07 Jan NB Gurung Art: Watercolour in 30 Minutes
One of the NB Gurung Art team, Louise, recently visited NB in his native Nepal to make a short film about his life as an artist in one of the world’s poorest countries.
Despite NB living in an earthquake torn Nepal, a country that is also currently facing a fuel and gas crisis, Louise was bowled over by NB and his family’s hospitable nature as they warmly welcomed her into their quaint home in the Kathmandu Valley. Louise visited the Gurung family in November during Tihar, which means ‘the festival of light.’ Tihar is one of the most celebrated Hindu festivals in Nepal, is five-days long and comes soon after the countries main festival, Dashain. It is similar to Deepwali celebrated in India but with a regional variation. By day Nepalis make patterns on the floor of living rooms or courtyards using materials such as colored rice, dry flour, coloured sand or flower petals outside of their house, called Rangoli which is meant to be a sacred welcoming area for the Gods and Goddesses of Hinduism and by night candles can be seen lighting the way almost everywhere.
However, celebrating Tihar wasn’t the main reason that Louise was visiting NB, it wasn’t to eat Saraswati’s, NB’s wife’s, exceptional Dal Bhat either! Louise was there to witness the watercolour artist at work in his natural environment and to make a short film of him painting one of his famous Nepali landscapes. She prepared herself for a long afternoon of perfecting the art of watercolour but lo and behold, NB finished the masterpiece (below) in just over 30 minutes – now that’s natural talent!
All in all it was a wonderful way to end Louise’s two month long trip to Nepal. She was enormously inspired by NB’s talent, passion and capability to produce such masterpieces whilst making it look so easy. Watch this space, 2016 is sure going to be this artist’s year!
Watch the video to find out more about NB Gurung here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7up9Ke4u5Ek