Portrait explorations.

Below is a portrait exploration of two of my fave kids using a new technique involving masking fluid. Slightly abstract and expressive, it's an attempt to capture their happy smiles!

Halloween!

A tad late but here's hoping everyone had an awesome Halloween! It's hard to imagine that Samhainophobia is the fear of Halloween. Any holiday in which candy sales average 2.5 billion dollars yearly would definitely help me overcome all associated fear:)

Final Interactive Bedroom

While wall decals have been around for a while and are here to stay, occasionally, they appear to hang loose in a large room looking lost. This project that I wrapped up a few weeks ago aims to combine the best of wall decals and interactivity by creating a stage and providing a context to the characters with the usage of whiteboard paint. This serves to create a more meaningful & engaging space over-all. The whiteboard areas can be doodled upon and used for homework, notes, list of chores, reminders or just simple drawings of anything under the sun. The first activity the lil imp, the proud owner of this room, indulged in was to paint the tree house itself in her own special way:) Detail of a wall decal character with his interactive whiteboard speech bubble merrily doodled upon. Detail of the tree house under which the Pop & Lolli wall decal divas mill around casting their magic spell.Below is a glimpse into the process and transformation of the space.Interacting with the space.

Weekend Getaways!

"Leaf peeping" in Vermont over the weekend allowed for a gorgeous fall feast of foliage. Below is a small "peep" into my wonderfully vibrant weekend filled with rich golden hues:) "A man who cultivates his garden, as Voltaire wished. He who is grateful for the existence of music. He who takes pleasure in tracing an etymology. Two workmen playing, in a café in the South, a silent game of chess. The potter, contemplating a color and a form. The typographer who sets this page well, though it may not please him. A woman and a man, who read the last tercets of a certain canto. He who strokes a sleeping animal. He who justifies, or wishes to, a wrong done him. He who is grateful for the existence of Stevenson. He who prefers others to be right. These people, unaware, are saving the world. - Jorge Luis Borges"

The layered sky.

"The day was made for laziness, and lying on one's back in green places, and staring at the sky till its brightness forced one to shut one's eyes and go to sleep." Charles Dickens The Old Curiosity Shop .... Well, except for some storm clouds in the distance!

Garden Grid

AND... Voilà.!:)

Shades of fall.

"The plan is nothing. Planning is everything."- General Eisenhower It's a new day and an inspiring new space to work with. A craft based project offers some respite from painting in an endeavor to make a dining and living area autumnal and alive.

Project Playroom.

What was once a 9 year old boy's hideout clad in a Spiderman theme (explains why the room was orange and blue to begin with, doesn't it?:), has now been transformed into a neutral, interactive and fun playroom. The black hills are made of chalkboard/ blackboard paint and all the clouds (and a couple of mountains) are magnetic and serve as ready spaces for artwork, pictures and other essential toddler trinkets to be displayed. The room is still a work in progress and I'll be sure to post the final effect once this project is fully wrapped up.

A timeline of the process offers a glimpse into how it all began and where it has reached thus far.

Home.

"Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action."Mother Teresa

Just another Wednesday morning.

A photographer friend visiting us from India clicked lovely pictures of our weekend projects this morning which I'm thrilled to share! This long weekend we set about converting a decorative inlay holder into a wonderfully warm lamp and also initiated the beginnings of my new kitchen garden. Do check out more of her awesome work on www.paulamidevvarman.com

Enjoy!

Cloud filled dreams.

Aren't the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton... I could just lie here all day, and watch them drift by... If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations... What do you think you see, Linus?"- Charles M. Schulz, The Complete Peanuts

"You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds." - Henry Thoreau

"A Dream is where a boy can swim in the deepest oceans and fly over the highest clouds." JK Rowling, Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban

Weekends and bicycles!

"Take your pleasure seriously." — Charles Eames. Its been a great start to the week with a friend moving to town and bringing me my own first real bicycle. These last few days have been filled with a mild bicycle obsession as well the discovery of a fun new technique of making stamps. It's no real wonder that this post is filled with bikes, stamps and love!:)

Having been trained as a textile designer, stamps remind me of the block printing techniques in India and the immense potential and beauty of these primitive tools that almost seem to display scant regard to mechanization. Wikipedia describes the woodblock printing practiced in India as the earliest, simplest and slowest of all methods of printing. However, it is also capable of producing otherwise unattainable beauty.

Needless to add, an entirely worthwhile endeavor!

Pancha Tantra by Walton Ford

Normally, I do not blog about books but this time I simply could not resist!:) Over a short trip out-of-town, I stumbled upon the most gorgeous book filled with large format highly detailed watercolors of animals by Walton Ford. On first glance, it is an irresistible production of rich, beautiful and utterly captivating images. A closer look reveals glorious animals with a murderous intent in Ford's world of splendidly savage birds and beasts. This book is worth every penny and more!

Topsy Turvy

I introduce to you Bat-cat, bat-cow and bat-deer. Have you ever felt as if the world were upside down, and you needed to stand on your head to make sense of it all?:) Topsy Turvy World by William Brighty Rands

IF the butterfly courted the bee, And the owl the porcupine; If churches were built in the sea, And three times one was nine; If the pony rode his master, If the buttercups ate the cows, If the cats had the dire disaster To be worried, sir, by the mouse; If mamma, sir, sold the baby To a gypsy for half a crown; If a gentleman, sir, was a lady,— The world would be Upside-down! If any or all of these wonders Should ever come about, I should not consider them blunders, For I should be Inside-out!

A little flower

"Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower."- Hans Christian Andersen

Sunrise Sunset

"Sunrise, sunsetSunrise, sunset Swiftly flow the days Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers Blossoming even as we gaze

Sunrise, sunset Sunrise, sunset Swiftly fly the years One season following another Laden with happiness and tears"- Fiddler on the Roof

Below is a hand painted wax resist silk stole of the fiery forest sun cause I guess everything else in life can wait but the sunrise never will!:)

Different strokes.

A friend recently asked me " Why are all your illustrations predominantly black and white with such excruciating detail?" I couldn't come up with a convincing answer.  I did ponder about this later though and wonder if there is any truth to an article I came across in this search. Apparently, huge canvasses or papers filled with bright colors and bold strokes are usually associated with confident, expressive, extroverted individuals while detailed small pen strokes is more representative of a slightly reserved, introverted, contemplative nature. I suppose that this is a sweeping generalization but it does largely hold true in my case. Does anyone else believe in this theory? Based on your art/ painting how would you describe yourself?:) At a pub quiz my husband and I frequent with some friends, we were recently asked to fill in the blanks of Joyce Kilmer's poem-" I think that I shall never see... A poem as lovely as a --------." The correct answer ( which we obviously didn't get in time) was tree. Today's illustration is in memory of that quiz we miserably failed:)

Up on my wall

And finally its complete! A flock of 3D flapping birds now decorate our wall. This artwork is the culmination of my previous two posts.

Sneak Preview

"Be like the bird that, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings."- Victor Hugo

Woven together.

Excerpt from "Of being woven by Jalaluddin Rumi" "When ink joins with a pen, then the blank paper can say something. Rushes and reeds must be woven to be useful as a mat. If they weren't interlaced; the wind would blow them away. Like that, God paired up creatures, and gave them friendship."