Painting paisley patterns

All Blog Motif Painting Paisley Paisly pattern

A painting after a long time. I painted this for a specific purpose and chose paisley patterns after lot of deliberation. I love the simplicity of these patterns and the ethnicity that they exude. To me, the shape of mango is what comes to mind when I see these patterns, which is how I was taught to draw a mango back in my good old school days.

Paisley patterns - Work in Progress

I wanted bright colors and hence chose prussian blue for the back drop as I thought the yellow ochre I chose for the patterns would easily stand out. Yellow ochre is also something I loved from my earlier Buddha painting on canvas. Used water color on an A2 executive bond.

Paisley motif

For the uninitiated, "Paisley pattern is a droplet shaped vegetable motif of Persian or Indian origin. Resembling a twisted tear drop or a kidney, it derives its western name from the town of Paisley, in Central Scotland. In Tamil the design is known as Mankolam and has been long used in India. " (Source : Wikipedia) The strokes are visible at a closer look, but will hopefully disappear when we do what we eventually do with the painting.

Paisley Pattern Painting

We are trying to put this painting to good use and still brainstorming on how we can have it displayed. Meanwhile, we would love a little help  from you. Take this poll and let us know what you think we should do with this painting.

~ PREETHI

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Click here to SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
What does paisley remind you of ? Mangoes it is for me.

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If you liked this, you may also be interested in:

• Buddha Painting in Canvas
• Pencil Sketch of a horse
• Madubani Wall Hanging
• Floral Painting - Water color on Chart paper

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First things first. We are really happy to share with you that we were featured as Blogadda's notable newbie of the week.  Quite a proud moment for us in this blogging journey. We really loved what they had to say about us. Sincere thanks to every one of you for your encouragement through your visits and comments.

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Linking in : Colours Dekor

- Somu

Buddha painting- oil on canvas

All Blog Buddha painting Buddha painting oil canvas DIY Painting

Three days of solitude and this is how I made use of it... :) One of our long term wishes was to own a Buddha painting/sculpture. Whenever I got the thought of painting one, I always decided not to venture into it. Simply because I wasn't confident enough to get his features right and give it the desired effect. His calm eyes, his enlightened forehead, the knot of hair and his long ears (sign of intelligence) - they need justice.

Buddha Painting on Canvas

Finally, I decided to give it a try. I knew I wanted an oil on canvas for it. I chose the color theme as yellow ochre and red- something that would go well with our living room/foyer. The base layer was first done using raw sienna. Colors like Raw/burnt sienna have warmer tones and are transparent. So they give a wonderful glazing effect. If one doesn't have either of these colors in the palette, you can get it by mixing cadmium light with burnt umber.

Second step was to fill the background with shades of vermilion red, black, chrome yellow, burnt sienna. I tried giving it a textured finish. But I am not sure if I have achieved it. For the Buddha, the base color was yellow ochre followed by burnt sienna.

To show his signs of enlightenment, I chose chrome and lemon yellow and white. Basically these shades are opaque and are wonderful as highlights. The lotus was a final addition to the background. :) So here is it. Your opinions/comments would be highly valuable for me to make any modifications. Please let us know. :)

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If you liked this painting, you may also like:

• The painting that I wanted to hang in the living room
• The most majestic animal captured in sketch
• Madhubani Dancing Ganesha on a handmade paper

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PS: Linking it to Colours Dekor ,Chitrasutra, Lines Across my Face

- Somu

Wall decor - Choosing between a new DIY and an old painting

All Blog Painting wall decoration wall hanging

A plain wall needing embellishment can certainly set off the DIY instinct in us. While creating a new piece of art is the most obvious choice, we sometimes tend to forget our works from the past that are crying to get out from the dark insides of their designated storage space. More often than not, everything that is preserved tends to get ignored and lose to our own yearning to craft something new and more creative. Such discrimination is usually meted towards work we believe isn't our best. 

We may have moved on from being a novice, but it gives no reason to disregard our previous work as a rookie. It may have its imperfections, but every work of art that is our own is a masterpiece in its own right and deserves to be proudly displayed on a wall or a glass case where everyone can see.

Old floral painting from the archives (2003)

Floral water color painting
Revived, framed and displayed (2011)

Do you agree? Would you rather work on a new project than to resurrect an old work of yours? How do you ensure all your work get that much deserved showcase space? Share your views. We would love to know your point of view.

Note : This painting is a reproduction that I painted way back in 2003. If you do know that original artist, please do drop me an e-mail at woodoozmagic@gmail.com

~ Preethi


P.S. Linking in : Lines Across my face, Colours Dekor

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- Somu

Madhubani Wall Hanging

All Blog DIY hand made paper Madhubani Painting wall hanging

My fetish for Madhubani painting continues.. Although we shifted to our new house 2 years back, decorating it happened in phases and is still happening. We still have to adorn our walls with interesting art pieces. One such wall was the partition between the living and master bedroom. I found a beautiful Madhubani wall hanging in My Dream Canvas and was completely awed by it. We had leftovers of hand made paper that we bought for our earlier projects.

Madubani Painting

Madubani Wall hanging

You would get handmade papers in Fab India. We purchased ours from Auroville on Cathedral road, chennai. The problem with hand made paper- water or oil based painting cannot be done. It has to be acrylic and I used acrylic thinner as the medium. To give it a 'close-to-original' look, I used just the basic colors. (In the past, people only used vegetable dyes and hence had fewer color options). So here it is - Ram and sita who are the subjects in most Madhubani paintings.

We couldn't wait for the framed pictures to get displayed. It took less than 10 minutes for it to get installed making an electric drill a handy tool to have at home :)

~ Preethi

P.S. Linking in : Colours Dekor, Lines Across my Face, Kreative Korner, Savvy Southern Style, @ the picket fence

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- Somu

Madubani - Decoupage

All Blog Decoupage Madubani Mod podge Painting

Somu was the one who introduced me to Decoupage and I wanted to try something with it. Decoupage is the art of decorating an object by sticking colored paper cut outs onto it. It could be bits of news paper, color papers, hand painted sheets, interesting patterns on fabric. You could choose any object that needs a totally different look, stick the cut outs onto the object using mod podge (an alternate here in Chennai is decoupage glue/hobby ideas-glue n gloss. You can get it from Hindustan traders, Ananda/RS stores on LB Road or any craft store). Basically the glue acts like varnish. Each layer of cut outs is glued atleast 6-7 times until the 'stuck on' appearance dissappers and the result looks like a collage painting.

DIY - Madubani - Decoupage

Can't find Mod Podge ? Learn an incredibly easy way to make your own Mod Podge using Fevicol !

Here is something we tried decoupaging on- a wine bottle. I painted different themes of madhubani (ganesha, peacock, fish, sun, butter fly) in bits of paper of different size and I randomly stuck them on to the bottle. Take care to stick it without any wrinkles to have a better finish. You can use decoupage glue to stick it. Layer it with the same glue and let it dry for 10-15 mins. Repeat this multiple times until you get one smooth finish. I just love the finished product. I got double the pleasure doing this as I learnt two techniques in one- decoupage and madhubani :)

Here's another alluring Wine bottle recycle idea that you can use

~ Preethi

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If you liked this post, you may also be interested in:

• Ram and Sita - A Madubani Wall Hanging
• Bland to Beautiful - A Lampshade makeover in 30 minutes
• A customized wall clock that you are sure to love
• A boat, tomato, a peacock and more captured on Oil Pastel

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Inspiration : Chithra Sekar
P.S. Linking it : Lines Across My Face

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- Somu

Warli Pot Painting

All Blog Painting Pot painting Warli

Though, when I bought the terracotta pot, I had intentions of adding color to it, I had not planned on anything particular. I first painted the whole pot red (oil paint) and when I was looking for designs to complete the look I desired, I chanced upon Warli painting at Coloursdekor.

Warli Pot Painting

It seemed simple, and yet very charming. After a little bit of research and reading up, I decided to do the Warli for my waiting-to-be-finished pot. The activity, besides being lots of fun, also ended up giving my pot a really chic look. Considering it is made using very simple shapes, it is most certainly something everyone should give a shot at. Now am happy to move my pot from the balcony, right into the living room where everyone can see it.

P.S. Linking it to Thekeybunch, Colours Dekor, today's creative blog

- Somu

Pencil sketch of one of my favourite subjects

All art Blog horse others Painting pencil sketch

Pencil Sketch - Horse

Yesterday, I was done with work, made dinner pretty early in the evening and was wondering what to do for rest of the day. It has been a long time since I took my art book out. So thought it would be a good time to do something with it. So here is the outcome- a pencil sketch of a horse. I have not tried much of sketching and this turned out pretty decent. Now I am all excited to try out more of it.

P.S. Linking to Colours Dekor

Inspiration : Deebeeaar

- Somu

Painting the room red…

All Blog Painting

The color theme in our living room is predominantly beige and brown with shades of orange. We wanted a wall hanging with a shade of orange/red to complement the furniture and upholstery. I wanted to put up a painting of a couple for our new home and when I was browsing for some interesting patterns to blow up, I came across a wonderful piece of art by Arvind Kolapkar. It was love at first sight. So I tried to reproduce it…. What do you think ? Do let me know... Click to leave me a comment. 

Painting - Arvind Kolapkar

Here's what Saffronart has to say about Arvind Kolapkar : 

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"His  works are bright, happy expressions of joyous unions. In most of his paintings, one observes an amorous couple or groups of friends enjoying each other’s company, giving his work the appearance of a tribute to the relationships that people share. A flute is a constant motif, appearing in almost all of his canvases, provoking one to make references to the mythical Krishna and his idyllic world of joy. 


Kolapkar’s acrylics on canvas can be easily identified by the bright use of a single background colour; slender, elongated women in black with coloured foreheads and noses; and the presence of a flute. "

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P.S. Linking in : Artsy Craftsy Jan

- Somu