What's New?

New year and a new post! After all my aspirations, trials and tribulations I am here again finally. These past few months have kept me occupied in various things, craft being the chief one of them. More than anything else, I hone my photography skills(however insignificant) on my crafts these days. So dear reader, you can expect most pictures in my posts related to my crafts. Please bear with them.

Now, lets come to the main subject. I mean Coco. As expected from the son of a strict mother, he is turning into a fine gentlemanly boy, who tries to be of use by putting spoons back in the cutlery stand after licking chyawanprash off of them! Thanks to my keen eyesight and 'Vyomkesh Bakshi' like detective spirits, I spot them right away. So, you can come to my home and stay assured of being served with clean cutlery. Almost always. :D 

Oh, by the way, we have moved into a British era bungalow, that comes with a defunct fireplace et al. But, unlike the good old 'foot of the Himalayas' days, I am yet to discover the joys of staying here. The elaborate engagements of social life and personal matters have kept all of us too busy to look around and smell the flowers. Literally!

But, one can always hope, right! 

Read on for picture descriptions. It might be interesting, I promise!

The topmost picture is of two dreamcatchers out of which the white one is hanging one one of my living room walls delicately. The multicolored one is made on order for someone. It might be interesting for you to know that the rings for both of them come from a large embroidery hoop, that couldn't serve its intended purpose. It hung inside my closet for many years, until one fine day another purpose was found for it. Destiny!

 The second image is of few cards that I made for someone on request. They might look ordinary but they are the fruits of a couple of hours of painting, measuring, cutting, gluing, babysitting, snacking and homing in general.

Then there is one corner of my living room which I tidied up hurriedly before clicking a decent enough picture for the blog. 

The last picture is of Pink Pitari's jewelry, that was lying in separate mounds of necklaces and earrings while I was clicking their pictures for promotions. 

I think this is enough for the first post of the year. Hope to be here more often. 

Watercolor: A Lesson In Patience

Internet is a great place, especially for people like me. I feel restless without something to do, and internet is full of ideas and inspiration. I am not an artist, but I can definitely slap colors on paper in some recognizable shape successfully. I would definitely like to learn a few painting techniques that could make my work look more art like, rather than elementary school practice sheets. I love painting, but also get intimidated by it. Mostly because of my lack of knowledge. Of all the methods of painting, watercolor seems to be the most difficult, an impossible feat for me to achieve. Last week however, fueled with ideas, I thought of using some of those interesting pins that I have saved on Pinterest (here and here) and teach myself watercolor painting. 

Now, as you might be well aware, I love flowers and I love colors. So I went through my collection for inspiration and painted the above image. Not happy with the result, I browsed through some more pins and painted the image below. The result looked like what a 5th grader would paint. I was disappointed again. Then, tired with my failures, I called it a day and prayed to the universe to grant me some patience.

Next day, I promised myself to work patiently and not just hurry through the painting. After all I am only a beginner and I need to learn things first. I cannot expect to create masterpieces right away! In my quest to find the right lesson, I found this pin, showing a step by step method of creating beautiful watercolor. Usually, I do not copy. I get inspired and generally the result is something new and different. But I chose to follow the shown procedure as closely as possible this time. That would help me in not hurrying through it and be more patient.

 I first drew a rough image of the shown picture with pencil, and started coloring. Happiness coursed through me as the shapes began to get filled with color. Art making is a joyful process that helps you see something meaningful taking shape in front of your eyes. It is nothing short of meditation.

Careful strokes of my brush kept working through the design, adding elements and color, making the image more and more beautiful. At last, when I finished it, I could see that it was flawed with a beginner's shaky brush strokes, but I liked the overall look. At least now I know that I could hold my enthusiasm and have patience. 

Anybody Home??

 Hi, It has been so long... So just checking in to see how things are going in and around blogsville. After a long trip to my parents, I came back and was very sloooowly recovering from so many shocks and aftershocks (read 'being lazy') and re-adapting myself to my environment. It meant loads of cleaning and laundry, and various little visits to and from friends. Meanwhile, my fingers were also itching and I did these two watercolour paintings. 

The above picture  is based on a photograph from Colleena Shakti's Flickr stream that I stumbled upon on Pinterest. I have pinned various such dance poses and intend to paint them one-by-one in future.

 I painted the above picture based on the following image I found on Pinterest, which I pinned for the express purpose of painting only. 

Quite a good similarity, huh? Well, to all of you connoisseurs of art, the obvious flaws would be visible in an instant, and I stand no chance as a painter, I know, I know! But, the visit to my parents made me nostalgic and I decided to revisit my school days, when I used to paint and do such stuff. 

I did these and a lot more... You sure will have to bear with a so much more of this kind, while I am on a roll!