“I sometimes think there is nothing so delightful as drawing.” - Vincent Van Gogh

Monday afternoon, Durga, Gita, Urmila, Anita and 25 more women shown enthusiasm in drawing a simple flower through step by step technique.

They enhanced their flower by adding their own creativity and color of their choice.

Those 45 minutes gave all us peace. We enjoyed a lot. We all waiting for our next session.

  –  5th Aug 2019

Colours are smiles of nature

Urmila has purple has her favorites colour. Red is of Meena, Phula Devi’s favourite colour is violet.

Today it was fun telling the women about primary colours. This was a surprise for me that they all were wearing very colourful sarees but they were not aware about primary and secondary colour.

It was a shock for them to know that all the colours can be made by mixing three primary colours that is Red, Yellow and Blue. They mixed Yellow and Red to get Orange, Red and Blue to get Purple etc. It was a fun and learning experience for them and me as well.

– 10th Sept, 2019

Draw Using Shapes

Today I TAUGHT ladies about how to use shapes to draw. Many artists begin their drawings using shapes. Just about anything you could ever want to draw can be broken down into basic shapes. Circle, rectangle, or square.
They knew about the basic shapes like square, rectangle, circle and triangle .
It became easy for them to draw animals , object of a landscape by drawing shapes.

Kanta drawn table , fish and a hut . Urmila drawn hut and a landscape scene.
It was good learning for them to draw through shapes.

– 14th Oct, 2019

Worli Drawings

Warli is a tribal art created by the tribal people of Maharashtra. It’s created on walls by using basic geometrical shapes. Those shapes are symbolic of different elements of nature. Baiji enjoyed this art form and created good design In Rajasthan Mandana art is drawn on floors and walls of homes.     

– 23rd Nov, 2019

Mosaic Christmas Activity

Mosaic is a pattern or image made of small irregular pieces of coloured stone, glass or ceramic. In this activity Baiji’s has created the mosaic in the symbols related to christmas.   

– 26th Dec, 2019

Circles & Lines

Wassily Kandinsby was a Russian artist. He was a creator of abstratia and modern paintings. He believed that geometrical forms lines and colours could express the inner life of the artist whatever he use to make, it relates to the music Baiji’s were free to use different shapes and lines and they have created masterpieces with this modern technique.    

– 11th Jan, 2020

Triangles & lines

Wassily Kandinsby was a Russian artist. He was a creator of abstratia and modern paintings. He believed that geometrical forms lines and colours could express the inner life of the artist whatever he use to make, it relates to the music Baiji’s were free to use different shapes and lines and they have created masterpieces with this modern technique.    

– 10h Feb, 2020

Art Washes Away From The Soul The Dust of Everyday Life

The workshop aimed to provide a small intermission to the women who provide social help in our school. It took immense effort to relocate from ‘in-person school’ to online school and took twice the effort to shift back into ‘offline school’ after. In an attempt to give back to the women who have been an essential key in the smooth and safe transition back to offline school, the art workshop kicked off with great zeal and enthusiasm!
The first workshop conducted sought to introduce one of the primary building blocks of art-blending. Our team provided paper to draw on and oil pastels as the medium of choice, instructions given guided the women to choose 3 colours and create a gradient of sorts with them. The activity proved to be engaging as well as didactic, the result of their work was captured through the lens of our team’s camera. The feedback of the activity aided our motive of providing an interval in the otherwise busy life of our women support staff. Overcoming the agitation and hesitance of a new start, the first session of the GirlUp Art workshop came to a constructive end.

– January 21, 2021

 

Writing is the Painting of the Voice

On February 2021, the NMS Girl Up Team conducted its second art lesson for the underprivileged woman, whom we refer to as “Baijis”, in Hindi. The second session was based on Name Art. Most of the women who attended our workshop knew only to write their name in Hindi, and some didn’t even know that.

We first taught them how to write their initial letter, those who were unaware, and taught them to write it in bold. Then, we distributed sketch pens, and told them to design the respective letter accordingly.

One of them said that she thoroughly enjoyed the session, not only because she found the colouring part entertaining, but also because she knew the initial of her name. To her, it was a true win-win!

All of them created amazing pieces. They had great artistic capabilities.

The session concluded with taking a lot of photographs, to forever capture their talents.

(All safety precautions were followed during the workshop. Everyone wore masks at all instances and sat away from each other.)

– February 13, 2021

Origami

On the 9th of september, We  had an incredibly fun-filled origami session with the baijis; who absolutely loved it; the sessions being a time-out from a monotonous day’s work. The GirlUp team was incredibly nervous before the session, as none of them had much prior origami experience. But with their ever- enthusiastic and amiable girls, who were very helpful to everyone throughout, and taught the baijis origamis with such exuberance; and their shutterbugs, having not the faintest clue about origami decided to occupy themselves to capture the fun; the session went very smoothly. Or perhaps as smooth as it could have been with a couple teenagers with no origami experience teaching origami from a youtube tutorial… They made a dog, a butterfly and some scintillating glares of vibrant hues! Throughout the session the bubbly baijis interacted and laughed with each other as they learnt origami for the first time in their lives. The most fun part of the session was when they made glares and everyone was so excited to wear their flamboyant glasses and pose for numerous pictures. At the end the baijis were absolutely ebullient and pumped up about going home with their creations, colourful glares, butterflies to hang and the ‘kuttas’ they made.

– 9th Sept, 2021

Each person's life is like a mandala; a vast, limitless circle

NMS team brought forward an engrossing lesson on mandala art for their next session!! Previously establishing a grip on the basics of art with our support staff, mandala art was a comparatively more complex and yet equally as riveting. The session was brimming with vibrant colors, vivid patterns and equally radiant conversation!!

Soaring Canvas

Women in the cleaning staff were ecstatic to try their hands on painting. They hadn’t done anything like it in a long time. Everyone tried different styles of paintings. Some of them knew henna designs so they were inclined towards those designs. Others tried Madhubani and it brought out their sensitivity and creativity. A couple of them tried Warli and Phad designs, which was a means of expression for tribal people. Few of them tried Kalamkari style designs as well. Their creativity came alive on paper in different forms.