Ten Days in India

In February and March of 2012 I was doing mosaic mural projects with kids in Sri Lanka and India. When the projects were finished, my wife, Julie, came to India to do a little traveling and she brought a sketchbook for me. In the next ten days we traveled through the southern state of Tamal Nadu – hill country, nature reserves, and temple cities. I drew some of the incredible plants and flowers growing there.All the sketches were done in pen and ink, and colored with watercolor.My first trip to India was in 1980 when I was studying the sitar and went to Calcutta to study with my teacher’s teacher, Gokul Nag. So as a link between my visual art and my music I have put on each page a reflection on the god or goddess of some of the ragas that I play. These poetic descriptions are part of the ragmala paintings from old and ancient manuscripts.