The making of My Kerala Mural

I'd mentioned my plans to attend a Kerala Mural workshop in an earlier post.....so here are the pics from it. I thoroughly enjoyed the 3 day intense program. Before I went for it, I was wondering how many murals we would complete sitting 7 hours a day for 3 days. How many?! We were hardly able to complete one! Its such a tedious process and there are so many intricate details in the drawings that its a lot of effort but the end result makes it all worth it!

A close up of Ganesha - My First Kerala Mural 

Traditionally these murals are paintings of Hindu Deities done on walls of temples and palaces in Kerala. The colors used were all natural dyes. The most interesting aspect of these murals is Panchvarna or the use of only 5 colors - Yellow, red, green, blue and black. These are painted on a white background, so the white spaces in the pictures are left blank to show through. 

Acrylics are being used on canvas and other media more recently. Except for those changes, we used the original traditional method to do the mural. The basic steps after preparing the background (which are not required on a white canvas) are -

Trace out the drawing. We used graphite transfer method for it. 
Do the outline again with red paint.
Fill in yellow for the ornaments, head-dress, the stems, the dress and the background.
A double coat of yellow where required.
A bold red outline and some shading and some red effects on the background.
Yellow for the body (multiple coats).
Then green for leaves, stems and dress.
Then blue for some parts of the dress and garlands.
Finally a black outline all over again and for the hair.

The starting point - the drawing given to us

The sketch on the canvas

The first step - outline with red paint

Filling in the yellow parts

Red outlines and shading 

With the reference painting

Background completed

 

Again yellow for the body

    Now for some green

  And some blue

                                           

After the final step - black outlines

And I completed my first Kerala Mural. Hope to make more sometime soon.

This one goes to PPF and Show and tell Saturday #30. Drop in there to see some amazing art. 

The colors and lights of Diwali

Hope all of you had a happy and safe Diwali!

For us it was a fun filled, sweet filled, color filled and lights filled Diwali. Here are some pictures of Diwali at home.

Preparations during the day.

Rangoli without any artificial colors

Floating candles and petals in a silver plate

 Floating flowers and candle in a brass vessel

Finally with lights.

The lamps flanking the floating candles are the tealight holders we made last week.

So, that was our Diwali. How was yours?

I'll link my rangoli to PPF on Friday. See you there.

Dastkar Nature Bazaar 2012

Dastkar had organized its annual Nature Bazaar in Bangalore in the first week of September. This was the first time I visited the famed handicrafts exhibition Dastkar. And I was able to because this time they had put it up almost across the road from my place. God bless them! Sharing my experience here...

I was so impressed with the stuff there that I ended up visiting the place three times and burning a not-too-tiny hole in the pocket.

Here're are some stuff I liked.

Bamboo Planters

Colorful Lanterns

Painted leather lampshades

 I used to love these lampshades and was planning to pick up one when it suddenly stuck me they are made of leather. I dropped the idea and am now planning to make one from either paper mache or other eco friendly options.

Terracotta Jewelry

Cute little fridge magnets

Colorful kites

                                      

Kites turned into elegant decor items

                                      
                                                          Pattachitra wooden birds

Kerala Murals

                                                 A contemporary design in Kerala mural style

A nice idea - kerala murals on pendents!

I'd discovered Kerala murals by chance on someone's blog and got really interested in them. I even looked for classes around my place. I finally decided to try one myself and made a sketch on a canvas. And then I saw this great stall in Dastkar. And the artist, Sujith mentioned he was planning to conduct workshops in Bangalore soon. I was excited. And guess what? I'm attending his next workshop in November. I'm looking forward to it.

                                                     Irresistible Blue Pottery of Jaipur

                                                          A puppet show for kids

All these years my job kept me busy and I never got time to visit these art and craft events. So Dastkar was a pleasant experience for me. There's another event going on in Bangalore at the moment - The Handmade Collective by A Hundred Hands. A visit is there on my list but it's only there till Nov 4th....so I'm hoping I'll be able to make it.

Painting and clay art

After a long slumber, I awoke to make a painting :) You won't believe how long I had this idea in my head. I have thought it over so many times. But I think my inertia becomes too strong at times. And it takes me months, or years sometime, to overcome it and jump into action. Well, better late than never!

My original idea was slightly different but here'e what it turned out to be. But that's art for me.....enjoying the process and being pleasantly surprised by the outcome :)

Its actually a set of 4 canvases each an 18" square. I intend to hang them up on the wall above my off-white sofa with colorful cushions. Do you think it'll look good there?

Did I mention I took a basic course in clay modeling and the wheel? It was a 10 session course at Clay Station and was good fun. More about Clay Station in a separate post. The course covered hand building techniques and some basics of throwing on the wheel. Since a child, I was always fascinated by the Potter's wheel. I was excited to see how a rotating wheel and a skilled pair of hands could mold and shape the lump of clay into beautiful art pieces. 

Well the course focused more on hand building as the time wasn't enough to take us anywhere close to even an amateur level on the wheel. But I did get a feel of the wheel and learnt to almost center the clay lump and give it a basic shape.

So, here are some of the stuff I made during the class using the various techniques taught. 

I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday. I haven't participating in this fun party for quite sometime now. This week I have something to take with me to the party and share with all the talented artists there.

Namaste

As you can make out from my blog, I have a lot of interest in all forms of art but haven't really tried my hand at too many things until now. But now I want to spend more time in learning and creating more art. And Paint Party Friday has become a weekly inspiration for me. I was wondering what to make for this week's party, when I came across the Soul Challenge. I was intrigued by the idea and wanted to give it a try. So here's what the word Soul means to me. It of course is influenced by the Indian beliefs of Aatma and Parmatma. 

According to the Indian philosophy, the Aatma or soul is a piece of the superior force that's present all around us - the Parmatma. This superior force is interpreted in different ways. Some call it God, others prefer other names. After all, matters of the soul are extremely personal preferences. Indian spiritual thinkers believe that all living things are mere tiny manifestations of the supreme force and once we die, the soul departs the physical body and blends back into the supreme force.I tend to think of God as a supreme force and visualize "it" as a very bright light. :)

The current Hindu religion is a pretty complex with centuries of interpretations and misinterpretations taking it away from the original ideas. However, there are a number of rituals that are practiced even today that emphasize the basic philosophy of the Aatma and the Parmatma. One such practice is the Indian form of greeting - Namaste. 

By greeting a fellow human being with a Namaste, we are actually acknowledging the supreme force present in him/her and bowing in front of it. So, here's how I look at these things -

So this one goes to both Paint Party Friday and The Soul Challenge at Artists in Blogland.

A paisley and a flower

I've been doodling again...Indian style! Happy PPF!

Hand Painted Lamp

I've been itching to make something for a while now. But haven't been getting time lately. Finally I made this simple Lamp. It is an outline drawing on a canvas sheet converted into a lamp.

Hand Painted Lamp shade

Closeup of the drawing

Yes, it was a hasty job and it shows :)