Painting & Design Thinking
I have been very passionate about painting right from my childhood days. My school curriculum laid strong emphasis on art and sculpture. During the pandemic, I got enough time to rejuvenate it. It got triggered by looking at one of my former student, Sudipto’s painting on Facebook. He is an accomplished painter and artist. Once during my conversation, he motivated and guided me in buying relevant art materials like 300 GSM watercolor papers, natural hairbrushes and artist grade watercolor. I began researching on the leading watercolor artist and started following them in various social media platforms. I also did a short course on understanding the various nuances of the watercolor medium. I started by painting landscapes but slowly got attracted to architectural paintings. The subtle play of light and shadow appealed to me. Initial days were quite frustrating but slowly with time I could see marked progress in my brush strokes and composition.
I believe art is a language of expression just like any other language. Kids learn to draw lines even before they can speak. Being a business professor, I strongly feel that the fine art skills like painting should also be embedded in business curriculum for the new age professionals. These days, design thinking is quite popular among business school. I believe painting is a precursor to design thinking. As someone said If what is seen and experienced is portrayed in the language of logic, then it is science. If it is communicated through forms whose constructions are not accessible to the conscious mind but are recognized intuitively, then it is art” (Calaprice, 2000, 271).” Even Einstein himself believed all great scientists are artists.
About the author,
Dr. Surajit Ghosh Dastidar
Associate Professor (Analytics), IMT Hyderabad. An artwork by Surajit Ghosh Dastidar
