Read, Write and Think with Burlap

The rice I cook for my family comes packaged in neat gunny* sacks (burlap in Amer. Engl). After the rice is finished, I try to find new uses for the empty bags. Over the years, I have repurposed them into memo boards, computer bags and little coasters. The above one is the latest reincarnation of the trusty gunny bag into a journal cover. I embellished the cover with a 4x3" piece of cured chalkboard cloth on which you can actually write with a chalk. The felt liner is made out of repurposed plastic bottles. The notebook closes with a cotton cord that I dyed using tea and coffee solutions. I machined stitched around the edges to prevent fraying. I thoroughly enjoy making them and they are available for sale at my Etsy shop

This is a perfect a gift to someone who  keeps journals and likes all things green. You will find these and more handmade journals in my Etsy shop here.

* The British English word "gunny sack" etymologically comes from the Indian word "goni".

The rice I cook for my family comes packaged in neat gunny* sacks (burlap in Amer. Engl). After the rice is finished, I try to find new uses for the empty bags. Over the years, I have repurposed them into memo boards, computer bags and little coasters. The above one is the latest reincarnation of the trusty gunny bag into a journal cover. I embellished the cover with a 4x3" piece of cured chalkboard cloth on which you can actually write with a chalk. The felt liner is made out of repurposed plastic bottles. The notebook closes with a cotton cord that I dyed using tea and coffee solutions. I machined stitched around the edges to prevent fraying. I thoroughly enjoy making them and they are available for sale at my Etsy shop

This is a perfect a gift to someone who  keeps journals and likes all things green.

* The British English word "gunny sack" etymologically comes from the Indian word "goni".

Weekly Challenge #15: Love Your Curves

This week's challenge on I am the Diva is called "Love Your Curves". This is a colorized and a stylized version of a familiar motif in my art. At first glance, the peacock is an unlikely candidate for this project but with the right curves in the right place, he made the cut!

Tiffin Carrier or Bento?

In Tamilnadu, it is called a tiffin carrier, stack of containers used for packing lunch (typically rice, vegetables, yogurt etc). They are called "dabba" in Bombay and bento in Korea.

I asked my husband to get me one when he was visiting his family in Chennai last week. He got me three!

Weekly Challenge #14: I Walk the Line

This week's challenge on I am the Diva is called "I Walk the Line". I knew what I wanted to do. The challenge was finding the time for it. I had fun adding color, though the paint job is a little bit imprecise.

Yoga Art

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The inspirations for my yoga art come from my long practice of yoga and, from raising a family with all the ups and downs that go with it. We know as parents, the joy of when our children want to be exactly like us, the puzzlement of when they absolutely do not want to be like us and the satisfaction of when they learn to find a balance.

Lochanadevi, as the mother elephant is called, like all modern mothers, is super busy juggling multiple roles on a daily basis. And, setting aside some personal time for yoga and meditation practice is a big challenge. Luckily for her, her young ones like to hang out with her. The tree pose or vrikshasana in this yoga art gives a beautiful upward stretch and a wonderful sense of balance that the mother elephant is symbolically reaching for.

I depict mother elephant and her calf instead of humans in my yoga art humans because elephants are matriarchal and very family oriented animals. Elephants are also the most beloved of Indian animals and they are also very agile and flexible and it was entirely possible to imagine the mother elephant doing all those yoga poses while the little one watched. Hathi means elephant in Hindi and hence the play on Hatha yoga as hatha (i) yoga.

The painting is done in Indian folk art style--the images are unidimensional but have great details. In the typical folk art style, the watercolor paper was first dyed into variegated brown shades using several natural dyes. The painting itself is done mostly with primary colors. There is also a border around the central image, also typical of this style of painting.

The elephants are heavily decorated which is a commonly found in Indian paintings and in real life also.

You can find this and other yoga art in my Etsy and Artfire shops

Weekly Challenge #12: Shades of Blue

This week's challenge on I am the Diva is called "Something Blue". I had fun coming up with the tangle. I also suspect this may be the beginning of more color in my tangles!