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| MOUNTAIN PEAKS -by Naval Langa |
The Birth of an Artist: A Journey in Colour and Consciousness
When I first stood before the world and declared, almost defiantly, that I wanted to become an artist, the reaction I received was not one of joyous applause or proud encouragement. Instead, I was met with an awkward silence, with eyes turning toward me in unease—some out of genuine concern, others, perhaps, out of concealed fear. The idea that someone would willingly choose the uncertain, solitary, and often financially unstable path of an artist unsettled people. It was as if I had chosen to walk barefoot into a storm while others were looking for shelter.
Their discomfort wasn’t entirely misplaced. At that stage in my life, many things seemed to be going astray. The mistakes of youth piled up faster than accomplishments. I stumbled more than I ran. I failed more than I succeeded. And yet, in that restless period of young life, I began to sense an internal resonance—an unspoken longing that leaned toward expression, toward creativity, toward a life lived not through repetition, but through exploration.
Looking back, perhaps that is why I believed, with a strange and stubborn hope, that if not anything else, I could become an artist—or a writer, or even a poet, if life allowed it. All these creative forms, though outwardly different, shared the same sacred core: they were instruments to translate the intangible depths of the inner world into some visible, tangible, shareable form. The language might be verse, or narrative, or paint—but the soul behind it was the same.
Soon enough, colours and canvases ceased to be mere tools. They began to feel like my closest companions, even my blood relatives. They were no longer objects but extensions of my emotional vocabulary. This is why, one day, I began referring to myself as an “artist”—not as a label, not as a boast, but as an identity finally found. It was not a profession but a belonging, not a title but a homecoming.
In truth, my connection with colours began much earlier. I had enjoyed their companionship even in the turbulent decade of the 1990s, when I had first picked up a brush with what I now call a “stubborn honesty.” It was not ambition that moved my hand then, but something deeper: a yearning to transform silence into speech, chaos into order, or perhaps disorder into a more meaningful kind of chaos.
During those years, as I splashed paints onto waiting surfaces—sometimes wood, sometimes canvas, sometimes even torn bits of discarded paper—I realized that painting is not merely the act of applying colours. It is a conversation. A conversation between the visible and the invisible, between surface and soul, between mind and matter. Each stroke is not just a mark, but a declaration. Every colour is not just pigment, but emotion held in suspension.
With time, it became clear that it wasn’t enough to rely on instinct alone. Passion is a good firestarter, but technique is the hearth that keeps the fire alive. And so I turned to study—theory, history, colour science, and brush techniques. I began to learn about the weight of a colour, the vibration it creates beside another, the psychological impression it leaves on the viewer. The more I read, the more I painted, the more I began to understand that every shade has its secret life, every hue a story.
The theory of colours opened new windows into the mysteries of perception and emotion. I learned that colours are not inert elements—they are alive. They breathe through our retina and whisper to the unconscious. Red can pulsate with passion or scream in agony. Blue can soothe like a lullaby or chill like a winter breeze. Yellow might burst with sunlight or ache with sickness. The placement of these colours, their harmony or their dissonance, is what gives a painting its rhythm—like music for the eyes.
The great masters had known this. Whether it was the saturated brilliance of Van Gogh’s sunflowers, the dreamlike haze of Monet’s gardens, or the sculpted contrasts of Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro—they all wielded colour not just as surface decoration, but as psychological terrain. They orchestrated light and pigment to evoke memory, desire, transcendence, and grief. To study their works was to converse with centuries of human feeling.
So I began to paint more deliberately. I began to observe. I would sit for hours in front of a wall, or a sky, or a crowded street, just watching how light touched objects, how shadows moved like silent dancers, how colour appeared not in isolation, but in delicate relation to everything around it. I studied not only art but the theatre of the everyday: the crimson of drying chillies on a rooftop, the ochre of sunlit dust, the silver shimmer of rain on concrete. I discovered that painting does not begin on the canvas—it begins in the eye, in the mind, in the receptive spirit.
Gradually, and almost mysteriously, the process began to change. What was once a conscious effort became a spontaneous unfolding. The brush, which earlier obeyed the will of my hand, now moved as if guided by an unseen conductor. The colours arranged themselves in ways I hadn’t entirely planned. The compositions began to form not through calculation, but intuition. It was as though the unconscious had taken over—had emerged from its shadows to become my collaborator.
This is a profound moment in any artist’s life: when technique becomes second nature, when expression becomes instinctual. It is no longer about choosing colours, but about being chosen by them. The canvas is no longer a surface to be filled, but a realm to be explored. One enters into a trance-like state, where time dissolves and space becomes fluid. This is not simply painting—it is communion.
That unconscious realm—the hidden world beneath waking thought—holds a mysterious power. It collects our memories, our fears, our unspoken dreams, and releases them, sometimes without warning, through art. The lines we draw, the colours we choose, the textures we create—they are not just artistic decisions; they are unconscious revelations. And so, slowly, silently, the act of painting becomes a mirror—not of the outer world, but of the inner self.
It is this alchemy that transforms a normal person into an artist. Not fame. Not money. Not even praise. But this deep, persistent relationship with the unconscious, this ability to stand still in silence and let the soul speak through shapes and shadows. Art is not something we do. It is something we allow. The best works are never forced; they are released.
And with that realization, I came to understand that art is not merely about producing beautiful images. It is about bearing witness. To life. To feeling. To time. It is about catching the invisible pulse of the moment and casting it in colour. Whether it is a trembling tree in winter, or the luminous sadness in a stranger’s eyes, or the memory of childhood playing like light across a wall—every painting is a document of something fleeting, something sacred.
Of course, the journey is not always smooth. There are days when colours rebel, when compositions collapse, when nothing feels right. There are months of drought when inspiration hides like a shy animal. There are paintings that go unfinished, or worse, overworked into lifelessness. But even these struggles are essential. They are the part of art that humbles you, that keeps you grounded, that reminds you that creation is not domination but dialogue.
So, when I look back at the moment when I first declared my intent to be an artist—when the world looked at me with doubt or dismay—I do not resent those reactions. They were based on a reasonable view of the world. But what they couldn’t see, and what I only began to understand years later, is that art is not a luxury. It is a necessity. For the soul. For the mind. For the gentle revolution that happens inside a person who begins to truly see.
And today, when I stand before a blank canvas, I no longer feel intimidated. I feel invited. The canvas is not an opponent to conquer but a friend who listens. The colours are not just paints—they are messengers. The brushes are not tools—they are translators of silence. And I? I am not just an artist. I am a witness, a seeker, a servant of the unseen.
To call oneself an artist, then, is not a boast. It is a vow. A vow to keep observing. To keep listening. To keep revealing what often goes unnoticed. It is not a career—it is a calling. And if that journey begins with uncertainty and fear, it often ends with gratitude. Gratitude for the strange and beautiful gift of being able to turn the chaos of life into something luminous—something that, for even a fleeting moment, makes sense.
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| Rockman and The Ship -by Naval Langa |
In the luminous world of visual art, colour is not simply pigment—it is emotion, language, atmosphere, and identity. For artists, colours are not just decorative tools but companions, storytellers, and sometimes even adversaries. To understand colour is to understand painting at its core, and to live among colours is to learn the fine dance between intention and spontaneity. For the clan of artists—those devoted souls who dare to face the blank canvas—colours are the alphabet of their visual grammar. Every hue has a mood, every tone has a temperament. Together, they create symphonies that can soothe or stir the soul.
The artist, then, must become something more than a technician. They must become an observer of nature and an interpreter of the unseen. The application of colours requires discipline, sensitivity, and a cultivated intuition. Artists who live inside the emotional texture of colours begin to notice what others miss—the quiet drama between two neighbouring hues, or the way morning light turns a simple yellow into a golden whisper.
Knowing the Hues of Colours
There was a time when I did not fully understand colour. I only admired it—its vibrancy, its immediacy, its charm. But admiration is not intimacy. It was only through practice, through long hours at the easel and longer hours in observation, that I began to know the hues in their true essence.
I recall painting Rock-man and the Ship, an early oil on canvas (90 cm x 60 cm), when I was no more than a curious student of art. I was earnest but inexperienced, a willing learner with more passion than precision. That painting did not make me famous, but it brought me close to colour. After completing almost a dozen landscapes, something changed. The colours—blue, red, yellow—began to speak. The blue became a calm confidant; the red, a restless visitor; the yellow, a sunbeam with a smile. The paints no longer sat passively on my palette—they leapt to life, whispering, demanding, guiding.
This was the beginning of a relationship. It was not a transaction of utility, but a collaboration between the inner vision and the outer medium. I started preparing my own canvases, stretching and priming them by hand. This act gave me control but also a deeper connection. The surface was no longer foreign. It was personal, something I had made, and therefore, it welcomed my touch more willingly.
Gradually, I overcame the fear of the blank canvas. It no longer stared back at me like a challenge; it invited me like a friend. And with each painting I completed, the confidence grew—not arrogance, but a quiet understanding that I had begun to find a language of my own.
Practice and Spontaneity
After painting twenty-two landscapes, I understood what "spontaneity" means in art. It is not carelessness, nor is it chaos. Spontaneity is a refined impulse, born from habit and discipline. It is that beautiful moment when your hand moves before your mind calculates, and yet the result is more accurate than anything conscious planning could offer.
Those were days of great immersion. Time disappeared. I often could not tell whether it was morning or night. I painted when I felt, and sometimes I felt deeply, for hours without pause. Someone once said, “Dreams are not the things you see in sleep; dreams are the things that do not allow you to sleep.” I lived those words. To be an artist is to be disturbed by beauty, compelled by vision, and humbled by failure.
I began noticing how one colour reacts to the proximity of another—how blue deepens when placed beside burnt umber, how yellow becomes almost translucent when sitting next to a powerful crimson. These relationships create depth, emotion, and sometimes what the old masters called chiaroscuro—the play of light and dark that gives a painting its poetic weight. Understanding this required not just observation but devotion. You learn to coax the true personality out of each pigment. Ultramarine is not just blue—it is a mood. Burnt sienna is not just brown—it is a memory of earth.
Painting the Natural World: Perspective and Emotion
Being born in a village gave me a natural affinity for the outdoors. The singing birds, the rustling paddy fields, the changing hues of leaves on the same tree—all this was part of my early education in colour. No classroom taught me what the sky looks like after rainfall or how the afternoon light plays upon a pond. These details were absorbed, not learned. While others played cricket, I wandered into neighbouring farms, observing rather than participating. My solitude was not loneliness—it was preparation.
One professor at college noticed my coloured pencil drawings. She saw something in them—perhaps the raw sincerity of someone who had not yet learned to hide behind style. Her appreciation echoed into my family, and suddenly, my hours of “unproductive” wandering found validation. My mother felt reassured. My father remained uncommitted, as was his nature. But something changed: my pocket money doubled. It was a small thing, but it allowed me to buy better colours, better paper. In artistic terms, it was a windfall.
The aspiring artist often waits for such moments—not just recognition, but the sense that the world is quietly aligning itself with their inner longing. These subtle recognitions give us courage.
Of Art and Life: The Unseen Colours
College brought me two monumental events. One gave me financial security, the other gave me emotional completeness. The first was a well-paying job in the banking sector—a profession that assured stability but threatened to drown my creative thirst. The second was the meeting of my future wife—an encounter that took place in a library. Yes, libraries are magical places. They offer not just books but also connections. She became my companion, and also the quiet listener to all the colours I could not explain with words.
I read the works of the great masters. I did not just see their paintings; I studied their techniques, their brush handling, their rituals. Some painted in silence, others with music. Some laboured for months on a single canvas, building layers upon layers. I was fascinated by this devotion—this strange, sacred relationship between painter and painting. Every brushstroke was a prayer, every palette a shrine.
The Artist’s Dialogue with Landscape
To paint a landscape is to attempt a conversation with the Earth. The ground, the trees, the clouds—they are not objects to be copied but presences to be engaged. As landscape painters, we aim to recreate not just appearance but experience. The feel of soil, the smell of wet grass, the echo of wind through valley—all this must be embedded into the canvas.
The tools are simple: brushes, colours, canvas, and most importantly, the heart. The heart is where the landscape must pass before it can reach the hand. Otherwise, the painting remains hollow, a lifeless imitation.
My early attempts were immature. I rushed into oil painting without laying the foundation through drawing and watercolours. I thought passion was enough, but passion without patience is only noise. My first submissions to a gallery were rejected—and rightly so. My paintings were cluttered, overfilled with detail and underwhelming in harmony. I had confused complexity with richness.
But rejection is a teacher with a stern face and a generous heart. I went back, humbled but motivated. I simplified. I studied. I painted with more restraint. I began to see that less is often more—that space is as important as substance.
Transformation Through Failure
The moment I realized I needed to stop being a "casual artist" was a turning point. Art is not a hobby—it is a vocation. It must be treated with the same seriousness one gives to a sacred ritual. You have to approach the canvas as if it holds the meaning of your life. Only then does the painting respond.
My painting Indian Landscape (36” x 24”, Oil on Canvas), painted in 1995 on a self-prepared canvas, was the first where I felt this maturity take shape. It carried the weight of my newfound knowledge and the joy of unburdened expression. It was not perfect, but it was honest. And honesty, in art, is everything.
These paintings, created in a burst of creativity in 1995, were later exhibited in two solo exhibitions. Each piece was a testimony to a phase of my growth—a document of learning, failing, trying again. The colours I once feared became my voice. The canvas I once dreaded became my stage.
Conclusion: Colours as Companions
In the final reckoning, colours are not mere tools. They are companions in the journey of self-expression. They teach us patience, reveal hidden moods, and offer endless possibilities. For the artist, colours are never static. They change with light, with context, with emotion. And as we grow, they grow with us.
To explore the characteristics of colours is to explore oneself. Each brushstroke becomes an act of becoming. Each hue, a moment of truth. In this journey, the artist is never alone—for colour itself is alive, and it speaks, if you are willing to listen.
