New Year Resolution

One might ask whether young children can understand the concept of new year resolution. I think they can--they certainly grasp the idea of positive and negative actions, like "not fighting"or  "being friends", and they do have a sense of time like "now" or "later". As I look back at my daughter's childhood, by the time she was 4 or 5, she was quite capable of coming up with a new year resolution for herself, even something like the one above!

Submitted for Illustration Friday this week's challenge "NEW".

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Weekly Challenge #100

Out at I am the Diva, Laura is celebrating the 100th Zentangle challenge, in honor of which, Maria Thomas (the founder of Zentangle) came up with three new tangles. Our challenge was to create a tile using three new tangles. I always find it easier to do ZIA (Zentangle Inspired Art). This being the holiday, I decided to tangle this reindeer. Laura Haams is bit like a reindeer herself, beautiful, gentle and strong and if you look closely you will find her name somewhere in those tangles.

I got this lovely image of the reindeer from the Graphics Fairy, a wonderful site for free vintage images.

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Glowing with the Spirit

The theme for this week at the Illustration Friday is GLOW. This art above is my submission.

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Penguin Book Cover Postcards

I have a special fondness for Penguin books. Back growing up in India, all our English language books, whether literature or history or fiction, were published by Penguin. Their appeal was that they were inexpensive, easily available, and their compact size made them storable and portable. So, when I found out that Penguin had come with a collection of its book covers as postcards, I quickly hopped over to Amazon to get them. The hundred cards came packaged in a nice box. Of course, in a fairly large collection like this, there are bound to be some duds and not all of one's favorite books are likely to be included. I was a tad disappointed that there were four cards from the Perry Mason collection while only one from Agatha Christie and none from Sherlock Holmes. But, I was very pleased that some of the covers such as Oscar Wilde's Plays and P.G. Woodhouse's My Man Jeeves, were actually the editions that I had read. Here is a sample!

Nice Graphics!

A card was sent along with a journal purchase from my shop

From my father-in-law's collection

My Books

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Snow in Slovakia!

The location for this month's Virtual Paintout is Slovakia, a beautiful country with many historical sites dating to pre-medieval period. This week's topic at the Illustration Friday is "SNOW". I decided to combine the two themes and, created one piece of art. What you see above is a segment of the Town Hall Square in Bardejov, Slovekia, one of Unesco's World Heritage sites. It is a place with an interesing hsitory, but I don't know if it snows there. Well, here is to artistic liberty!

This watercolor  painting was done 5" by &7" 140lb coldpress watercolor paper.

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Favorite Art Supplies: Tea Solution

TEA TIME!

When watercolor artists are asked about their favorite art supplies, tea is not likely to be one of them. Most will probably say a particular brush or paper or a color. For me, it is tea. I use tea as the basic wash for all of my yoga art work. The earthy tone it gives is particulary suited to the subject matter and the style of art that I use. It creates a beautiful texture especially on a rough watercolor paper. It also deepens any color that is applied over it. It is also great fun to slosh tea water on a pristine white paper and watch it change color. Sometimes, I can do these for hours!

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Weekly Challenge #97: String Theory vs. No Strings Attached





This week's challenge at I am the Diva is an intriguing concept of doing an entire zentangle tile without using string. I thought I would give it a twirl with one of my yoga art drawing. Usually, my yoga art work is quite orderly in the placement of motifs and patterns. The Diva's challenge provided an opportunity to let the inner doodler take over. It was a fun project and the result (pictured above) pleased me. More than that, it pleased my daughter so much that she bought it!

 The picture below is the original version.

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Zoom Illustrated!

This week topic at Illustration Friday is ZOOM. This is my take on it. Go over to IF for a wonderful eye candy on the topic.

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Virtual Paintout: New Brunswick

We visit New Brunswick, Canada for our Virtual Paintout project. Rural and thinly populated, it reminded me of Maine. With so many river systems and surrounded by the sea on three sides, one cannot but notice the amount of water on its topography. The bridges straddling the rivers are also very striking. There was plenty to paint and I chose New Brunswick 134 as my subject for this month's challenge.

Watercolor on Arches 140lb rough, 6.5" by 5".

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Illustration Friday: Tree

This is my submission for Illustration Friday's topic for this week, which is TREE. Trees are very much part of my yoga art series, especially in the meditation poses. If you want to see 1000+ interpretation of tree in art, jump over to IF site  and you will not be disappointed.

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Waiting for Sandy

Still haunted by the memories of last year's Hurricane Irene and the freak October nor'easter, 

New Jerseyans wait for Hurricane Sandy and the nor'easter.

My submission for this week's Illustration Friday theme HAUNT. (Watercolor, pen and ink collage.)

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A Virtual Trip to Croatia

This is my  Virtual Paintout submission for October. The location for this month is Croatia.

Watercolor, pen and ink on 8.5x5.5" watercolor coldpress paper.

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Every Drop Counts

This is my submission for Illustration Friday's this week's theme WATER. I have illustrated the concept of rainwater harvesting that is much used in the increasingly parched India.

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More Birds Continued!

Hoopoe

I did this watercolor on a vintage book page that was layered with absorbent ground. 

Orange Headed Thrush

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(Watercolor by Indira Govindan; Photos: Wikimedia Commons)

Illustration Friday: Mirror

My submission for this week's topic at Illustration Friday.

For more of my art check out my Etsy shop.

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Birds!

Since last week, I have started on a new habit...spending an hour or so every night drawing and painting. To keep my enthusiasm going, I decided to start with birds. These are Indian birds. The image sources for these bird paintings are photos that I had taken and the wonderful Wikimedia Commons. Birds 1, 3 and 4 are from Wikimedia Commons.

These are small art, done on Arches rough watercolor paper. I used watercolors, acrylic ink, brush and pen. I also added a bit of collage using old maps.

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Shooting the Breeze

This is my first submission for the VirtualPaintOut monthly project. This is an intriguing project, about which I found out from a a very unlikely source the polymerclaydaily.

Hosted by Bill Guffly, the idea behind the Virtual Paintout is to "give artists opportunity to gather virtually, and paint or draw in the same area". How is it accomplished? Every month Bill selects a geographic area from the Google Street view. The participants take a virtual walk of the area using the Street View maps and create a drawing or painting of something  they have seen. This concept appeals immensely to my love of travel, map reading and painting.

This month's project is island of Zealand in Denmark.  Zealand's largest city is Copenhagen. Having grown up in a megalopolis, my painting usually inclines towards urbanscapes. I "walked" around Copenhagen for an hour trying to find out what kind of city it is. This is what I found:

a. Bicycles galore--whether neatly arranged on the racks, propped against the wall or thrown carelessly on the ground. The street views were obviously captured during the warmer months and there were many folks navigating the city on bikes. Obviously, there is a strong bicycle culture there.

b. Copenhageners are not given to colorful or splashy dressing. The people were dressed in summer clothes of shorts and tees in very pale, being muted colors. 

c. Finally, Copenhagen is a very homogeneous city--a vast ocean of white devoid of any black, brown or yellow specks.

Given the general lack of vibrant or splashy colors, it was a surprise to find the garishly painted Palads Theater, a mega multiplex theater in the Hammerischsgade district. The colorful theater became the inspiration for the painting above. 


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September Sky

On September 22, the Sun will be exactly above our head as it crosses the Equator moving south. This phenomenon is called the equinox, when the sun rises directly on the east and sets exactly on the west. From our side of the earth, these  are the constellations visible on the September sky.

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Night Sky: Sept 9-15

Both Venus and Jupiter are currently visible in the morning sky now. The Moon joins Jupiter Sept 8 and 9 in Taurus (Moon is exalted in Taurus). (Moon-Jupiter is a powerful beneficial combination.) It will be conjunct Venus in Cancer on Wednesday, Sept 12. Cancer is Moon's own sign and astrologically, two luminous planets together makes the sign shine brilliantly

If you are interested in seeing any of these planetary displays, look towards the eastern sky, early morning between 1a.m and 4 a.m.

Moon and Jupiter together, Sunday Sept 9, 2012

Moon in Gemini from Monday Sept 10 to Tuesday Sept 111, 2012

Moon and Venus together in Cancer, Sept 12, 2012

(Artwork by Indira Govindan based on Astronomy Class, Star-Ledger)

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Photographic Glimpses of the Mall in D.C.

Edith Haupt Garden, Smithsonian Castle

Subcommitte by Tony Cragg, Hirshhorn Museum

Smithsonian Castle

Dhobi Flower

Coatroom sign at the Museum African Art. So Imaginative!

Sun and Moon Signs Etched on the Doors of the Museum of the American Indian

Japanese American Memorial

Japanese American Memorial

I hope you enjoy this little tour of some of the attractions of the Smithsonian Museums in Washington D.C.

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Straight From Paris!

Beautiful cotton ribbons straight from Paris, a gift from my daughter! A piece of it is already wrapped around this lovely journal at my Etsy shop 

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