Happy 2019

As another old year winds to a close, here is my mantra for the glittery, shiny, joyous new year that is just round the corner.

Hope I can live by this mantra in the coming months, with hope guiding my path with its light, as I savour each moment of the journey.

Wishing all my readers, followers, friends, and well-wishers a creatively fulfilling 2019, with many new beginnings.

An Ode to the Dettol Bottle

The other day I went down to the chemist nearby to get some Dettol. Yup, that same antiseptic liquid that we all grew up with.... our go-to solution for all ouchy cuts and scratches. Well, the friendly chemist informed me that Dettol is no longer available in the typical glass bottle it always came in. The company had changed its packaging to plastic - easier to distribute and use, but definitely adding to the environmental burden. Not sure if that is a good idea!

As I walked back home with my package, I realised that the absence of any more glass Dettol bottles meant  that my older painted bottles were now one-of-a-kind pieces. You won't get the same glass stuff anymore, guys! And I'm not at all keen to paint on plastic :P Call me an arty snob if you want but I don't want to encourage plastic use.

So here's a dekko at some of those lovely glass Dettol bottles that started my journey as a bottle artist all those years back... a trip down memory lane, full of nostalgia and love.

Most of these found new homes along the way, like this gorgeous Ganpati bottle....

....and this one featuring a coastal scenery that is viewed through a window adorned by a lush flowering vine. 




I hope all these babies of mine are still being loved and cherished, wherever they are. 


And meanwhile I better go back and check if I have any left to gloat over and display at home! 





#dettolglassbottle
#dettolart
#dettol

Welcoming Change

Hola there! Hope you all have been doing great, and having fun. All of you who missed me here for the last couple of months, I have some news for you.

Huge changes are lined up (not related to this blog or work), and I need both time and energy to deal with those. So chances are that my appearances here will remain sporadic for the remaining part of this year, and some part of next year.

While I know that I will keep coming back to the creative life for recharging my batteries, but I can't see any major projects underway for a bit. But I'm sure you'll probably get to see some journal pages that I make in the middle of my chaos, as I transition to a calmer and more joyful state.

Hope you all hang in there with me, and keep the creative spirit alive!

From Rusty To Rustic

A few good spells of rain finally had me raring to give a new lease of life to a couple of rusty things around the house.

So there was a metal can turned into a planter that had turned rusty and required some painterly love. And an old rusty horseshoe, that once hung in the garden of all places. In case you don't know already, horseshoes are considered lucky when hanging above the main door. Anyhow, since both the metal planter and the horseshoe had lost their original colours and developed a stubborn film of orange-brown rust, I decided to give them a paint over.

The transformation pictures speak for themselves. I kept the yellow lines on the planter looking uneven to add to the shabby chic feel. And especially loved decorating the horseshoe with all sorts of bits and baubles collected in my stash. Now both the planter and the horseshoe sport a distinct rustic style of their own.

Do give some love to such old pieces lying around your abode. After all, monsoons are a time of rejuvenation... And don't forget to sandpaper the rusty parts before you cover them in some cool colours and designs.

Hope this post helps add some colour to the grey weather, even as rusty discarded pieces acquire a spanking new rustic look.

Bottles Revisited

Though I hardly work on bottles any more, such exceptions always bring me happiness.

The yellow one was a personal commission and is already displayed in its new home in Kolkata, the City of Joy, hopefully bringing joy to all those who see it.

While this pink beauty adorns my work table, holding crafty knick-knacks for my mixed media projects. I love this yummilicious one sitting on my desk! 😊

I do miss my avid bottle painting days.... when each piece conjured up a new story in my head, that my hands would then transfer on to the bottles. After all, my handpainted bottles played a huge role in my incredible creative journey! Hope I manage to make some more soon...

On Turning 10

Yes, today is the day when 10 years back I tentatively published my first post on this blog, starting off a magical journey. A journey after my heart...

So here is wishing Creative Rumblings a happy 10th birthday, and many more creative years ahead.

Thank you to all my readers, followers, patrons, clients, friends and well-wishers. This amazing journey would not have been possible without your support.

Virtual cake and champagne, anyone??

Indian Summer Series

As the cuckoos return to herald summer, enchanting us with their dulcet calls, here is bringing you my second series of paintings.... inspired by and named after, the Indian Summer.

This series celebrates the associations I have made with the summer season over the years - a riot of red gulmohars, competing with the bright yellow of perfumed laburnums; a flurry of activity amongst all our avian friends as they woo their mates, build new nests, and raise a brood; occasional dark clouds overhead as sudden gusts of wind bring in some much needed rain to soak the parched earth. These are the images I have tried to capture in this series.

My daily walks in the park made me observe the little details - like the cuckoos and crows chasing each other all over during the nesting season, the sudden appearance of the grey hornbills as their shrill calls caught our attention. Since all these activities came alive right before my eyes, so naturally they flowed out on to my artwork.

The series is still a work-in-progress, as I add more pieces to the story. However, since my pace is slow, I thought of sharing the outcomes midway.

Right now I'm finishing up the cuckoos and gulmohars, and plan to move to the hornbills and laburnums. So do keep checking back for the updated artworks.

By God's grace, two of my pieces from the series are already adorning a dear client's walls.

In sharing this series with you, I am also celebrating another achievement - of marking 10 years of this blog - a huge personal milestone for me. When I tentatively started writing Creative Rumblings, it was only meant to be an online journal of the teeny-weeny arty efforts I made around the house. But it is with nothing less than amazement that I see how it has grown over all these years.... Not only has it turned me into an artist, but it has given me the wings and the confidence to display, showcase, and sell my artwork.

So a big Thank You to all my readers, followers, and well-wishers. Your encouragement has brought me this far, and I know your good wishes will take me further. If anything from the Indian Summer series interests you, or you would like to commission something special, write to me at  creativerumblings@gmail.com and we can work up some magic together!

Many Hands Make Light Work

Sometimes a random quote can set off your imagination, translating into images and ideas in your head. That is exactly what happened the minute I set my eyes on these words — "Many Hands Make Light Work". I could instantly visualize the quote...

Glad that I could transfer the image in my mind's eye on to paper pretty accurately. In fact, it has turned out better than I anticipated. You may want to zoom the picture to see the vegetable prints that have gone into making up the background layers on the palms. Onion, okra, turnip... they are all in there! :D

And yes, the whole family pitched in on this one, giving me their palm prints. :) That was a fun way to work alright!

Birds In The Bush

Remember the painting and printing experiments I was doing a couple of months back? You can read about them here. Well, today I'll share with you the best outcome of those experiments. Something that emerged out of my random printmaking attempts and came together so beautifully. Presenting the birds in the bush...

I love how various techniques of mark-making combined to create a story of their own — right from monoprinting to stamping and masking. Love the dappled look on the bird at the top. Remember that many a times the best art comes out of what initially starts off as a mistake, but with a dash of creativity one can turn it around to something pretty.

I am now tempted to do an entire print series based on this, and already have ideas floating in my head. My instinct says this would make a great series to work on. Watch this space for updates! And write to me at creativerumblings@gmail.com if you want to own this piece or book some upcoming ones.

Avian Tales - Part 3

Remember my earlier posts on how the birds around me were getting me to whip up these little rhymes on them? You can read those posts here and here. Well, here comes more of the same...

Only this time the focus is on these creatures we discovered in our local park a few years back, and totally fell in love with. We have managed to follow their annual rituals (read hibernation and welcoming newborns), zeroed in on their favourite perches, and known how to spot them amidst dense foliage because of our sheer joy on seeing their antics.

So presenting to you all the owlie family :)

Sitting on a tree
Wild and free
We spotted these 3


Stopping by to rest
We glanced at their nest
And Junior said,
"My daddy strongest!"









Hope to bring you more tales on these feathery fellows in the coming months. 

#aviantales

Hollyhocks

As the mercury slowly climbs and spring melts into summer soon, here's my attempt at capturing some blooms for posterity.

Hollyhocks stand bright and upright in our neighborhood park, their pretty faces bobbing in the mellow breeze.

My garden is also a riot of colours before the summer heat dries everything up. Enjoy spring while it lasts...

 

A Month of Experiments

January has been a month of experiments - from trying out a new medium (gouache) to playing around with different techniques, monoprinting being a primary one. So here are the results for all to see... 

Someone passed around to me a half-used set of gouache tubes from Winsor and Newton. Quite a few colours were missing or already used up, so I had to use my ingenuity to figure out what I could create with a limited pallette. This drawing with a jar and pomegranates is my first gouache experiment.

Since I don't have a gelli plate, I do my prints using plastic sheets. Here are some of the outcomes... 

And then this next one is about masking negative space to create a new artwork.

Finally, a combination of vegetable prints and line drawing to get an abstract piece of art.

Hope you carry back some inspiration from these and play around with colours simply for the love of the process, like I did.

Woods Poster

Hey there, how is the new year treating everyone? I hope all my dear readers, patrons and friends started 2018 on a creative and adventurous note.

Well, as this is the first post this year, I thought I'd share something that would egg us all on to make the best use of the year ahead.... 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days - that's a lot of time. Let us make it count - accomplish our dreams, live out our desires, and spread some happiness along the way!

This poster features some of my favourite lines by Robert Frost. Hope they resonate with you too. Write to me at creativerumblings@gmail.com if you want a copy of this poster for yourself.