Goodreads Artists discussion

It feels a bit funny to be starting a thread for myself, but sort of fun too. Sigh, Here goes.

Warrior Caste

Oooh, I like! Is that pen and ink? Or or pencil or charcoal? *ponders*

Love to see some of your Goddesses too, Aaron!

That is actually black ballpoint. Oh not to worry Gina. I've got tons of those coming up.

Cool. :D:D

This was a failed attemped at an image of the Goddess Sita for my iconography project. "Failed", because I discovered more about her attributes after I made this image. Still the face in particular captures much of what I understand about her.

This depiction has little to do with the Heroine of the Ramayan. It is more inspired by the ancient fertility Goddess who predates the scripture, although elements of her cult can be discerned in the tale itself. Her name means "furrow". She is discovered in an earthen pot, in a furrow in the earth when King Janak is ploughing the fields. She spends most of the text in gardens, groves and forests, even during her time at Lanka. Lord Rama submits her to a trial by fire, and she does not burn, (somewhat like the thrice burned witch of Norse Mythology). Finally after Lord Rama summons her back from her exile, (having redeemed herself by giving birth to two male heirs, the trial by fire not being enough,) she makes an earthquake in his court and invokes her mother the great Goddess Bhumi, who envelopes her and she returns to the furrow in the earth.

I was at a loss of how to depict her at first, since Chola statuary, and modern representations show few distinct characteristics. Like her mother Bhumi, she is mostly depicted holding the Komud, the night lotus. Without Rama by her side, it would be impossible to recognise her as apart from other Goddessess such as, Parvati or Radha, who are also seldom seen without their consorts, particularly in the modern iconic representations. She does seem to consistently prefer the colour green. The most detailed representations I've come across of Sita are the Balanese statues, which are beautiful, but symbolically almost opaque. In those representations, she seems to be holding an item somewhat like a knife, and describing Tarjani Mudra, the Mudra of menace, or wrath. I've adopted Tarjani Mudra, and the balanese style of headdress for this representation. I call this crown Vipin Mukut: The forest crown. Later I read that the old fertility images of Sita showed her holding a ploughshare, and an Ashok blossom, but they didn't make it into this picture. The animal in the background is meant to be a doe, which appears frequently throughout the Ramayan, and is a good feminine symbol of the forest. Unfortunately it looks like a dog. Due to my fear of dogs, many of the animals in my work end up looking like dogs. It will be interesting to see what happens when I draw Lord Bhairav, Lord Bhikshitan, and Lord Dattatrey, who all must be shown accompanied by dogs.

I've left out any hint of the Goddess Lakshmi in this representation. Although traditional Hindu doctrine regards Sita as an aspect of Lakshmi, I find the two Goddesses vastly removed from one another symbolically. Lakshmi is a cheerful Goddess. Her entire iconography and story is a happy one. Sita's entire story is tragic and riddled with betrayal, bitterness, and sorrow. Her treatment in the Ramayan could be seen as an allegory of how we have treated the earth. Abducted, used, tortured, banished, and finally forgotten, Sita is a perfect illustration of our beleaguered planet.

Medium: My favourite, ballpoint, with effects added in ms Paint and Office Picture Manager.

My friend Karan and I were waiting for our friend Rudra, and standing in an alleyway in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the center of town, when we realised we were standing under the lintel of this really cool looking old Himalayan style house. We each took photographs and I got permission from Karan to post his here.

I wasn't expecting to be posting photography here, but I was so inspired by these two pieces, that I had to share them.

We showed them to Rudra later, and he couldn't believe that they'd been taken right outside his work place. He's been working there for years, and never noticed that house. He was convinced we'd gone on a trip without him, to some exotic location, and was a little put out.


Photo by Karan Miya



Photo by me.

My camera is pretty crap compared to Karan's but I daresay I captured something pretty magical here, with the sunlight coming through the window.

The Goddess Sita is exquisite, Aaron! Love the photographs too.

There's a couple of unfinished pieces, I thought I'd post here. They weren't quite ready for Deviantart, but I thought to see them online, and get some comments might motivate me. The below image was inspired by the song "St. Theresa" by Joan Osbourne although it has nothing to do with what the song's about, this is what I saw in my head when I listened to it.

I've no idea what inspired this cat Shaman to come out. It was a sort of stream of consciousness thing.

It's interesting, when you force yourself to draw without thinking about it, you end up drawing things you never thought you could draw.

*wonders whether you were thinking about a dollar bill* Those are wondy, Aaron! I love the cat shaman. I didn't know you had a DA account. Mine's here. If you link me to yours, I'll fwend you. Likewise anyone else. Just give me your linkies, peeples!

Oh cool. Thanks Ederyn.

Aaron Deviant Art

It wasn't so much about the dollar bill. Actually I had never noticed it, because I'm from Canada. I remember reading about the masonic symbol in Faucalt's Pendulum, and I think they talked about the significance of the eye in the pyramid, and why it was used on the dollar bill.

For me personally it's a symbol of meditation. It's considered supremely beneficial to meditate under a pyramid, and whenever I see an eye by itself it symbolises the third eye for me, which is supposed to be the inner eye, which opens when the other two close.

Gorgeous images, Aaron! Love the cat Shaman especially. Looking forward to seeing then up on DA. :):)

I had uploaded some of these sketches to the Hindu Mythology group, and decided to copy them over here. These are from my prayerbook, which is a sort of book of songs and hymns to different Gods, which are a part of my spiritual practice.

When Lord Krishna left his earthly coil, he became immortalised in heaven, or he merged with his source Lord Vishnu depending on how you view the myth. As for his body, it became a sort of mummified idol, and was carried to Puri Orissa. It is worshipped as a deity in its own right, and is considered the aspect of Lord Krishna which must remain on earth and sustain it in the absence of the ethereal Krishna. Thus this deity is known as Lord Jagannath, the Lord of the earth.

Prayerbook, 2007

Bhootnath or The Lord of Ghosts is an aspect of Lord Shiva. In this depiction the ghosts are tangled in his hair. Lord Shiva has a number of forms and aspects varying from extremely benevolent to quite wrathful. Bhootnath is usually considered to be one of the fiercer aspects, but my own experience after visiting his temple, was one of peace and tranquility.

This was a rough draft I did in one of my prayerbooks.

Prayerbook, 2007

The artwork is gorgeous, but the images themselves are scary, and...waaaaah!

On another note, don't the Jews have a term Shiva that's related to death and mourning? It always fascinates me when disparate religions have any overlap, even of small things. Like they all have some ancient connection, you know? that leads to an ultimate truth.

And on another other note, did you see Life of Pi? I didn't think much of the book, but the movie was awesome! And I didn't even see the 3-D version.

It's interesting that you mention that movie, because it scared me so badly that I had to turn it off, and then wait a week before I could try again. It was indeed a good movie, and I loved the part about the island.

I'm cynaphobic, and for me, hyenas are kind of like, the most disgusting version of a dog you could imagine. I did not do well with that scene, and it struck me as somewhat sacrilegious and also kind of unbelievable. I think even cynaphobic me would not have froze up like that. I would have knocked the little blighter into the water with the paddle.

I still have trouble excepting that we live in a world where animals kill and eat each other. It strikes me as so much worse that it's hard wired into their natures. What kind of world is this. Anyway, the whole film made a lot more sense when I got to the end, and understood it in a spiritual symbolic sort of a way.

Needless to say, I cannot watch national geographic, and frankly, I'm not sure children should be allowed to see it.

Children probably shouldn't be allowed to see my drawings either.

I had noticed the resemblance of the words, but I had always dismissed it because of the fact that Hebrew and Sanskrit are reputed to be unrelated, but I hadn't thought of the death connection. I think you might be on to something there.

It's interesting, isn't it? I first became intrigued by relations between disparate religious cultures when I read that both the ancient Persians and a tribe of native Americans believed that the world was created from a blood clot. That's a pretty odd creation story anyway, but for two such dissimilar cultures to share the same religious belief is somehow really significant to me. Totally wild! =^ᴗ^=

I heard that Mongols and at least one of native american trives believes that native americans came from Mongols. It could be that the myth was in the middle east and travelled to America.

Possibly! Which is also intriguing. I never knew there was any connection between the ancient Persians and China, but it's a small world and I know nothing about history. The possibilities are all so interesting!

I always thought there was an eerie similarity between the story of The Ramayan, and the story of Persephone's abduction from ancient Hellenism. Sita is the daughter of the earth mother, like Persephone, and is abducted to the Island of Shri Lanka by a Demonic King. Indians tend to refer to the southern direction as "down" which could be campared with the underworld.

Ooooh, I'd never heard of Ramayan before now, but you're right--their stories DO sound eerily similar!

Oh it's like the Hindu bible, or near to.

I didn't know there was anything like a Hindu Bible, either. D'oh! I'm so illiterate! *checks Wiki page on Hinduism*

Well to be fair there are a lot of sacred books in Hinduism, but the modern version of Hinduism, usually follows the Ramayana model. I actually don't find it the most enlightened text, but it does have some cool stories in it.

Love Bhootnath. Will have to read The Ramayan!

Aaron said: "I still have trouble excepting that we live in a world where animals kill and eat each other. It strikes me as so much worse that it's hard wired into their natures. What kind of world is this."

I've always had troubles with this too. I often think we are on one of the lowest planes of existence. Have you read Sartre's No Exit? The concept is that hell is other people. I think that's the case here. Our earth is perfect, we are all flawed. Perhaps the Jaines are right. To escape the cycle maybe we need to walk with the lightest footstep. That said I reckon my dogs are far more enlightened than me. They do things by instinct but that instinct isn't purposely cruel or sadistic--that behaviour is reserved for cats and people.

I think cats regard sadism as the finest art form. You can tell they're coming up with some delicious new evil plan, when they're sitting in the sun with their eyes blissfully slitted.

I think you are spot on there.

I recently spent a long stint in England, and in spite of the fact that I lost my fancy camera in Toronto several weeks before, I managed to take some quite magical photos of the sites of Brentford (a borough in west London). I actually consider the British Isles to be one of the most magical places on earth. I've heard someone describe it as an island masquerading as a continent. It pretends to be rigid, but really its totally ruled by tidal intuition.

There was a fantasy series written about the Borough of Brentford, which I read with great relish, but I soon realised the area was considered beneath notice by most Londoners. The taxi drivers could never tell what I was talking about, when I wanted them to take me home. "TAKE ME HOME TO BRENTFORD! I can't take another minute of Soho!"

So most of these pictures are of Brentford. I'll annotate the ones that are from other places.

I think to most londoners, this image may look a little dismal, but for a Canadian, it speaks to the enchantment we lack in Canada.

I was trying to find the pub called The Flying Swan mentioned in the Brentford Trilogy, (which became a cylce), but I finally only found this place which is called The Gryphon. It had this lovely wooden man sitting atop a gazebo in the Garden.

Yes, it's a Gryphon flying over the Thames, nothing to do with the pub above, just some random graffiti but I thought it was cool. Some artists need more recognition.

It's interesting how what we like about ourselves is not necessarily our most popular quality. The following piece is my favourite drawing out of my own work, but it has not received a single like on Deviant Art.

One of my friends told me that it's a very dark piece which I couldn't understand because, the painting I did of the witch burning received ten likes. My friend explained that the darkness in the witch burning is symbolic, whereas the darkness in this drawing is visceral and immediate.

This drawing is entitled The Darkmoon Elf Boy.



Explanation:

"There is a sort of toxic hostility which some young men exhibit at a certain age.

Here it is personified in the Darkmoon Elf boy who is most powerful, and dangerous in the last part of the waning moon. Most moon elves draw their power from the light of the full moon, but the darkmoon elves take theirs from the shadow of the moon.

The darkmoon elfboy symbolises the part of the subconscious which is hidden, and is driven by an incessant need for recognition, and satiety. At the same time, it is covered by a veil of shame, bringing the intensity of all his desires to a slow boil."

Cool! Love the description too. I'm often surprised by which of my works people like, it's almost never my favourite pieces...

I like that graffiti piece too. It's great when it's creative and visually interesting.