Watercolour painting of an elephant 23 February 2025
Aquarelle painting of an elephant by me
As I said yesterday I would try the watercolours this Sunday, I decided to go ahead and change the subject, choosing an elephant instead of a woman. The sky was overcast so I did not have a problem staying in with my paint. I kept trying to make sense of how the strokes appeared and getting annoyed with the blending as I had clearly lost my knack for it and so abandoned totally the idea of painting alla prima. I chose instead to paint each colour separate from the other with just a few blending strokes here and there. I hope you like it all the same.
I am leaving you with another wonderful song “day after day” by this lovely young lady called Elyanna.
Second gel pen portrait of a woman 22 February 2025
I liked the use of the gel pens so I decided to make another portrait and I might do a few more down the road. Here again, it has a very much animated movies feel to it. I hope you like it. I still thought I would try the watercolours this weekend but now this is going to be Sunday and I probably will not publish whatever I will do with them Sunday itself but might decide to publish it on one of the weekdays after that. I am leaving you with another wonderful song from this lovely young lady called Elyanna.
Prayers of the days, struggle of illusions 19 February 2025
Courtesy freepik.com
Translation of a poem in Arabic that I wrote on 15 May 2011 and that I had never translated before. I am providing below the English translation the original poem with a small correction. There are probably other small grammatical errors that I would not have noticed.The previous poem was published here دعاء الأيام، كفاح ألأوهام | Geetha Balvannanathan's Blog - Isis Tratum
If only I were a scream to flirt with your lips as I rise from them springing free, forgetting silence
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If only I were a rock to roll between your hands as I oppose your ways against happiness resilient, bound, committed to stillness
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If only I were a chick to hide between your wings as I look out from them satisfied and calm, yours until I die
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If only I were pride to support the pulse between your ribs as I help you store the air a loyal owner, extracting sorrows
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Today, from your rib I am renewed, a sorceress, Eve and from my rib, none can remove you neither past grudges nor annihilation
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I am the scream of the steadfast rock so forget, Sisyphus, that I should roll I am the pride of the chick for its mother my days' tears flowed like rivers
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I am every mother who called in the dark the stones were shattered by my screams I am what escaped the death of dreams the wells filled with the blood of my veins
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Look to the oncoming spring for it bears the seed of my flowers Put on the garment of the regretful autumn for it is too late to oppress me
دعاء الأيام، كفاح الأوهام 2011-05-15
ليتني صرخة كي أغازل شفتيك و أنا أرتفع منهما منطلقة حرَة ناسية السُكوت
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ليتني صخرة كي أتكركب بين يديك و أنا أعارض طرقك ضدَ الهناء صامدة مقيَدة ملتزمة بالسُكون
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ليتني فرخ كي أتخبَأ بين جناحيك و أنا أطلُ منها راضية هادئة، لك إلى أن أموت
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ليتني فخر أساند النَبض بين ضلعيك وأنا أساعدك على تخزين الهواء مالكة وافية منتزعة للشجون
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أنا اليوم من ضلعك تجدَدت ساحرة حوَاء و من ضلعي ما أمكن نزعك لا الحقد الماضي و لا الفناء
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أنا صرخة الصخرة الصَامدة فإنس يا سيزيف أن أستدار أنا فخر الفرخ للأم الوالدة سال دمع أيامي سيل الأنهار
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أنا كل أم نادت في الظلام تحطمت بصرختي الأحجار أنا ما نجى من موت الأحلام إمتلأت بدم عروقي الآبار
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أنظر إلى الربيع القادم فهو يحمل زرع زهري إرتد ثوب الخريف النادم فقد فات الأوان عن قهري
Reading of the translation in English of the original Arabic poem:
Reading of the original Arabic poem (most likely with some grammar mistakes)
After my yesterday’s sketch of a woman’s head, I decided to use the gel pens that arrived today to make a different kind of portrait. I wanted to achieve a stylized look so looked around for some portraits to emulate and it resulted in the below output. It has very much an animated movies feel to it while at the same time taking after some fashion show sketches. I hope you like it.
I received today the watercolours from Amazon but they came really late so I did not think it would make sense to try them as the place I am staying at lacks good lighting in the dining room where there is a big table with all my material sprawled all over it. I think I will try the watercolours this weekend as I am working tomorrow from the office and it takes me over an hour and a half each way to go to and come back from London.
I hesitated regarding the hair and was not sure I should keep it just coloured at the tip or colour all of it in black leaving the tips in gel pen
There is little to do where I live because I do not know my surroundings yet so I have resorted to my old passion of sketching mainly female portraits or nudes. In this instance it is just a pencil sketch of a female head using B, 6B and 8B pencils as well as a white sketching pencil. I have not taken out all the art supplies I bought so this simple sketch is what I can produce over the coming months.
I have been eyeing some watercolour paint and might end up buying some even though I am in a temporary lodging and should not increase too much what I have to move again. It is just that trying watercolours seems so enticing given that it has always been quite challenging for me. Indeed, I tend to want to improve whatever I find challenging and have time and time again chosen to dwell upon something that I did not have a natural knack for and turned things around to become at least proficient in that, be it art, literature or something involving ordinary skills. I hope to be able to produce a nice watercolour once I give into the enticement of buying those watercolours. In the meantime, I hope you like the pencil sketch I am including here.
I move quite regularly and can almost say that moving has become a habit, a treasured activity that forces me to reinvent myself while I reinvent my surroundings and ensure that either I adapt to them or they bear with me as I coax them into more habitable spaces that yield the kind of experience I wish. Every time I move, I unravel a trove of memories that come back to me like a storm or like a calm summer wind, depending upon how they were made and what they were made of. Some memories transcend the place and time they were born into and stay rooted like a hundred year-old olive tree. Their traces are like its shimmering leaves, spreading the feelings they once gave rise to within our bosoms and etching their particular aroma within our hungry nostrils as their intricacies play within our minds.
I sometimes feel like the olive tree itself, my memories shimmering within me and shedding light onto the pathways they forged within my mind. I am a tree of memories, the good and the bad, all laid out for my inner eye to see and my guts to experience all over again. I carry them sometimes into the open so I may pour all over them again my keen mind, eager to make sense of what could sometimes be senseless or to feel again what I had suppressed before for fear of not being able to overcome the deep foreboding that overcame me at that time. I am like a tree, yet unlike a tree I am unable to root myself into any ground. It seems like my gypsy spirit always wants to soar above the ground and visit yet another distant land, another unexplored part of the world. I sometimes wish I were an astronaut, able to roam the Universe rather than just the Earth.
I wonder if it is the fact that I come from a multicultural, multiracial background that makes me unable to take root anywhere. I feel no kinship to any of the countries I was born in or originated from by way of my lineage. More than a citizen of the world, I feel like a citizen of nothing, just a mass of energy floating here and there, never settling anywhere more than 6 years at a time in general. The longest I ever lived somewhere was in Dubai at Al Thanya Street where I remained for 8 years from 2010 until early 2018. For some reason, if it is not I who want to move, circumstances push me to make a move for somewhere else to stay in and I have never been able to stay in one place for 10 years or so. Every time I think I have found the place I want to stay in, I am out of there before the usual 6 year chime. It is as if I were a home Cinderella where the home would become a pumpkin at the end of the 6th year and my slippers would turn into bristles, causing me to strip them off and get going. So once more into the fray, this was again my moving day…
Moving has been such a difficult but enlightening experience. You discover that you have many, many things that you do not need at all and some things that you need a bit of but have too much of. I gave away almost the same amount of clothes I kept and I still feel I have too many.
Having single handedly packed away all my household items over the course of several weeks, I realised how important decluttering is and how we can find within ourselves so much energy to handle what we need to do. I barely slept, ate irregularly and counted 117 boxes and large bags made for carrying textiles all meticulously numbered and matched to an excel sheet that described in over 117 lines, the content of each box.
One of the movers did not find a number on one of the boxes and when I turned it around showing him the number, he laughed and said "why did I even think that you did not put a number on it" to which we all had a laugh despite being exhausted as the movers were helping me after their daily job was over. We then decided to add the numbers to all the other surfaces as well, where we could get through to them as the boxes were piled up.
When I thought back to how many times I have moved and sometimes lost or had to give away what I had, it seemed incredible:
1st move at the age of 6 months from Algeria to India
Within India, moved around four times during childhood until the age of 7
Move at the age of 7 from Chennai, India to Tunis, Tunisia
Within Tunisia moved around 8 times
Move to Geneva, Switzerland at the age of 21
Within Geneva moved around 7 times
Move to Dubai in 2007 with my children
Within Dubai moved around 7 times before the last of my kids moved near Geneva, Switzerland
Moved from Dubai to India in 2018 for just 4-5 months
Moved to London, UK in December 2018
Within London moved twice
and now moving again away from London to an undisclosed location..
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