Sundial

It was intended to be a simple project: alter a large plain canvas into something that could be hanged over the fireplace. My original plan was to apply a background paint in pink and then cover the entire canvas with doodles using a white puffy paint. In my mind's eye, I had imagined white doodles standing out  brightly against the pink background. Alas, it did not turn out that way. It actually looked depressingly vapid!

So, I glazed the whole painting with a wash of blue. 

It was an improvement from the previous one but still not satisfactory. Then I decided that if I am in for a penny, I might as well be in for a pound. So more layers of doodles and more layers of glazing followed

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After all that,  it still looked like a nicely layered background lacking a focal point. I was reluctant to make it into a collage project since it was a large canvas (36"x 24") and would involve days of work. The idea of adding embroidery (or more like string art) came to me in sleep. The next morning, I started on it as soon as I got up.

After a couple of hours it looked like this. 

It finally felt complete and ready to take its place above the mantelpiece. 

It wasn't a complicated project involving complex techniques. What it needed was lots of creative thinking to bring it together.

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

Creativity in New Year

So far, January 2017 has been very productive for me. I have been doing good amount of art and craft. I have been a tad slow in sharing them here but hope to make it up in this post.

The top photo is a sketchbook doodle I did consisting of only spirals drawn using just dots. It was a good exercise to perk ones spirits up. I finished it off with a semi camouflaged word. Can you spot it? I am linking this to this week's Moo-Mania.

The one below is a cigar box that I altered using a coat of black chalk paint and Martha Stewart's copper foil. The gilding was done using a woodburning tool since I did not foiling adhesive. I like the soft effect this technique has produced. Linked to Try it on Tuesday's Anything but Square.

The one below was inspired by museum piece at Victoria and Albert museum. As a kid I used to love drawing Indian jewelry. I thought I had outgrown that. Obviously not! This is an 18th century turban jewel made of gold and encrusted with rubies, diamonds, emeralds and sapphires. Sketched and colored on black vinyl cloth using Prism Nupastels.

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

The pillows below are made from the end piece (called pallu) of old saris. Indian saris have three parts: border, body and end piece. It is on the border and the end piece that the designers and the weavers unleash their creativity and which end up being work of art in and of themselves. Long after the body of the sari is worn out, the end piece invites to be displayed in new ways. 

Thanks for stopping by. 

More Doodles!

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The theme for this week's challenge at I am the Diva is to be inspired by the season. I did a tangle last week on a beautiful russet colored fall leaf. So, for this week, the nature inspired theme is more spring-like.

This is a watercolor painting dressed up with a doodle. See below for the original. It is a good thing I like doodling hundreds or even thousands of bubbles. It fit perfectly on this particular painting. It looks like the duck is swimming in a pond coated with pollen.  Actually, there is a pond outside my office that looked just like this in spring.

 I scanned the original painting and printed it on a matte photo paper. I used gel pens to draw the doodles. I was worried that I might ruin the pen tips by drawing on an inkjet image. Luckily the pens held up well.

This a scan of actual fall leaves.

Thanks for visiting. Your comments are most appreciated.

Linked to Paint Party Friday.