This was my first art project after coming to Europe from USA, actually my first major art project in ISKCON. Hrdaya Caitanya prabhu and leaders of the Radhadesh temple, located in the foothills of the Ardennes mountains in Belgium, wanted to fill the then-bare walls of the room leading into the temple room with depictions of a few of the various pastimes of Krsna and His devotees. After meeting together to decide which 5 pastimes to show on the 3 available walls, one in between windows on one side, and two each on either side of two doors (the small oval with baby Krsna eating butter was painted directly onto the ceiling surface with water-based acrylic), I set about gathering materials, including the large wooden panels which were then cut to exact size to fit within their respective narrow frames for the different large spaces of the room.

I began by preparing the wooden panels in the standard manner, sanding, gessoing, and staining each one with a tube oil color of a reddish-brown terra cotta shade, thinning it with turpentine to a runny consistency. This was then rubbed onto all panels with a soft cloth. This is a nice color to use as a background, since it's so much better than staring at an intimidating all-white surface. Many artists employ a stain like this for their paintings backgrounds. Onto this brownish color, I projected my images of the pastimes with an opaque projector, pencilling them in with white artists' pencil. This time, I rendered the underpainting in oils, using turpentine as a medium. On other projects years later, it became my policy to do the underpaintings in acrylic, since its' drying
time was much faster and facilitated moving into the oil overpainting within hours, if necessary.

It was a pleasure working on this project, meditating on the different interactions Krsna displays with his friends, girlfriends, and parents. The complete work took over a year to complete. One of the things that made this project particularly challenging was the fact that there weren't so many spaces/rooms in the castle that were free for me to set up workspace for these large panels. During the course of the service, my "studio" changed three times, one of these makeshift studios was the tower room, which was the highest spot in Radhadesh, and also the coldest. But this was made into my studio where I painted two or three of the panels, during the cold winter of '94. Not very comfortable, I must admit, as it was necessary to paint wearing overcoat, wool cap, and even gloves on my painting hand! But that wasn't the only workspace that presented a challenge. When I had to set up in one of the asrama rooms, the ceiling was just barely high enough for the panel to fit upright. To paint the bottom portion, I had to lie prone. But all-in-all, it was a fun experience, and the final mounted work was appreciated by devotees and visitors. The leaders renamed the location "Krsna-lila room", and the resident devotees' japa chanting space now provided some colorful "aids" for meditating on The Lord's Holy Names.