Summer of Color Grand Finale: Orange, Orange, Blue

This was a painting I did on a canvas which I then made into a journal cover. Blue is rather predominant in this composition but the focal point is the moon which turned blood orange during the total lunar eclipse of April 2014. Providing companionship to the unusual Moon is Spica the brilliant star of the constellation Virgo and the red planet Mars. I love astronomy and after witnessing this uncommon sight I recreated it as a painting. Additional orange elements are the orange button closure and the orange glass bead.

This  journal cover hews more closely to the orange-orange-blue color scheme. There are two shades of orange and a single shade of blue. I made the cover using recycled sari material that had these lovely shisha (mirror) embroidery. The blue and orange closure was made using fabric and a button. The wrap around cord is also a blue.

Orange and blue are terrific color combinations and I am pleased that I was able to have two things that could fit into the challenge.

Thank you Kristen for this wonderful challenge. See you next year.

Linked to Summer of Color challenge.

Snail Mail Art: From a Pachyderm's Perspective

This was my first attempt at mail art. I was first introduced to this fascinating art form on Dave Dube' artblog and later on I came upon upon this book "Good Mail Day: A Primer for Making Eye-Popping Postal Art" by Hinchcliff, J and Gilligan, Carolee. And there are several boards on the Pinterest to inspire.

Not surprisingly, I used my favorite characters, Elephant Lochanadevi and her child, for my first mail art. In this age of texting and e-mail, it is touching to see this pair still using the old-fashioned snail mail.

I am pleased that it got published in the July 2015 issue of UPPERCASE which is dedicated to Stamps and Doilies. It is quite fantastically put together and you can get a low-resolution view of it in here.

You will find several of these in my Etsy shop 

Linked to Art Journal Journey July Challenge on Post and Postage and Paint Party Friday. 

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Coloring Season

Summer puts everyone in a coloring mood, I think. This week's challenge at I am the Diva is to use colors for the tangles. There is, of course, the Summer of Color  hosted by Kirsten at Twinkletwinklelikethestar where the colors for this week's challenge are two shades of green and pink. 

I burned this ZIA on wood using a pyrographic tool. After the design was burnt, I colored the water, leaves and the flower using two shades of green and pink. The colors, especially pink, look a little darker because of the wood. 

Responding to several challenges in one art is a challenge in itself but it streches you in a way that is very satisfying. 

Linked to Iamthediva and Summerofcolor.

Sari Art: Lacey Circles

This sari art is a work in progress and an evolving one too. It started with the drawing of a stylized swan. Then I decided to put it in relief with lots of circles around it. In the zentangle vocab these circles are called tipple, which incidentally is this week's challenge at I am the Diva. It is one of my favorite tangles.

The completed sari art will be revealed soon.

Linked to Paint Party Friday. 

Sari Art: Birds of Same Feather

When I first started selling my art a few years ago, I used to do a series of mixed-media artwork which I called "Sari Art". Using watercolors and actual sari pieces I tried to capture the complex colors and textures of Indian saris on paper. It was really fun to do  and interestingly enough there was a market for it.  After a while, I moved on to other things.

For this week's Summer of Colors challenge (Purple, Purple, Yellow), I dug out an unfinished sari art. The main section was already painted in purple color along with the purple border which came from an actual sari.  Last night,  I added a couple of paper birds, colored them yellow and added the phrase "birds of same weather" also in yellow.  I like the effect of purple and yellow together.

You will find examples of other sari art pieces on this blog here.


Linked to Paint Party Friday and Summer of Colors.

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Painting Summer Colors with Limited Palette

This week's colors for SOC are Pink, Pink and Orange. I am not a particular fan of pink but I love its darker and richer shades like magenta. Orange always gets my muse going. Typically with this background, the bird would be in silhouette but I like this one too.

Created for Summer of Colors and Paint Party Friday challenges.

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Doodle by Any Other Name

As a young school girl, I was an incorrigible doodler. I would fill up every available empty space in text books and notebooks with drawings of flowers, leaves and butterflies. It annoyed my mother very much and she would remark "scribbling hand means an empty head". Contemporary mind-body research confirms that she was right but not exactly in the way she meant it. I am not sure what caused me to be such a doodler but the habit has continued. The photo above on right is a page from a notebook from the 80's when as a young homemaker on a tight budget I used to keep detailed account of income and expenses. Perhaps, it was worry or hopefulness about money that caused me to doodle flowers around the numbers. I doodle a lot while in meetings not out of boredom but to hear closely what is being said or not said. I also doodle while thinking through a difficult problem. I have noticed that I don't break out for doodling while making art!

Today, doodling has not just achieved mainstream respectability but has even been elevated into a spiritual movement, albeit with a great commercial potential. It has metamorphosed from childhood deviancy to therapy for senior citizens. Along the way, it has acquired a prefix (Zen) and a couple of suffixes (tangle, art).

Whatever it is, I am happy to be part of it. I wonder what my mother would say to the fact I have even published my doodle art in a prestigious mixed-media magazine (photo above on the left in Zen Doodle Workshop from Cloth Paper Scissors, Summer 2015). I have a feeling she will be proud no matter what her personal opinion about it was.

If you want to see more of my "doodle art", click on the Zentangle Inspired Art tab at the top of the page or click on this link.

Submitted for PPF.

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