Goodbye, old friend!

This is a post which I wrote the day after I moved out of my previous apartment.

Everyone has their routines, like morning chores or commuting to work or buying groceries, routines that people give little or no thought to, activities that just happen in everyday life when most people are busy planning other things. All of it changes when you know that this is probably the last time you are going to do what used to be just a routine in your life.

Yesterday when I walked to my apartment from the train station, I took my time to do it. I enjoyed the sunset more than I use to, forgot to cross the road since I stayed longer at the signal, simply looking around, got immersed in the beauty of the blue sky during twilight (my favorite time of the day) even though I have seen many times, all of this because I didn't want let go of that feeling, the feeling which I get when I am around that neighborhood for a random walk to the nearby shop or a Saturday morning jogging session, when the feelings are always that of hopes and dreams.

I didn't want to let go because, it was time for us to move out from our apartment, the place where I started my life with the love of my life, the place where we not only lived, but enjoyed every bit of it, for the last two years. The place which gave us nothing but happiness, the place which is full of happy memories, laughter and energy, the place which we set up from scratch, where we painted the walls with “loud” colors, the place which automatically gets transformed to a party place every Friday night, the place which we transformed from a mere apartment to our home.

When its time for us to move on, we all think about the time when we started it and it never looks that far into the past, it always feels like yesterday. The apartment was no different. It gave us a lot of memories to cherish for the rest of our lives. Each of those walls or windows had some special memory etched to it. The place never stopped inspiring and motivating us.

By the time we were done with cleaning and packing the last of the stuff, it was late night. Still we just sat there for a while thinking about all those nostalgic moments. Both of us felt heavy at heart. We felt that the apartment has a soul, one which we created out of our own soul, our lives, one which we hope will follow us, no matter wherever we go.

The last of the beer cans we consumed before passing on the keys to the landlord

Vanilla Sky

It started with a video. One of my friends sends me the link to Tom Cruise’s 25th anniversary celebration site. There they have put a video featuring all his films. It is a really good video. I had already watched most of the movies in that video. Since I like him very much as an actor, I wanted to watch the rest of the movies too. I collected of them from my friends.

During my movie marathon, around 2 weeks back, I watched the movie Vanilla Sky. I had seen only the rating of the movie and didn’t know the theme of it. Naturally, I expected a good movie, but I was getting bored while the movie was progressing. By the time I was through with the movie, I found myself wanting to watch the end of the movie again and again. The soundtracks are also amazing.

The movie name is taken from a painting called Vanilla Sky by Claude Monet which is also shown in the movie. After I finished the movie, I searched for the painting in the net. Just like the movie, at first look, I didn’t find the painting that interesting. But after spending some time studying it, I found out that I am in love with the painting. May be it’s the theme of the movie or the mood of the name ‘Vanilla Sky’ that accelerated my feeling. I don’t know the technical terms used by artists, but the dreamy look of the painting, the serene buildings near the bank of the river and the vanilla colored sky, they all really caught me.

That’s when I decided to try that painting myself. I didn’t want to duplicate it just like that. I wanted to add some more color to it. And the result is here.

Do not compare both of the paintings as they cannot be compared. There are many faults like the sky is not really vanilla in color, the ratio of the sky and the land is not correct, the reflection of the trees is pathetic, the level of details of the buildings in my painting is almost zero and so on. But after finishing the painting, I felt satisfied, may be the satisfaction of creation, something like what they call “feels like God”. Even if its in paper or canvas, I could create or destroy worlds and life like that way I want to and that thought made me proud. I am not the one to judge this painting, but I think its not that bad of a beginner (my first acrylic in canvas). Now its all left to you readers, awaiting your comments.

More

http://www.masterpiece-paintings-gallery.com/monet-seine-argent.htm

http://picasaweb.google.com/manuignatius

Colours

I always loved colours. The way they change the moods, always amazed me. I even used to associate colours to common thing like actions or letters or numbers and all. I know it may sound crazy to the readers. But I use to do it and I liked it. It’s really amazing how we can make new colours out of mixing some basic ones, right? Somehow almost always, I knew which colours to mix to get the one colour I want.

The picture on the right side of this page [my profile picture] is the result of such an experiment by me to create a colour combo. I think I succeeded up to some point. If you ask me what my inspiration for all these, I don’t know. But I do know this much, whenever I see something beautiful, like a landscape, or some beautiful lights or a path or anything of beauty, the first thing I feel like doing is to copy it to a paper using colours. [I mostly do landscapes] The feeling/satisfaction you will get after such a creation is unexplainable. You feel enormously proud looking at your creation (if it is a fine one). Simply you can say “I feel like God”. I can imagine how He may have felt after creating all his creations [according to The Holy Bible]. God may have felt immense satisfaction seeing all his creations. It surely does need a lot of imagination to do all these. Here are some of my experiments with colors.

For more of them visit http://picasaweb.google.com/manuignatius

The Dream - Watercolor

Harbour Dusk - Watercolor

The Mystery - Glass Painting