Happy New Year!

Wishing you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2017! 

Art work done on black vinyl cloth using Prisma neo pastels. Linked to Paint Party Friday

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Best Nine on Instagram!

It is always interesting to note which ones get most likes. Some of these are my favorite too!

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Super Moon of December 2016

On December 13, last of the three Super Full Moon of 2016 occurred. According to Indian astrology, the area of the sky lit by this moon is known as Mrigashirsha (meaning: deer's head) located in the constellation of Orion. I particularly enjoy illustrating astrnomical phenomenon, especially those relating to the Moon. I did a quick illustration of this one using vinyl chalkboard and Prisma Neo pastels. I started simply with a bright full moon and the trees cast in dark silhouette but when it seemed incomplete I added the deer behind the Moon. Somehow, the deer seemed to add to our knowledge of this super Moon. Maybe it is just my fancy.

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Linked to Paint Party Friday. Thanks to Kristin and Eve for hosting.
Linked to Art Journal Journey (darkness and light)
Linked to Moo-Mania  (Trees)

Reindeer Days

Lots of doodles decorate this reindeer in a festive red and green backdrop right in time for the holidays. I used micron pens and Pitts brushes for the artwork. The collage is made of vintage music sheet (of Jingle Bells song) and scrap paper.

Linked to Try-it-On Tuesday Celebrate Challenge.

I finished another pouch with lots of doodles drawn and painted. Photos below.

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Illustrated Recipe: Aromatic (Masala) Tea

Illustrated recipe using vinyl chalkboard, chalks and pastels.

Linked to Moo Mania "Coffee and/ or Tea" 

Illustrated Recipe: Lassi

Lassi is a old drink made with yogurt and water. It is a cooling drink when no spice is added. The addition of spices give it a restorative quality. I drew the illustration on a Kraft paper using black and white gel pens. The black pen worked well on the paper but the white pen only so so.

Last weekend, my husband and I did some bird watching at the Conowingo dam in Darlington, Maryland. It was a mild fall day with cloudless blue skies and much of the coppery foliage still intact. Lucky for us, the turbines at the dam ran for several hours. An interesting fact about the dam is that when the turbines run and as the water and the fish spew out, the fish float on the surface making them an easy prey for the birds.The dam is a popular hunting ground for piscivorous  birds. The star attraction is bald eagles but gulls, cormorants, herons and vultures are common. It is a popular spot for outdoor photographers looking for opportunities to take dramatic pictures of eagles diving down the water and sweeping up with a fish in its clutches. I caught a few moments like that myself. 

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Happy Thanksgiving!

To those who celebrate: Wishing you a very happy Thanksgiving celebration with family and friends.

Bald Eagles at Conowingo Dam

Last weekend, my husband and I did some birdwatching at the Conowingo dam in Darlington, Maryland. It was a mild fall day with cloudless blue skies and much of the coppery foliage still intact. Lucky for us, the turbines at the dam ran for several hours. An interesting fact about the dam is that when the turbines run and as the water and the fish spew out, the fish float on the surface making them an easy prey for the birds.The dam is a popular hunting ground for piscivorous  birds. The star attraction is bald eagles but gulls, cormorants, herons and vultures are common. It is also a popular spot for outdoor photographers looking for opportunities to take dramatic pictures of eagles diving down the water and sweeping up with a fish in its clutches. I caught a few moments like that myself.

Thanks for visiting. Linked to

Image-in-ing

ABC Wednesday: letter T is for Turbine

Sketches

I am taking a course called Draw Like t is Hot on the Sketchbook Skool. This course teaches how to create illustrated recipes. This is one of the  sketches I did for a home work assignment. The other sketch I did is below where we had to fill up the page with kitchen related things. I did both sketches during the early part of the week. Since then  I have been wasting much time reading election news.

Last Sunday, I finished making this journal. The removable cover is made of canvas which I painted first with acrylic colors and then covered with doodles.

In the happy news department, I was featured in All About You, an e-mail newsletter from Uppercase Magazine.

Linked to Paint Party Friday. Thanks to Eva and Kristin for hosting.

Tiny Art on Matchbox

My time this week was occupied by this fun project, something I had not planned to do at all. I had these empty matchboxes for quite sometime but was not inspired to do much with them till I saw a round up of decorative matchboxes on Design*Sponge recently.

Suddenly, I knew what I could do with the matchboxes. I decided to decorate mine with watercolor illustrations with a botanical theme. I created each label in watercolor using Fabriano coldpress 140 lb. paper. I hand stitched a frame around each little painting and glued it on top of the matchbox. It was a good exercise in small scale painting.

Linked to Paint Party Friday. Thanks to Eva and Kristin for hosting.

Linked also to Try it on Tuesday Handmade by You.

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Halloween Chalk Art Inspired by PageFrights

 Halloween Chalk Art

This is the last of Halloween Chalk Art for this year (see others here). This one was inspired by Bio Diversity Heritage Library's Page Frights, a collaboration with Smithsonian Library where ghoulish images from old nature texts were published all this month for public use. This one of a great horned owl  silhouetted by the light of a full moon is spooky enough but not quiet astronomically correct for this year. As a matter of fact, Halloween is falling a day after the New Moon.

Linked to Paint Party Friday and Moo Mania.

Yesterday was cold and rainy day here. But there was a lot of action in the backyard brought in by a flock of migrating starlings that dropped by for berries and water. The resident robins got all agitated and brought in their own flock from the neighborhood to stand guard over the honeysuckle tree. Here are a few pictures of the standoff.

Linked to Image-in-ing

This little woodpecker decided to join in the fun!

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