Sunshine story: Meet the artists who can't see colour but can smell it right

Krupa Shah along with some of the students of Happy Home and School

What would it be like if you had to paint on a canvas with your eyes blindfolded? The task would not only be difficult but extremely challenging as well. But, 37-year-old artist Krupa Shah from Walkeshwar is teaching a bunch of visually impaired kids that life is all about taking up these challenges and showing the world that nothing is impossible.

At a Worli-based school for such children, Shah is training them in creating masterpieces with their paintbrushes by simply recognising each colour by its unique smell.

Shah teaches the kids at one of the workshops

Shah has been conducting a series of workshops for partially and completely blind kids at the Happy Home and School for the past fortnight. She is using 10 special organic colours - each of which has a unique smell - to teach the children how to create magic on the canvas.

Speaking to mid-day, she said, "I want the kids to paint independently, so that they can create their own form of art without any help. That's how the idea of teaching them to paint by identifying each colour by its smell came to my mind. Each of the colours smells differently. For example, red smells like strawberry and white like vanilla."

A painting created by a visually challenged student

Each workshop, which lasts for nearly three hours, helps some of the students create upto three paintings. "It's important for the kids to know that blindness shouldn't deter them from painting. But, there are challenges in teaching them to do so. Training them in handling tools and moving them within the space of the canvas is challenging. Also, it's difficult to teach them how to create a balance between warm and cool toned colours. But what makes the efforts worth it is their willingness to learn."

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