The 'Karela' Tales

 

'Karela' is the Hindi name for the bitter gourd.

2016

In the summer of 2016, I think my mother planted a few karela seeds as her friend encouraged her to try growing these at home. Or maybe because as she always threw the vegetable peels into her pots to make manure, a few seeds invariably made their way into the mix, sprouting with the rains. Anyhow, a couple of karelas came but were quickly infested. Mom was disappointed with her maiden attempt at veggie growing and threw away the spoilt produce. But the vine remained...

Then in autumn she suddenly went away. In my grief, I preserved a leaf from the karela vine planted by her. It was one of my ways of paying tribute to her green fingers while creating a tangible memory for posterity.

Karela Leaf - 2016

2023

On a whim, I planted some karela seeds in summer and numerous vines came up. Only this time, though the initial produce was not very encouraging, I persisted. Once the rains subsided, the plants picked up and gave us continuous produce right through autumn. Incidentally, the karela vine has very pretty shaped leaves. So I decided to incorporate some into my artwork this year too.

Karela leaf prints - 2023

Managing to grow the karela successfully was a strangely inexplicable experience, as if I was completing a task left halfway by my mother. Seven years later, life had finally come full circle! Now when I place the two pieces of art together, it gives me a sense of continuity.

From one generation to another, life flows on...

Junk Journal Flip-through

 

Some posts don't need too many words; this is one of them. Presenting a flip-through of my first junk journal that I put together from scratch. 

Suffice to say that working on and with this #junkjournal helped me survive the winter months and the pandemic madness, and helped me stay focussed on the art and away from negativity.

I will share the process of making these junk journals with you in future posts. Hope you enjoy the video.

More Journal Snippets

As an artist, I find myself using journals to express myself very often. A journal is like a diary, only more visual. You are already seeing pages from my Nature Journal every month. So thought of sharing a few pages from my Transition Journal that I finished earlier this month.

The above picture is the front cover, and the picture below features an amalgamation of some individual pages along with the back cover.

In these difficult days when our world is in the grip of the pandemic, maintaining a daily/weekly/fortnightly or even monthly journal is a good way to release some pent up stress, sadness and frustration. Try it, dear readers!

Wonderful World

Towards the end of February, as I started doodling and sketching arbitrarily on a pre-stamped journal page (those brown and pink marks are made using a chopped mushroom as a stamp), I ended up with this painting. Depicting life forms from all the habitats - land, sea and sky - the human figure in the centre uniting all to convey gratitude towards the wonderful world we live in.

Little did I know then that in under a month, the world would be battling a global health crisis. A pandemic that has come into existence because the human species refused to let Nature be; because we tried to show our supremacy over other life forms and habitats. How we have been humbled.... confined to our own spaces instead of forever intruding into theirs.

Stay home and stay safe, dear readers and followers. In the meanwhile, you can utilize the lock down to try out some of the creative ideas on this blog. Check out older posts and I'm sure you'll find something that catches your fancy. Happy creating!

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!

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.

Birdie Drawings

When you are open to the beauty in your surroundings, you can see magic in the smallest of things.

My bird drawings come from that place of magic and beauty.

Can you identify any of the birds? And which one is your fav?
 

Faces and Figures

We are into the second month of the year already, and I thought I should share one of my personal art goals this year.

'F' is for February, and for 'faces' and 'figures'. So this year I am hoping to work up a sizeable number of random faces and figures. No real life inspiration, no magazine pictures either.... just things that pop off my head when I put together a collage of papers and markings on a piece of cardboard.

Sharing here my first attempt at doing a face. I worked mainly using the techniques of intuitive creation, where you train the mind's eye to "see" images in a chaos of colours and shapes. The inspiration for this face was sparked off by the blue prints (made using vegetable stamps) that looked so much like a pair of shades. Once I sketched that in, the rest of the face followed.

I love how the layers of paper and stamps underneath give the piece a unique sense of depth. This was a fun beginning. Hope I can keep this up through the year and get more comfortable making faces and figures out of thin air!

Poppies with Printmaking

Finally the grey, foggy days of winter are here sending shivers down the spine. But this winter I won't whine.... the unusually hot December was rather worrisome when you think of what we are doing to our planet. Anyhow, to distract myself from such issues, I decided to try my hand at some monoprints using regular stuff lying around the house.

Using two shades of blue and a contrasting red ink pen to fill in the details, I created a bunch of my favourite poppy flowers. Incidentally, our garden did not get any poppies this year (despite getting loads last year), so this was a fitting way to revisit them.

Believe me, no fancy products are required. All I used were a block-sized piece of synthetic foam, some brushes, acrylic paints and paper to print on. And a cutter or knife to carve the design into the foam block. Don't worry if you don't have those; even a ballpoint pen without ink works wonders! I used such a pen as you can see from the pictures below.

Once the design is carved, paint the stamp with acrylic colours of your choice and voila!.... let the stamping fun begin.

Sounds simple enough? Now try some yourself and send me your pictures. Would love to see how my readers get inspired. :) I also created some red and mustard poppies for the inside back cover of my nature journal. You can look out for those in the next post.