha's baby, who decided to come earlier than expected! So its a Kolkata memory but painted in Mumbai!