Paint a picture

The first time I saw +Chandan Dubey 's blog, I had a fleeting moment of intense house envy.
Its one thing to decorate your house in a riot of "Indian" colours and artefacts.
Its another to do it so subtly by introducing some colour here, some art there, to a modern but quintessentially Indian palatte.

That is what I loved about her home.

Her photography deserves a special mention coz most of her pictures are like paintings. I specially love her Goa series coz they are dripping with colour. Turquoise is ubiquitous in Goan decor as we all know. It happens to be my favourite colour as well!

Saw this beautiful picture here.


It translated into this..

pastels on scrap book paper

Fishnet doodle is done!!

The Buddha head

I remembered I never really gave a breakdown of my spray painted Buddha head on my living room wall

Its been two years since I did it and the pictures are not optimal, but what the heck, here it goes..


The nice husband had got me - get this- 50 shades of spray paint as a birthday gift two years ago :)
Ya he knows me well..

The wall is about 12x10 ft
cleaned it first with damp cloth

I did not do primer coz I was feeling lazy..I know it will bite my behind sometime.

Painted it matte black after taping off the edges

Let it dry thoroughly

I downloaded a picture of a Buddha head I liked from the internet

I did a free hand of the head with gold spray paint first. I figured if it didnt work, I can always paint over it.

Fortunately I fluked and managed to get a decent image on the wall ( yeah first timers luck and all)

I used three shaded of gold- metallic, matte and bronze

Once the image was on, the only thing left to do was to play around with the shading

Some gold here some black there to tease out the features

Finally added a ring of turquoise coz my all time favourite combo is turquoise and gold - ya how decadent!

And Voila!

Few more doodles from the House of Palaparthi..

Hussain's horses stuck in a web?! 

My rendering of the three musicians

and a few more on the way

Been doodling..

Thank you for looking at the pictures :) The doodles are personal. Please let me know if you wish to use them anywhere :)

Oil on canvas

All in a day's work

This is what I do during my lunch hour and in between :)
Ssshhh! Dont tell the boss.

Decoupage

Being a Gemini entails I have a flavour of the month every 2 days! Its currently decoupage for me despite many failed first attempts.


But this time I persisted and bought myself a pricey bottle of modpodge and set out to pursue this seemingly arduous activity.


Having tucked my daughter into bed, I sat cross legged on my bamboo mat with dogged determination. I was going to get to the bottom of this.

A quick trip ( Its never quick) to the 2 dollar store the previous day had me fully equipped. Beautiful squares of japanese craft paper in various colours and patterns were acquired. Any fabric remotely Indian looking was grabbed and brought home. There was no looking back !

Not bad for a beginner eh ?!

Madhubani

My first attempt at Madhubani

Dervish

Saw this here

Was struck by the colours, the peace it exuded

Tried it with my pastels

The Sufi Dervish whirl - The Sema ritual began with the inspiration of Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi (1207-1273) and was influenced by Turkish customs and culture.

"By revolving in harmony with all things in nature -- with the smallest cells and with the stars in the firmament -- the semazen testifies to the existence and the majesty of the Creator, thinks of Him, gives thanks to Him, and prays to Him. In so doing, the semazen confirms the words of the Qur'an (64:1): Whatever is in the skies or on earth invokes God. "

Dont you feel a sense of calm and peace looking at the photograph?

My art

"Spawn"- Oil on canvas

"Metrosexual"- Oil on canvas

"Illusion"- Mixed media on canvas- work in progress

"Blood lilies"- Oil on canvas

Shall add more later. What do you think?!