Tracing lines

Painting, for me as probably for others, began by tracing lines. (I remember that as a boy I wasn’t very good at it.)

Many years later, though, I started tracing lines again using cheap colour pencils. Then stopped at that, which left me with a few sheets of paper filled with colour.

Later, during my eighteen years of life in Osho’s communes, I would occasionally take up painting again, purely for pleasure.

It was meeting Veeresh that opened a channel for painting in me. For years I watched him paint. I was fascinated by the technique he used – which he later passed on to me. For me, beyond the painting itself, what mattered most was spending time with him. That’s what brought me to start painting.

I remember that at the same time as running a clown-theatre workshop, I drew clown faces, which then were sold at a small auction to support the commune.

For many years I didn’t paint at all, taking it up again later. I painted on cardboard out of financial necessity – but I liked the idea anyway. I stylised figures in movement, and I enjoyed expressing my emotions and my inner feelings through painting.

Nowadays I only paint sporadically. I know that, once I start, it’s hard to stop – sometimes for weeks on end.

I mainly use acrylics on canvas panels or on drawing paper – whatever I have to hand.

Many of my paintings come from a dream, others from ancestral memories, others from my emotions.

I then give the paintings a name – for example: Tribal Spirit, Bad Mood in Colour, Flow of the Universe, Under a Blanket of Stars, November Sun, and so on.

So painting doesn’t depend on me – when the creative spirit calls, I just pick up my colours.

Shravan

Santosh Shravan is a mime and clown, a singer-songwriter and therapist (Humaniversity) facilitating workshops in Italy and worldwide. facebook.com/shravan.forte