The painting is titled ‘cultivation of crops’. It has a Persian blue background with a village woman dressed in a pink saree. She carries a sickle and balances a haystack on her head. Around her, farmers plough the fields, sow seeds, spray manure, thrash the grains, pack them and send them to storage depots. The grains arrive at stores from where the customer buys grains. Done with water colours and poster paints, Anjana. V, a Class V student of Avila Convent MHSS submitted the painting to the World Food Day Poster Competition conducted by FAO of the United Nations. The theme was Healthy Food System for Food Security and Nutrition. It won her the first place in the 9-12 age category. Anjana says her brother Sudarshan.V inspired her to take up painting when she was in UKG. “Along with him I joined art classes at Chitrakala Academy. I have participated in a number of competitions. They help improve my science drawings too.”
As she prepared for the contest, she referred to science books and took help from her art masters V. Chandrasekar and V. Jeevananthan of the Chitrakala Academy. “I like to draw human figures, nature, animals, birds and butterflies. Every day, I spend two hours practising painting. My master laid the foundation for this painting. He corrected the colours, and then I added my inputs.”
The painting shows the process of cultivation of crops and it won her recognition for a creative presentation from a child’s point of view. Anjana has won many prizes at painting competitions on the topics as varied as save tigers and petrol conservation (conducted by the Gujarat Government). She also secured first place at a painting competition titled ‘Icons of Coimbatore’. It was an on-the-spot painting contest where she recreated the historic TNAU building on canvas. Anjana says she would like to become a doctor or an artist.
The World Food Day poster design contest is organised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Women’s Guild in Rome, Italy.
