This is my fifth aquarelle which has proven to be very ill-assorted to the alla prima technique as the paper was not behaving in the expected way. Upon testing all possibilities I realised I had painted on the wrong side of the paper. I was, however, too lazy to begin again the aquarelle on the other side so continued as it was.
The result is a very dry looking composition of flower. I hope you will not be too harsh in your judgement.
Meanwhile I also decided to take back sketching as a hobby and have produced this sketch. I find its not so bad considering I am self taught and this is done after several years of not drawing anything. I hope you like it.
This is a new trial in chalk of a flower. I am not sure which flower it is. I initially thought azalea but am not doubting it. Unfortunately there was nothing on the name when I saw the image.
I have used smudging as well as direct chalk application. The medium I drew upon is coloured plain brown sheet. My guess is that this would have been better on a lighter colour of the same type of sheet.
This is my fourth aquarelle using only aquarelle material. This is again a trial of the alla prima technique with a landscape of green meadows where some poppies and other flowers bloom.
This is my third aquarelle using only aquarelle material. I have tried the alla prima technique with a portrait before I think of applying it to nature and to flowers.
This is my second aquarelle but with better material. The paper used is aquarelle paper and I finally bought a few aquarelle brushes instead of using my big acrylic brushes as I did in the previous painting.
I hope you like the result. The next will be with the alla prima technique and I guess a group of flowers or some landscape.
I realised yesterday that it had been a while since I had either drawn, painted or even photographied anything with great beauty so I thought I should restart that other creative side of me.
For starters, I will go back to using aquarelle which was not my forte when I used to paint a lot. My best medium in painting has always been acrylic as it does not stay wet for so long as oils do and can be used with minimum care and cleaning required during and after usage. The flipside of acrylic is that as they dry faster than oil, any correction cannot be performed as easily as it could be with oil painting.
My first attempt at restarting the painting side is below with two boys fishing at sea. It is a simple aquarelle painting but not dedicated aquarelle paper. Instead I have used simple smooth paper which is usually used for sketching. The result is a rather hazy aquarelle but I am not unhappy with the result. I have challenged myself to produce a series of 10 aquarelles over the following 10 days changing from the normal technique to alla prima and then attempting other variations but all on dedicated paper for aquarelle. Regardless of the result, I will post it so be kind if you find the painting atrocious 😀
Meanwhile I wish all of you a good evening with a short nostalgic song from Cesaria Evora called Saudade.
Phoenix Flying 16 : On the synchronisation with Gaia and the nature of causality
9 August 2017
Courtesy Christian Schloe
While Mama Jain pondered on the various possibilities of representation of time and the access of humans to its dual points of connectivity on Earth, Bluebird contacted her all of a sudden resychronising with her in a very deep way. Bluebird was now very keen to work with Mama Jain on an item which now seemed to be out of control and that was climate change. Bluebird asked Mama Jain if they could do again the sessions that allowed for the rains to come down and Mama Jain happily accepted and danced the chamanic dances with Bluebird.
Shortly after she had started the shamanic dances, Mama Jain began feeling an incredible exhiliration and realised that she had recently been connecting fully with Gaia herself who saw herself as a 3 year old child. At the same time, Mother told Mama Jain that the same team that had attempted to sabotage her efforts to make consciousness less dark was attempting now to sabotage her connection to Gaia by a microchip that they had injected in her and that went through her in such a way that neither Bluebird nor Mother herself could help remove without some damage done to Mama Jain. Mother told her the chip could set off a trigger that would de-synchronise Mama Jain with Bluebird amongst a series of other possibilities it had.
Mama Jain was upset with this news but the news of the sychronisation with Gaia won over the other darker bit of news. Mama Jain realised that the connection to Gaia herself was one where she should tread carefully as she could feel her body growing into a gigantic one and therefore she realised that the actual impact of her manifestations of thought would be of a different size altogether. Mama Jain started with the series of songs which were for the alignment of the various consciousnesses and breathed softly. In a few minutes, she was aligned with the consciousness of Gaia and could feel the scent of Jasmine, begonia and frangipani fill her nostrils as she breathed in and out, her chest seemingly an enormous chunk of the planet.
As soon as Mama Jain aligned, a reminisced memory from the recent sabotage event crossed her mind and a tear fell as she thought sadly about how much this agency had wronged her and immediately she could feal the heaving of rains that shook through her as well as waters that pushed against the dams built to contain them. On seeing this, she was more dismayed and cried harder which made the rains thicker and the pushing against the dams stronger. She realised that this would be going in circles until she was able to break the vicious circle by a conscious effort of the mind to refrain from feeling dismay at what the sabotage had caused. Mama Jain realised that causality was in some ways either a two way test with a possibility of branching that into an infinite equation or a fractal experience if considered from a multidimensional perspective. She knew this intuitively but the math behind this insight escaped her reach.
On the failing role of Corporate Social Responsibility
9 August 2017
Courtesy David Snyder from icrw.org
People viewing this article might be tickled into chastising me for using such a title before even reading the article and that would be their prerogative. I believe mine is to point out that indeed Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) – which is a code name for charitable giving – is failing as the whole idea is to uphold corporate responsibility in giving back to the communities where they exist or that have supported them by consuming their products in a way that is sustainable, which is not the case today (with some beautiful exceptions).
When this term and notion was first invented, it was expected that CSR would indeed sweepingly reduce poverty, provide a more equitable distribution of financial possibilities in the low to middle class levels and make shareholders of big companies happier. Unfortunately, it would seem – at least to me – that CSR has failed terribly on the dream it created initially. Obviously, when I say it has failed, I mean that those who were to apply this notion among their companies have failed in applying it in the right way. Is there one given right way, one would want to argue and I would have to say that there is not one right way but probably many right ways although it definitely is not the right way for many who are currently not advocating the right CSR approach.
To bring to light the failure, I shall quote an example from one of the defunct companies that I worked for where the CSR budget was simply used as a marketing tool to get the brandname marketed. While it worked well at the time because it was a Rotary event helping a school for special needs, the idea that CSR budgets should be considered as simply branding and marketing expenses shows how deep the failure is rooted in the mindset of the industry as many other examples of branding discussed with my peers in the industry come to mind (display of banners for an event, nameplate appearing for another, mentioned during the festivities for another, etc).
A couple of years ago, I moderated a panel on CSR and was excited to meet people who were actively giving and most of the talk was on how the money was simply given to the needy, to those who could not afford food, education and medication. After the panel when I asked one of the speakers about the possibility of funding my Microfinance endeavour, I did not even get an email answer, not even to say no.
The failure of CSR is further proven by the fact that in most companies (if they have it), it is simply a small budget to be given or a one man show department or sometimes a department that will give to a worthy cause but that keeps changing and does not follow the evolution of that cause.
I do hope that ultimately CSR will start becoming a real department in big organisations where giving will be made in an actually sustainable way, with a proper budget, a follow-up and will encourage a chain of giving so that we have a better world. Meanwhile, if you are interested in becoming a partner in my microfinance project ( mena-microfinance.ning.com ) do let me know (geethap2007@hotmail.com). My project is focused on empowering women who are widows or divorcees and allowing them to join the workforce in a way commensurate to their needs and restrictions. To date, the only CSR opportunities to fund this project were so limited and so one-time only that this project has been put on hold.
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