Collage Art: Birds

In many ways, fall and winter are also bird seasons. Nothing signals  the approaching winter as the sight of the birds, shadowy silhouettes against the low sun, making their way to warmer regions. May be, that was why when I wanted to create some new collages for the shop, I chose all bird images from the Graphics Fairy . They are all my favorite birds--peacock, owl and parrot. (Of course, no artwork by an Indian can be complete without including a peacock somewhere.)

The compositions are straight forward and unfussy, letting the color and the beauty of the bird images to shine through. I like the way they have turned out and they are available at my Etsy shop.

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Number 10 in the Series: Yoga Art

Yesterday, I completed the tenth and the eleventh painting in my elephant yoga art series, which felt like a bit of a milestone. Two years ago, when I did my first piece (below) I did not think I had the imagination to continue with it for this long. In the overall scheme of things, ten is  not a huge number especially given that Patanjali's yoga sutras have hundreds of yoga postures of which at least fifty are currently practiced and, I should have been able to churn out one art piece every week. It was slow going for me mainly because I wanted to depict the poses as accurately as possible while finding a proper way to align the trunk (!), simultaneously maintaining the beauty and the dignity of the character (elephant) doing the poses. Then there was always the question of how to make the baby elephant part of the story. The idea for the asana usually tends to come after the daily yoga practice and I will it work in my head during my long daily commute and then start sketching it on paper.  I am not a a quick draw artist. So, at this stage, eraser becomes absolutely indispensable as you can see below.

Over the course of two years,  the  paintings  evolved organically and began to find its audience. Because I had decided that I would not sell copies, each and every buyer gets an original painting done fresh and new for her. Yes, my buyers are usually women and many of them are from the West Coast.

You can read more about the evolution of my yoga art here. Below are images from my complete yoga series and, you will find them all in my Etsy shop.

Most Popular!

First and Favorite!

Young Mothers' Favorite

Another Young Moms' Favorite

My Sister's Favorite

How Do You Say Soap in French?

As you know, I like decorating boxes. Inspiration to decorate the box with french soap labels when I happened upon several of them at the Graphics Fairy site under the French category. To keep it cohesive, I decided to use several of the lovely soap labels (or savon as they are called in French). To start with, I decoupaged a background layer of sheet music and then adhered the labels on top. I stained the sides and stamped on the top, added a bit of glitter glue and it was done.

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Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed....

This weekend I worked on decorating a whole set of wood boxes with bird theme. For bird images, I went to the popular and ever generous free graphics site The Graphics Fairy. In addition to the vintage bird images, I also threw several other types of paper such as chiyogami, music sheet and regular scrap paper into the mix. Hence the title above. This mix n' match makes these boxes visually more interesting, I think. Take a look.

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