My experience at the Chiaroscuro Online Art Fest 2020
Over the weekend, I attended an Online Art Fest called Chiaroscuro, a two day workshop hosted by Nahar International school in collaboration with Rotary and Rotaract club of Mumbai. It was held over 8th and 9th of August 2020 through google meet. The fest consisted of seven workshops and each student could choose up to two each (one per day).
As I've taken Visual Arts in school, our teachers informed us about this event and encouraged us to sign up, it seemed appealing because my weekends are usually boring, so I signed up(and do not regret doing so).
OPENING CEREMONY
The opening ceremony was a one hour long discussion on on what Chiaroscuro is, and how due to the pandemic they have to conduct the workshops online this year. They also stated how for the first time there were many participants from all over India due to the workshops being virtual.
During the opening ceremony, each of the seven panelists were introduced along with what they do and what they will be teaching, this was done so that the students know what was ahead of them.
This panel discussion ended with the address of the principal from Nahar International School(NIS) and we all went to our respective workshops for that day.
The workshop I chose for the first day was on Graffiti Art. I chose this because it was different from all the other ones and was something that I'd never tried before, so I expected to learn a lot. The panelist for this workshop was Mr. Omkar Dhareshwar, a contemporary graffiti artist and street art activist.
The class started off by the panelist sending us a code for menti.com where each of us had to add one word to answer a few questions and the answers would appear on his shared screen in the form of a word cloud. This was super interactive because as we entered our word it would appear on the screen and the teacher would discuss the same.
Then, he told us about different Graffiti artists and how they personalize their work in a unique way. He told us that each and every graffiti artist will always have something common in all of his works. He gave us multiple real life examples as well as well.
For example Mr. Dhareshwar worked with a graffiti artist called Rizo, from Brazil in 2015, and the unique thing about Rizo's art was that it always had a chameleon in it. After asking him about it, he figured that not only does the chameleon make the artwork cooler, but also has a message in it. Rizo says that for him that's the most important message because, and I quote "you can change your world, if you change yourself." This made me realize that people assume graffiti artists to be thugs, vandalists and even criminals so often without even looking at their work, they don't understand that all they're trying to do it spread a message and don't mean any harm.
He then explained the concept of shadows and depth in letters, which is one of the most important parts of graffiti. That is because if the artwork itself isn't appealing itself people wouldn't want to look at it.
The circle on the top left corner of the paper is the light source and the shaded area is where the shadows have to form.
He then showed us a spray can from his closet and told us and how it works, how to get the perfect consistency, and much more.
After that we learnt how to make graffiti letters from straight lines and usual capital letters.
We then got a task to tag our names on a piece of paper graffiti style. He told us not to use our real names so that we're more creative. Here's what I came up with...
It spells out the letters D-U-C-K-Y forming the word ducky. Every letter is joined with another, which is what makes this tag unique. There is also a bubble of space around it which not only makes the artwork more interesting but also represents the fact that even though the letters are joined and use up less area together, they still require external space to be understood.
Apart from that he also conducted a question and answer session as we were drawing. Honestly I found that very helpful, not only because I got to know more about graffiti as a technique, but also the artist's opinion on things. For example of of the questions asked was whether he thought graffiti should be legal or illegal. His answer was, that graffiti was like shooting a gun, once we learn how to shoot, we can either become a criminal or a soldier, it's up to us to make that decision.
Without him realizing it, this response made me think about everything for a good ten-fifteen minutes, because what he said was so deep yet true at the same time, criminals and soldiers do have the same skill, just different choices, wonder how many criminal choices we've all made with soldier skills.
For the second day, I chose to do a workshop on watercolours. I chose watercolour because I've always been terrible at them. The paint mostly merges with the water and spreads everywhere, whatever I try making always ends up being a huge disaster. So I hoped that joining this workshop might help me improve my skill, and I wasn't wrong.
The workshop was conducted by Ms. Radhika Surana who mainly paints artworks close to nature and culture. She started off by teaching us how to make different pencil shades. Then, making an object through perspective drawing with light coming from only one side.
Below is what I did...
She then talked about light and shadows in a very logical manner, she explained every shade with a bit of reasoning to it, and that made me understand a lot better. She showed us where the object would be dark and light depending on where the source of light was. In the above image the light source is at the top left corner which is why the shadow formed is at the bottom right.
She then showed us multiple techniques and gave us a few tips on how to work with watercolours in general. She showed us how spreading the water on the paper at first and then touching the paintbrush on it will give a beautiful effect, also the water on the background will help merging as well.
We were then supposed to make a white flower with a natural looking background as the question and answer session was going on. The Q&A for this workshop wasn't as interesting as the one for the graffiti workshop because here the questions were mostly fact based and had a direct answer to them, they didn't really tell me about the artist's perspective on things, but I got to know more about her style and technique through her website.
As I mentioned before, watercolours isn't really my area of specialty, I always make a wonderful sketch to fill in with watercolours but am either too scared to spoil it (so I just leave it as a sketch) or try to fill it in and then spoil it.
Above is one example of a time where I left a piece as a pencil sketch with the initial intention of filling it in with watercolours, but then getting too scared of spoiling the effort.
And below is the image of my final art piece (the flower). The white in the flower comes from the background, I've given it a touch of blue to get a 3D effect, the leaves and background are all merged into each other but also somehow different, one can still figure out where the leaves are and where the background is. I was amazed by what I had done, this was the only presentable watercolour piece I had ever created and had no idea I had it in me to do this.
Before this workshop, all I could do with watercolours was create different shades of the same colour. Mixing them or actually using them to paint never worked out for me, but surprisingly, after being a part of this workshop, I've gained a lot more confidence and might even continue to make many more watercolour pieces.
CLOSING CEREMONY
We then ended this two day workshop with a closing ceremony which started off with a brief video of some of the students' artworks from each workshop on both days. And concluded with the vote of thanks and displaying certificates for the panelists.
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