Childhood Week 2019 - Summer
It is already 2020 when I am writing this. Last year I decided to participate in Childhood Week 2019 - Summer edition by Beatrice Blue. Every year she shares prompts for an art challenge and they are pretty fun to work on. For 2019 summer edition, I decided to share some of my childhood memories from Sri Lanka. We spent so much time with the nature and enjoy evenings waiting for parents to come home.
Childhood Week Intro Image & Prompt 4 - Alone
Introduction
I did this as the character and story introduction piece. The two main characters are my young self and my little sister who is portrayed as a little duckling.
Each artwork will has its own story. The story behind this one is,
Our house was the last house on the lane and the one that faced vast estates of paddy fields. We used to sit on our short wall that has direct access to the paddy fields. We would wait there until our parents come home. We used to watch the tired the farmers working in fields and children playing cricket on barren lands. We used to watch the sunset and come up with crazy stories for the clouds.
Prompt 1 - Books
Books
For the prompt one, I drew myself reading books. My mom used to borrow books from her office library and bring me 5 books per week. I used to read them in two days and wait for her to bring back more. I will reread them or beg my mom to borrow more books from the library.
Prompt 2 - I wish
I wish
My parents are from hill country. They both moved to Capitol when they were in their early twenties. I grew up in the capitol. During vacations we used to drive up to hill country to visit my grandparents. My grandma lived in the mountains in a rural area where there were no paved roads to get there. There is a creek that we need to cross to get to her house. The whole area smell like pine in blooms. We used to play in the water, catch fish and swim. It was our bathing spot during the day. We used to think we were runaway children who were conquering the new land. Those summer holidays were the best. I always wished we can spend our whole life there.
Prompt 3 - Closer
Closer
We used to take long car rides to my grandma’s house in the hills. It was almost 6 hours drive. But that drive was never tiring as we used to stop at a tea shop that overlook the mountains and paddy fields. I come from a rice planting and tea field country. My memories of passing the pine trees and going round around the mountains bring back really sweet memories. The smell of pine and the overlook of the mountains always made me want to be closer to them. Be close to them as a bird and fly around it.
Prompt 5 - Seek
Seek
We had a small area across our house filled with coconut trees. It looked like a lone island separated from everything. There was a story that this coconut island belong to a captain who never visits. We were warned not to visit there. So we used to walk close to the island and never step foot in there. We played hide and seek everywhere and always wanted to see this mystery piece of land.
Prompt 6 - Night
Night
My country is a Buddhist country. We use lanterns to decorate our houses during Buddhist holidays. During summer holidays, kids and adults used to fly kites at night with buckets/lanterns hung on to them. The harvest was done, the paddy fields were flat and dry and, it was easier to fly kites during the night. You don’t see the kite but you see this colourful lights flying across the sky. They looked like fish trying to reach the moon. We used to sit on our balcony and watch them.
Prompt 7 - Meet Little Me
Meet Little Me
Bath time was one of the wonderful memories I have. My mom used to bathe us outside in small bath tubs. It was more fun to bathe outside than having it inside. She will fill the water and use bubble form to make the bath interesting. I still remember the smell of the bubble foam. So here is me and my sister enjoying a bath in a bucket!
Early Character Design Sketches
This is how I shared them on my instagram. I used a broken border around my images to give a feeling of old photographs. I want to share the story as we are looking through a photo album and me telling the story behind the pictures.
Thank you for reading and watching my story!
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