ART ATTACK

The past couple of nights have been not so pleasant to yours truly because I have been battling insomnia and painsomnia (lack of sleep due to severe  pain) in equal measure. My doctor prescribed some pain meds for me ‘Tramadol' which have been so helpful and pain relieving but my insomnia still needs intervention. Last week we tried meditation and I ended up sleeping in his office (lol) but when I self meditate I cannot sleep, but it does help me relax. During such nights I try channeling my energy into something productive and so I decided to do something I hadn’t done in a while...paint.

"Be productive not busy". Unknown

 I am not exactly what you would call an artist, but I can sketch, scribble or doodle once in a while. When it comes to painting I like creating patterns or painting abstracts but this time I wanted something slightly different. The following are the tools I used;

 Blank canvas/ sketchpad
 Pencils
 Rubber eraser
 Acrylic paint
 Artist brushes number 2-9

Pencils and brushes

Acrylic paint

Then I started sketching. Initially I wanted to sketch Queen Nefertiti but my sketching game was at an all time low so I settled for a portrait of an African woman, with what I intended to be a ‘colorful personality’, please don’t laugh it sounded better in my head.

Shaping the nose and the mouth was quite the task but I tried.

Then I started painting and opted for blue as my backdrop.

At around 10.00 am in the morning I was done and feeling quite pleased with myself. My social media pages and timelines were flocked with these images.

That highlight and contour game lol

I hate to blow my own horn but I think I did alright on this one, don’t you think so?

Final piece

CAMPUS BLUES

The school gate.            

Once more it is my favourite time of the semester, reporting week. Don’t get me wrong, to many going back to school sucks big time for various reasons: it could be  that they are being separated from their loved  ones and are genuinely distraught, others hate the school routine and would rather binge watch ‘Scandal' season after season while stuffing their faces with junk and live on vampire time zone (movies through the nights and sleeping at daytime), most hate school cause their minds have been preprogrammed to hate school since childhood and the last in this category hate school because their friends hate school, simple.

But for the other category, me included we do love reporting back to school. Not because we miss the endless, torturous lectures or the eerie environment of the Post Modern Library, no thanks but because school provides us with a much needed holiday camp. Some of us want a breather from the 9-5 internship we prematurely volunteered for only to discover that we are not ready for the career world and so we need to catch up on our sleep. I know of a some who want to reunite with their friends and loved ones, carry on with the mischief that the campus environment provides and participate in potentially destructive activities that their strict and God fearing parents would drown themselves in holy water if they found them partaking. The rest are a balance between those who are bored and tired of idling in the village and those who can’t wait to splurge their HELB money.

All in all, school is back on and boy don’t I love the signature atmosphere of a fresh semester. Pomp, color, fashion and glamour. I am talking about people with flashy hairdos, am talking weaves, braids and interesting haircuts died in all seven colors of the rainbow, destined to last them a month, or two...and a half? Fresh new outfits that will be converted to mitumba once the semester took a turn, and the same people would be hawking them for half the price in the hostels and the occasional group and clutter of students sharing the juicy details of their holiday escapades, roaring laughter being the only giveaway of how ghory their tales may be. Reporting week would not be complete without the signature view of majority of male students hunched over with massive sacks of maize, enough to feed a family of five for a semester, crawling their way to the hostels.

The gate, by night 

The guards call the students to pick their luggage from the the waiting tent and it’s the last call for registration. And as the sun sinks away in the horizon, I hear the fading vocals of some zilizopendwa song at the registration podium. Day 1 was a success. I cannot wait for the scramble for last minute online registration and fee payment by the remainder of the students famously referred to as #teamdeadline. This will in deed be an interesting semester.