Happy Thanksgiving!

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

A Tiny Taste

The challenge this week at I am the Diva is to tangle just a small part of a tile and to leave rest empty. Instead of using a real tile, I decided to do the tangle on this lovely autumn-colored leaf. I drew the tangles along the veins and covered just a third of the leaf. I like the overall effect of human-made design  co-existing with gorgeous natural patterning.

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Make Me Some Munchin

 This week's challenge at I am the Diva czt is to use the tangle called Munchin, demoed by Molly Hollibough using a black tile. I usually like this type of repetitive tangles and this was no exception. However, I did not have a black tile. This time of the year, my backyard is filled with colorful natural tiles in various shapes and sizes and I could not resist using one as my tile. I used white and black gel pens, both of which glided smoothly on the leaf.

I painted this kolam to celebrate the beginning of the navarathri season. I have written more about navarthri and the art of kolam here.

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Tangle or Doodle with Objects as Strings

As the snow melted and the ground began to thaw, some of the buried treasures of last fall began to reveal themselves. I found one  large oak leaf, soft, pliant and still vibrant in its autumn color, near a pile of garden stones. I brought it inside and  sealed it in a ziploc bag to use it at a later time. This week at I am the Diva the challenge is to use stencils to trace as strings. I thought what better than  leaves which are nature's most bountiful stencils? I used the leaf as a traced object and tangled on it. The red, whit and blue on this leaf is just nature's cycle in a continuous loop.

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A Bug's Life

This week's challenge at I am the Diva czt is to tangle a tile around a bug. I decided to tangle and place my bug on that most natural of tiles, a leaf. Early in the fall season, I had collected several leaves. I had coated them with mod-podge and packed them in a ziploc bag. This kept them from drying out and also made the surface smooth for drawing. I used a calligraphy pen and acrylic ink to draw the fine line/vein of the leaf. I drew the dragonfly with white gel pen.

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Leaf Art in Autumn

The leaves are falling with abandon covering the ground in riotous colors. As I feel their soft skin, they seem to be calling out "Take me with you. I am not ready to be raked away or sucked up". How can I resist? So, I bring some home with no idea of what I was going to do. I put them in a large ziploc bag so that they would not dry up while I decided how to immortalize them. The large maple leaves turning into this mouthwatering chocolate color were perfect canvases to doodle and to cut designs. So, every night I worked on one leaf without any prior planning, simply letting the leaves speak to me. The technique is very simple, tools are minimal and in short time one can produce a work of art.

For doodling on the leaves, I used a white gel pen. These are non-permanent and if you make a mistake or don't like the design, you can wash it off and start all over again. You can also apply a thin coat modge-podge over the doodle to seal it. To keep it from drying out, put in a ziploc bag. It will stay soft and supple for quite a while.

For cut out, I used a basic exacto knife. I lightly drew the lines first with a while gel pend and cut around the lines. Again, I sealed the leaf with modge-podge after the basic design has been cut.

Thanks for visiting.