Kolam: A Threshold Art

Navarthri (the festival of nine nights/the festival of Goddess) started on Tuesday. All Hindus celebrate but with great variations across India. In South India, where I am from originally, it is celebrated with Golu, a doll and figurine display at home. It is also customary to draw in front of  the house large designs called kolam. A kolam is usually drawn using a mix of colored rice flour and chalk powder. It is obviously an ephemeral art not meant to last more than a few hours. Typically, a new kolam is made every day.

Here in the US, it is not very practical to draw kolam just using flour and chalk powder. I wanted it to last a little longer than a day. So, I made it with craft acrylic paints. The cement surface was rough and gray. I applied a coat of white gesso first to make the colors come out bright. I improvised using a typical mandala design and adding a few decorative elements here and there. The drawing did not flow smoothly because of the rough surface and it took me about 3 hours from start to finish.

Right now it looks bright and cheerful. Come winter, with ice and snow, most of it will peel away.

It is getting chilly here and sweater and glove weather is predicted for this weekend. Undeterred, the squirrels are still running around hoarding their secret stash.  I caught this one in action from my usual perch aka as the kitchen window. Enjoy.

Thanks for visiting.

Painted Rocks

I had been working to solve a software problem since last night. By mid morning, though the problem was solved, I had an odd feeling of the day not being very productive. So, I decided to complete the Diva Challenge. This being the first week of the month, it is "use my tangle" challenge and this week's UMT is Tri-Bee by Beate Winkler, CZT.  The ease of repetition inspired me and I created it on a small stone. I used a gel pen and acrylic paints for the patterns. The other little stones were a joint painting project with my daughter when she was visiting me a couple of weeks ago.

In other news, I posted a photo of this winterberry bush in my backyard on Facebook. I don't think Facebook had anything to do with it, but the next morning hundreds of starlings landed on my backyard. Their arrival quite worried the resident birds who circled them and stood guard by the bush the whole day even though it was a very chilly rainy day. I managed to capture the backyard drama from the kitchen window with my Nikon D5000.

It was quite interesting to watch.

Thanks for visiting.

Also linked to Paint Party Friday.

My Scheherazade: So Close Yet So Far

This is a collage of Edmund Dulac's Illustration of the Arabian Nights. I got the free image from Dover Publications Edmund Dulac Treasury: 116 Color Illustrations. I printed several copies of it, recolored all of them using watercolor pencils and acrylic ink (this is how the original print looks like). Then I progressively layered the prints to achieve the dimensional look. I learned this technique from Paula Guhin's Image Art Workshop. 

As befitting an illustration of the Arabian Nights, I embellished the castle with several swarovski crystals.

Sometimes, dresses can look architectural too. These are some of the dresses from the "China Through the Looking Glass" exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Linked to Art Journal Journey October Theme of Architecture.

When Birds Fly South

 

More than anything else, it is the quiet backyard and the long shadows that achingly signal the coming of autumn here in New Jersey. As the Sun moves southward, birds follow. Most of my backyard birds are gone though a few stragglers remain. I saw a pair of cardinals this afternoon. Not sure if they plan to hang around here for the winter. During spring and summer, I spent a lot of time watching the backyard visitors from my kitchen window and capturing their movements and sounds with my Nikon D7000. I had put makeshift ground level bird baths in several places. I observed the communal (or its lack) spirit in sharing the water bath and was amused to see how the birds perched on the nearby branch to signal to the bird splashing in the water that its time was up. I wasn't the only one observing them. My neighbor's little kitty stalked them too. Even the cat is now huddling inside. 

Just yesterday, nearly three dozen birds descended on my  backyard for a little sip and a dip before resuming their southern journey. It felt like a good omen for the season to come. 

The art work at the top is two sides of a clay tag collaged with a print of an original watercolor I had done of  Red Munia, also known as scarlet finch, a common bird in the Indian sub-continent. Below are a sample of my backyard visitors through the camera lens. 

Enjoy the photos!

Linked to Paint Party Friday. 

Thanks for visiting.

Coconut: Have You Tried One Recently?

Coconut is an indispensable ingredient in South Indian cooking. As a South Indian myself I have always used coconut in my cooking, even in those days when coconut was the big villain in heart health circuit. With it now back in grace not only as a healthy food but also as an essential body oil, I feel proud to be a South Indian :). I did the above watercolor illustration as a tribute to this might tree nut.

If you are interested in coconut-based recipes,  here is one of my recipes.

Thanks for visiting. Linked to Paint Party Friday.

Mixed-Media Sari Fabric Art

Mixed-Media Sari Fabric Art: Birds on Green Trellis

Way back, when I first opened my Etsy shop I used to make a series called sari art. Using watercolor, I sought to capture the colors, textures and motifs of Indian saris on paper.  Indian saris were a

great source of inspiration and I had a lot of fun making sari art. Then I moved on to other things. 

Recently, I felt a renewed interest in doing them again. This time, I did it a little differently.  The colors and textures of the sari became the foundation upon which other patterns and collaged images were grafted. This added a greater dimension to the art. I am very happy with the effect.

They are now available here.

Zen-Doodle Mixed-Media Sari Art: Swan

Mixed-Media Sari Art: Born Free

Thanks for visiting.

Linked to Paint Party Friday. I am thrilled that the PPF random number generator chose my art for the featured artist last Friday and I am thankful to those PPF artists who left a comment on my blog.

Another Pyrography Art: Peacocok

This is a mixed-media art where I have combined wood burning and water coloring. Below, I have provided photos of various steps involved in creating the art above.

First, I lightly sketched with pencil the design I wanted to wood burn.

 With the wood burning pen, I doodled on the face, neck and the body of the bird.

I continued with wood burning on the train. Since I was planning to paint this part. I just burned a few areas while leaving others untouched.

I wood burned additional details on the train, the flowers and the leaves.

I used transparent watercolors to paint the flowers and the train of the peacock.

The finished piece.

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