The Indian Artist: An Important Birthday

Riya A Leave a comment

Good afternoon all! I hope that you are all well. The semester is coming to an end and I am really looking forward to it being over. This year has been wonderful but also so overwhelming and exhausting. I have learned more about myself than I ever have in my life and have grown more than I give myself credit for. I hope that you have all come out of your semesters stronger, happier, and more grateful.

Today I am going to talk about an important Hindu festival called Hanuman Jayanti. The story behind the deity Hanuman is beautiful and one of my absolute favorites, enjoy!

Here read this interesting story of Lord Rama and HanumanHanuman Jayanti celebrates the birthday of Hanuman and fell on Saturday, April 16th this year.  Hanuman was the son of Kesari and Anjana. He was well-known for his unwavering selflessness, service, and devotion to Lord Rama and his family, thinking of nothing else but their comfort and well-being.

Once upon a time, in the mountains of Meru, there was the great sage named Gautam. A monkey-couple, Kesari and Anjana lived nearby the ashram. Anjana was once a heavenly maiden, who was cursed and transformed into a monkey woman. She would be freed from this curse only if she gave birth to an incarnation of Lord Shiva.

Anjana was cursed one day when she was wandering the earth. She saw a monkey meditating deeply in a forest, like a holy sage. At the extraordinary sight, Anjana was unable to control her laughter. She made fun of the monkey and threw stones at it until the holy monkey lost his patience. He opened his eyes that sparkled with anger. He was a powerful holy sage who had transformed into a monkey to do his spiritual meditation. With ferocious voice he cursed her that she was to take the form of a monkey and that she will be relieved from the curse only if she gives birth to a mighty son, an incarnation of Shiva.

Anjana’s dedicated prayers and meditation to Shiva without any food or water soon gave her fruitful results. Lord Shiva was impressed with her prayers and wished to bless her with an immortal son.

In a kingdom far far away, King Dasaratha was performing a religious service to have children who would be blessed with a divine sweet by Lord Agni, the lord of fire, that was to be shared among his three wives. And Vayu, the Wind God, under the instruction of Lord Shiva carried a portion of the sweet and gave it to Anjana and blessed her. Anjana soon ate the divine sweet and instantly felt the blessing of Shiva. Vayu told her that she would soon be a mother of a son who would possess intelligence, courage, tremendous strength, speed and the power to fly. Anjana was overwhelmed with joy.

Soon Anjana gave birth to a beautiful monkey-faced child named Anjaneya (meaning ‘son of Anjana’). In that moment, Anjana was released from her curse and returned back to heaven. Hanuman’s father took care of Anjaneya and he grew up to become a strong but mischievous young boy. Anjaneya has been called by many names such as Hanuman, Maruti, Pawanputra and more. He played an important role in Ramayana, the greatest epic in Hindu Mythology. Hanuman Jayanti celebrates the incredible Hanuman, his endless devotion, and marvelous qualities.

 

Sources:

https://www.apnisanskriti.com/story/birth-story-of-hanuman-747

 

As always, if anything that I discussed in this post stands out, or if any questions arise please feel free to comment and share your thoughts!

Looking forward to next Sunday!

 

~ Riya

 

Instagram: @riya_aggarwal.art

Personal website: https://theindianartist.weebly.com/

Fine Art Fables: The Dragon After His Winter Sleep

Sierra Iverson Leave a comment

 

The Dragon After His Winter Sleep is a very brief Chinese fairytale. It is just a few paragraphs long. It describes a scholar in his study, who suddenly finds a glowing little firefly burning marks along his table and books as it moves around, as if it were on fire. He took the firefly outside, but when it did not leave, he went back inside, put on his ceremonial robes, and took the bug back outside again. This is when the firefly transforms back into a dragon form. According to Chinese belief, the dragons would hibernate during winter much like all of the other scaled creatures and insects. It is also believed that when the first storm in the springtime comes, the dragon flies into the clouds. 

 

My own artistic inspirations lead me to draw a small firefly in front of a more massive dragon, drawn how the Chinese would have depicted a dragon, instead of in the western style. Because of the fact the dragon flies into the clouds, I made the dragon form the color of a sky, while as a firefly I used more warm tones, as if trying to keep warm in the winter months. 

Here is a link to where I found the story.

Dearest Dumb Boi Hakkun

Micey Leave a comment

I can’t believe it’s the end of the school year. I’m watching the snowfall out of my window as I type this.

This is Hakkun, one of my DnD characters. He’s a storm sorcerer/unauthorized genie warlock multiclass living in a “futuristic medieval” society. His genie’s vessel is a compass. I wanted to make him a very pretty and fashionable boy. I gave him a hat because I liked its silhouette although I do have trouble figuring out horn placement. I’m proud of his fancy-soled boots.

I mixed a lot of feminine-associated design elements into his design. I often have a hard time figuring out men’s fashion because most of it’s so plain compared to female fashion. I’m glad I did what I did about Hakkun, he looks so stylish!

Evolving Emotions: Spring

EKArts Leave a comment

Crunch and fragility

Dull brown and lifeless

A flower

Killed by cold

A horrendous annual crime

 

But upon a newfound strength

By the Earth’s nurturing scape

A blooming begins

 

Inaction and then

Elation at a new

Motion in the ground

Abolition of the lifelessness of yesterday

Captivation of colors. The

Transformation beneath. A

Foundation of weaving threads. An

Interconnection of the greatest

Creation brought along by the spring

Resurrection

 

 

Art Biz with Liz: North Campus Sculptures

Elizabeth S Leave a comment

Next week is already the last week of classes, and the following week is graduation! At this point, I don’t think I’m going to finish everything on my U-M/Ann Arbor bucket list, but I was able to check off another item this past week.

This past Thursday, my instructor for RCARTS 270 switched things up and had us meet on North Campus instead of our usual classroom/art studio. I was excited to learn that one of the many sculptures and art installations we were to see was “The Wave Field.” I don’t remember how I first learned about it, but I had heard of The Wave Field during my freshman or sophomore year at U-M. For those who aren’t familiar with it, The Wave Field is an earthen sculpture on North Campus. Designed and created by Maya Lin, it is one of three, the other two being in New York and Florida. Lin is well known for creating the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC, so it was cool to see one of her works right here in Ann Arbor.

The ebb and flow of the waves create different shadows depending on the time of day. We visited The Wave Field during the sunniest part of the day, so I didn’t witness this as much. It was fun to run up and down the waves, however, and equally nice to simply relax against the small hills. Although not necessarily a momentous event or activity, visiting The Wave Field had been on my bucket list, and I was glad to be able to do. It’s slightly hidden away on the side of the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Building, but I encourage anyone remotely interested to take a trip to North Campus and visit this piece (especially since the weather is warming up).

We were able to see many other sculptures and buildings on campus I had never seen or heard of. For many students on Central Campus, North Campus is a mystery. If you don’t have a class or other reason to go there, you might not visit often, so it was a delight to walk around and see different works of art. Philip N. Stewart’s rotating 3 Cubes in a 7 Axis Relationship was by far my favorite, but Alexander Liberman’s reddish orange Begob was also neat to see. Below are some highlights (all photos were taken by yours truly this past Tuesday).

BEGOB – Alexander Liberman, 1996
SUMMARIES OF ARITHMETIC THROUGH DUST, INCLUDING WRITING NOT YET PRINTED – Alice Aycock, 1992
INDEXER II – Kenneth Snelson, 2002
HOB NOB – Clement Meadmore, 2007

Industrious Illustrating #8: Time/Sequence

Robin Leave a comment

Honestly, I’m not the proudest of this comic. I didn’t have the time to properly render or correct some of my drawings, so I would like to redo some of the pages if I ever posted these on my social media or printed them into a mini book. But for those who have been following along with my column, this comic is the result of the AEIOU (Activities Environments Interactions Objects Users) sketches I made a few weeks ago for Drawing Visualization. Yes, there’s a lot more to Toshiaki’s story than what I told in these six pages; I intend to eventually draw more comics that will tell his full story.

 

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Also, thank you to everyone who stopped by my Artist Alley booth at Con Ja Nai in the MLB last Saturday! I managed to sell a decent amount of my prints and also had a lot of good conversations with the people who stopped by my booth. I look forward to attending more conventions and art fairs in the future!