“The purpose of our lives is to be happy.” — Dalai Lama
To realise the purpose of living during the most unprecedented times of life, stucked in between the four walls, surrounded by the pandemic driven worries, I felt an urge to search for unique ways to explore myself and stay happy. I discovered, we simply need to let ourself flow with a creative spirit, motivation and a palm full of positivity to move forward, when we get demoralised.
With this simple thought accompanied by an interest, to let myself actively involve into a productive work, made me connect with the theme of "The Big Green Draw, 2020- A climate of change".
The Big Draw Festival is a worldwide celebration of drawing, that promotes universal language of drawing as a tool for learning, expression and invention.
A message from The Big Draw Director, Kate Mason
2020 marks the 20th anniversary of The Big Draw and the campaign which shines a light on the need for drawing – making a mark with meaning – and its role as a tool for expression, creativity, learning and sharing ideas. Drawing – in all its forms, helps us make sense of a rapidly changing world around us. It is a global language which cuts across all barriers of culture, race and identity.
In this special anniversary year, it is apt that we, alongside many other voices, also lend our own voice to help increase awareness and understanding of the emergency situation unfolding across all ecosystems. This universal language of drawing is the perfect narrator helping to document, report and share thinking around the seismic shifts taking place in our society. Everywhere are visual manifestations of positive activism from people wanting to help make change.
The theme relates with my research interests and experience of working on production of sustainable and alternative forms of energy from biowastes that always linked me with the environment and nature to think about. So it gave me that opportunity, where I can work, learn and create a global platform that connects all artists, students and all art and nature enthusiasts, to spread awareness about our nature. They can participate, learn, create, appreciate, incorporate an indulgence with the nature, share their green thinking and creative potentials globally.
All these reasons strengthened my interest to move forward and with the support and guidance of some eminent personalities from Bahrain and India, I organised this event entitled "BAHRAIN to INDIA: Celebrating NATURE through ART across the miles" under The Big Draw - 2020, that comprises of a series of virtual workshops, symposium, informative talks, demonstrations, creative sessions and art exhibition themed arround nature following The big draw 2020 theme.
Summary of the Event:
- The event comprises of three main phases, Phase -I, Phase -II & Phase -III, along with an Art challenge and an Art Exhibition.
- Phase I :- Phase I comprises of a 5 days workshop, demonstration and symposium supported by Artists of Bahrain and India, that started on 25th October, 2020 and ended on 1st November, 2020.
- Link -Bahrain to India: Celebrating Nature through Art across the miles- PHASE-I
- Phase II - A 15 days event with a series of creative workshops and demonstrations supported by 15 Artists from India and Bahrain. It started on 1st December, 2020 and ended on 30th December, 2020.
- Link-Bahrain to India: Celebrating Nature through Art across the miles- PHASE II
- Art Challenge - It was held during 1st November - 30th November, 2020 where participants arround the world created 'pieces of Nature' and submitted. More than 200 works have been recieved under this Art Challenge.
- Portraits-of-nature in Gulf Weekly, by Mai Al Khatib-Camille
- Nature's Gallery - An Art Exhibition is going to start from 25th January 2021, which will continue till 1st February, 2021. Artworks of all the artists created during this workshop and some selected artworks of participants will be exhibited on our FB event page.
- Link - Nature's_Gallery Art Exhibition
- Phase III - Starts from 31st January, 2021 till 7th February, 2021. It will consist of few Demostrations, informative talks on Child Nutrition, A climate of change and Imporatance of Art in education and an interactive session among the participants of two countries mainly.
To establish this artistic connection with nature and create this virtual platform, I was delighted to recieve support and help from many creative personalities from Bahrain and India. I am truly thankful to Dr. Sarah Clarke and Artist Anil Sharma from Bahrain, for all the encouragement and guidance that helped me to pave a path that connected us with some brilliant Artists, hundreds of participants of two Nations, Bahrain and India mainly, and create this platform of learning and sharing for all of us. I heartily thank Mrs Rekha Utham and Mrs Usha Ramesh for all timely support.
Details of the Event " BAHRAIN to INDIA : Celebrating Nature through Art across the miles" - PHASE I & PHASE II
Phase- I
25.10.2020 - 01.11.2020 - A 5 days creative Demonstration and workshop that includes more than 10 different forms of Art and Craft
🔸 DAY 1 , 25.10.2020
ARTISTS- Mohammad Taha & Anil Sharma from Bahrain
TOPIC- " A piece of Nature in water color & Acrylics"
🔸 DAY 2 , 26.10.2020
ARTIST - Shweta Powal, India
TOPIC - A creative workshop " Recreating & Reusing" various recycled crafts ' a bird house from plastic waste', 'upcycling old clothes - jeans etc', 'pebble art', 'recycling old CD & old diya into new decorative Diya for upcoming Indian festival', 'a decorative Buddha, using old cardboard, clay and wooden logs', ' an utility box, using old cardboard and various old domestic items such as broken key chain, old watch, scissor, buttons, knife, broken hairclip, broken keys," etc.
🔸DAY 3, 29.10.2020
TOPIC - A. - "Think and go Green" - ARTIST - Sanghamitra Saha, India
B. - "Recreations" -Recreating the domestic waste, upcycling & recycling- ARTIST- Veena Bodani, Bahrain
C.- " Festive Connection" with water colour, ARTIST - Indrojit Das, India
🔸DAY 4, 30.10.2020
'Embrace Nature'- Discussion on 'Environment Degradation' and ways to 'Recycle plastic waste bottle into plant pots'
ARTIST - Dr. Anamica Bhattacharya, Bahrain
🔸 DAY 5, 01.11.2020
A virtual walk through the beautiful world of Terrariums!
ARTIST - Sushanto Chowdhury, India.
PHASE II
( 15 sessions with more than 20 different forms of Art and Craft )
🔸 DAY 1 & DAY 2, 01-02.12.2020
TOPIC- Clay Art & Sculpture
ARTIST - sculptor Rajesh Kumar, India.
🔸 DAY 3, 04.12.2020
TOPIC- Painting in Water color & acrylics
ARTISTS - Anil Sharma & Mohammed Mirza Ali Taha, Bahrain.
🔸 DAY 4, 05.12.2020
TOPIC - Kids Art & crafts by creating trees of different seasons that included finger printing, palm printing, vegetable imprints, dried leaf imprints etc.
ARTIST - Dr. Anamica Bhattacharya from Bahrain
🔸 DAY 5, 06.12.2020
TOPIC- Indian Traditional folk Art - Madhubani
ARTIST -Snehatashu from India.
🔸 DAY 6, 07.12.2020
TOPIC- Fluid Art and Recycling of old soft toys
ARTIST - Pallavi Jain, Bahrain.
🔸 DAY 7, 17.12.2020
TOPIC- Mandala Art, Doodling and Rangoli making
ARTIST -Akansha Viswakarma, India.
🔸 DAY 8, 19.12.2020
TOPIC- Traditional Unique Art Style
ARTIST -Manti Sharma, India.
🔸 DAY 9, 21.12.2020
TOPIC- Leaf Art, bottle painting and easy texture creations for kids
ARTIST- Bulbul Gupta, Bahrain.
🔸 DAY 10, 24.12.2020
TOPIC - Kids Crafts - card making, Santa & Christmas tree making
ARTIST- Sangeeta Kothari, Bahrain
🔸 DAY 11, 25.12.2020
TOPIC - Jaipur blue Pottery and Dhokra Art
ARTIST- Shweta Porwal, India
🔸DAY 12 - Session I ,27.12.2020
TOPIC-Scribble and scratch
ARTIST-Dr Sarah Clarke, Bahrain
🔸 DAY 12 - Session - II, 27.12.2020
TOPIC -Textured acrylic painting on canvas
ARTIST -Dr Ranjit Divakaran, Bahrain.
🔸DAY 13 - Session 1, 30.12.2020
Topic - Painting without using any brush & exploring conventional tools to paint by Johnson Jacob, India
🔸DAY 13 Session II
TOPIC- Landscape with Acrylics on canvas
ARTIST- Anjani Kumar, India
PHASE I & PHASE II were successfully completed where 15 artists from Bahrain and India brightended the event with their artistic presence. More than 100 participants have joined the virtual sessions from Bahrain, India and Bahgladesh. We created more than 200 artworks during these two phases and receieved more than 100 artworks during the Art challenge, 1st -30th November, 2020.
It was all about exploring our creative connection with Nature that incorporates green thinking and nature love, which also helped us explore our creative skills, learn, share and spread thoughts that supports the theme of The Big Draw 2020 - 'A climate of change'.
Nature's Gallery -
An Art Exhibition is going to start from 25th January 2021, which will continue till 1st February, 2021. Artworks of all the artists created during this workshop and some selected artworks of participants will be exhibited on our FB event page. There will be an option for the viewers to collect some of the artworks under sale to support the artist and to utilise a part for the well being of society.
Visit our FB page, NATURE'S GALLERY at : Natures gallery - An Exhibition on portraits of Nature.
Phase III - Starts from 31st January, 2021 till 14th February, 2021.
It will consist of few Demostrations, informative talks on Child Nutrition, A climate of change and Imporatance of Art in education and an interactive session among the participants of two countries mainly. Detail schedules to be shared shortly.
I ackowledge the artistic presence and efforts of all the eminent artists and personalities who supported this initiative. Thank you in abundance for being a part of this journey supporting the initiative with your love and artistic presence.
#Artacrossthemiles #thebigdraw2020 #Climateofchange
Organised by
Dr. Anamica Bhattacharya, Individual Organiser
The Big Draw, U.K
