MY FIRST EVER TANJORE PAINTING

Finally, this painting is complete.And, I love it. Ganesha has always bben an inspiration. You probably will find Ganesha in every art form that I try. I am untrained artist. I usually see pics and paintings and try to copy them. Most of the time, i can do it right but sometimes my efforts are no good. For Tanjore paintings, I had always wanted to learn in the proper way. So began my lessons for this art form.
I would be lying if I said this was veryhard to do. It is obviously labour intensive, but except for the painting part of it, it is pretty much an effort of patience.
I would so like to explain what Tanjore paintings are, but then there are hundreds of sites doing the same. So I'll give a basic outline for the work done. (The only advice I have for someone trying to learn this art is to find a good tescher and learn it properly. The resulting painting is something you'll have for years altogether and having parfect one beats having one with something done wrong)
There are 4 basic procedures involved with this painting.
1- preparation of board
2- use of semiprecious stones
3- use of gold foil
4- painting of the figures

This is what you usually get on the net. But, actually there is a proper way to do this. Sticking of stones and gold foil, removing of gold foil, and the actual painting part all have inherent intricate details. I, for one am glad that I learned from a teacher. It is not that people writing on these sites are misguiding anybody. No, they are not. But nobody loves to give trade secrets away and even if they did give the entire procedure in detail,how would you know if you've done it right or wrong.
In any case, its something worth the effort.
Here you have my completed painting , all ready. Then I have some closeups of the face and eyes. This was a specialised part of work. According to my teacher you cannot make too many mistakes on the face. Since poster colours are used, they cannot be cleaned and repainted. The entire painting and shading is done in layers and white and yellow colours especially stand out. If you make mistakes on these colours it's difficult to correct it. I should know, for I made ahuge mess of Ganesha's dothi (lower clothes). That's where a teacher comes in handy. She helped me correct my mistakes without harm to my painting. So, taking no risk, she heped paint the face. The detailing is amazing. I am going to paint the face in my next painting for sure and hope I get the same effect

KHUSHI'S SHAWL

Finally, I'm back online. Between trying to complete some long pending projects and other stuff, I've lagged behind in my posts, but I'm gradually gonna correct that. So, first in the list is a crocheted shawl for my lovely daughter, Khushi. She has long been asking me for one. She is one those mama's
 " princess" s who like to twirl and whirl the whole day long, especially if no one's watching them. Anyways, pink is her favourite colour so I had to use pink, but I wanted something different. Then browsing online one day I found the perfect wool - Mohair Ebruli Yarn from pony craft store. Perfect for this project. I will be posting tutorial and pattern for this shawl later on. This is just a sneak peek.

PENCIL COLOURS GANESHA

So, Finally got around to finishing this long due picture. Yes, again it is of Ganesha, cant seem to help it.

"PERFECTION IS A LOT OF LITTLE THINGS DONE WELL

Madhubani painting

This is a painting done by my daughter for her school magazine. A rather simplified version of madhubani paintings, in fact. Well, what would you expect? She's eight. Anyways I made the basic outline of the bird and she has done the rest, all of it. She has used black gel pen to do the outlines and pencil colours for the colouring. It looks good doesnt it?

Engraved painting

This was my first painting as such when I was doing my MBBS. I so loved doing this. It was very simple. The painting was done on a aluminium sheet nailed onto a wooden board. The engraver was kind of like a nail bored into a wooden block. I didnt have the actual engraver so i asked my local carpenter to just take hairbrush handle-like piece of wood and pound a nail into one end He then cut of the head of the nail and flattened the tip by hammers. The tip of the nail was flattened to give a tip of about a few mm breadth. Viola my engraver tool was ready It was very easy to do. After tracing out the design on to the sheet( I used carbon sheets), the outlines were engraved in zigzag lines . The background was painted black with black oil paint and the clothes of the figures were painted with glass colours. The only mistake I did was to leave the painting as is. Over the years moving and cleaning the painting has left som scratches on the surface. My advice to anyone trying any painting would be to protect your work adequately. They do become precious to you as the years go by.

EMBOSS PAINTINGS

These paintings were done by me about 2 years back. Obviously, I'm so obsessed by Ganesha. But then any form of Ganesha in any material, in any form or in any size is always so endearing.