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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Fearless in Chittagong, Bangladesh

Bangladesh was the place to explore in the Virtual Paintout challenge two months ago. I missed the challenge at that time but there were so many visually engaging sights there I had to do a painting even if it was past the deadline. This image of a little girl riding on the back of a cycle rickshaw packed with water cans at Airport Road, Chittagong caught my eye. There is barely any standing room but the girl is tiny enough to squeeze in and hang on to one of the ropes holding the cans in place. Only a child with no sense of fear could do it.The road had only light traffic with mostly bicycles and cycle rickshaws. So the girl was quite safe that way. But what was interesting was to see a girl in such bold position when there were so few girls visible in public.

It took me several tries before I got the proportions of the girl right to the stack of cans and the father driving the cycle rickshaw. I made the colors of the salwar-kameez brighter. I am not totally satisfied with the overall picture but will do for the present.

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Submitted for paintpartyfriday

I Am All Boxed Up!

This week's I am the Diva challenge is to use "All Boxed up" tangle by Alice Hedron. This tanagle nicely followed last week's challenge to use only straight lines. So, I continued with last week's project of planter redo and added a bunch of I am all boxed up around the outer edges. I all also added some turquoise blue color in the middle rectangle to brighten it.. I like the way the whole thing is shaping up.

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Yoga Art Journal

I had a lot of fun creating this cover for the journal. I started with raw canvas upon which I wrote by hand Sanskrit verses from Yogasutra, the classic text on yoga by Patanjali. I love adding sizable chunks of texts in my art and I think I have been unconsciously emulating the art traditions of  great medieval Indian empires and kingdoms, where sacred and secular texts and poems were made part of the art itself (see below). Then I painted a stylized image of Ganesha, the Hindu god of auspicious beginnings. Finally, I splattered the cover with paint to create additional texture. I like the way it has turned out.

This very functional art is my submission for Paint Party Friday.

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Drawing Straight: Diva Challenge Straight Line Tangle

Ths week'schallenge at I am the diva is to do a tangle using just straight lines. The planter redo I have been working on lent itself to this challenge perfectly. I applied white gesso to the wood surface first. Then used a fine-tipped black sharpie to draw the lines. Finally, I applied Golden liquid acrylic to some parts to give it a pop. I have a feeling I will be doing more with it as I look at it more. But it is kind of finished too.

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Taking Artistic Liberties :Cesky Krumlov

For the month of May, the artists at Virtual Paintout travel to Cesky Krumlov in Czech Republic. It is one of those picture postcard places, serene, bland, orderly and neat with nary a trash can in sight; for that matter, even humans are tucked neatly away. It had plenty of pretty  sights to paint but I didn't find them inspiring. I like my street views gritty, grimy and garish. After zooming around quite a bit, I found a spot that looked somewhat dingy and in transferring it to paper, I took lot of artistic license to liven it up. The painting was done on mixed-media paper with pastels, pen and watercolor. Below is the photo from Street view.

I am submitting this also for this week's Paint Party Friday

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Tangle on Found Object

This week's challenge at I am the Diva is to either tangle on black tile using white pen or tangle on a found object. I chose to do the latter. I found  a heart shaped rock near the cafeteria at my campus.  I drew with Sharpie extra fine for magenta and black. For white, I used Daler-Rowney Pro White watercolor with a brush. Needless to say, the markers worked a lot better than the brush. That's how  it goes sometimes!

On a happier note, two of my art work was published in the just released Zen Doodle Workshop magazine from Cloth Paper Scissors. The magazine is really very well put together. Digital version is available here and print copy is available for pre-order.

Thanks for visiting and your comments are much appreciated.