Creative Rumblings Exhibits at Artivity, Select Citywalk

The time has come, dear readers and followers, to finally let the cat out of the bag.... sharing with you all today the 'big news' that I harped about in the last post!!

And the news is that Creative Rumblings has been chosen to participate in Artivity, a celebration of traditional and modern art forms, at the posh Select Citywalk mall in Saket. Artivity is an initiative by the Select Citywalk team to bring art to public spaces, out of the confines of galleries and elitist surroundings.

Creative Rumblings and our unique brand of bottle art, is proud to be associated with this venture to connect better with the public and bring art into the everyday realm - to be touched, felt and explored. We wholeheartedly support this initiative of taking art to a public domain and reaching out to a wider audience.

So look forward to seeing you between 31 July-02 August, 2015 at the Central Atrium at Select Citywalk. We will be at stall number 15. 

July Snippets

Those of you wondering about my disappearing act for the past few weeks.... well, I have news. But first things first. July seemed to have gone by mostly in a blur, for various reasons.

The kids are back to school, which means a fresh flurry of projects and activities to do with them. Like this tile painting that had to be submitted to commemorate the school's golden jubilee. Sonny and I chose to paint five different types of flowers, each flower representing each decade. These tiles will be put up on the school walls to make a colourful collage of sorts.

The rains have been playing spoiler with my walks pretty often. And as a result, till date I have no sample in place for the July page of my nature journal. This isn't quite stressing me out but I like to be on top of things, and my July page is running woefully late.

I have also been working non-stop at a feverish pace through the month. The reason why time seems to be flying extra fast! There is something very exciting round the corner.... yes, it is BIG NEWS!!! All the slogging away of the past few weeks is in preparation of that 'something', but I cannot reveal details till things are formally finalized. For me, it is a pretty big outing and I am super excited. But phew! I have been killing myself trying to finish up before D-day hits.

So, stay tuned and I'll be back with the details soon. And yes, wish me luck!! Hope the next post will make up for the rather plain one this time!

Nature Journal: The June Page

Presenting to you all the June page from the Nature Journal. This was one page that was ready much before the month ended.... perhaps because I chose to use a picture this time and that covered up quite a bit of space on the page.

Surprisingly, June brought with it quite a few showers that dispelled the searing dry heat of May. And gave us gorgeous evening skies to celebrate! Believe it or not, one evening also brought a full grown peacock, sans its long tail but strutting around our terraces just as proudly. Such a feast it was to watch the magnificent creature from up close.

June was also dedicated to seeds and seedpods. As the storms ensured that a lot of seed dispersal happened successfully. So it was only appropriate to stick on a pretty pink seedpod collected by my daughter from the neighbourhood park. I have no clue what tree that belongs to; anyone out there knows?

Soar

One of my first tries at doing an intuitive painting. Takes a lot of courage to let go of all plans, shun any pre-defined ideas and not look for pointers.... an intuitive process demands that one just jumps into the fray with a brush and paints.

However, since this was my first attempt, I tried to make the process easier by adding another background layer to the piece. I started with some doodling or random sketching using permanent pens. After that I splashed paint on the page - no order, no specific plan. Just put whatever you please wherever. And see what emerges.... Make things up as you go along.



After the paint wash on the pen sketches, I approached small sections one-by-one. Adding a detail here, a motif there. Till it all seemed to come together. Especially loved how the first layer showed up in parts through the final layers, bringing an extra dimension to the piece.





But what was most interesting about this piece was to see the transformation to the central part of the painting. What started out as a checked criss-cross metamorphosed into a flying bird by the time the painting ended (click on the second picture to see up close). And that is why I named the painting Soar.... a celebration of life!

Dandelion Inspired Bottle

The bottle featuring today takes its name from the very common wildflower - the Dandelion. Little yellow flowers bobbing up their heads in between the grass, tough enough to bloom in the most arid conditions. You can read more about them here.



But the beautiful thing about the Dandelion bottle, with its swaying seed-heads, is that it takes me back to childhood. Running after the white and wispy flying dandelion seed heads in the park is a memory that gets evoked every time on seeing this beauty. The minute one caught a fluffy dandelion ball in one's palm, it would disintegrate into a thousand little wispy white strings (basically individual seeds) that flew off immediately. Doesn't that sound familiar? :)



In fact, in India children call the dandelion seed-heads " buddhi mai ke baal" (or the "old woman's hair") in Hindi, given the flying tufts of wispy white strings. Isn't it strange, funny and awesome.... where all one can get inspiration from!

Nature Journal: The April-May Spread

Here is a peep into the April-May spread of my Nature Journal.

 



 As I mentioned in one of my posts last month, the April page features a lot of doodle flowers and sketches done randomly. But the best part of our April experience was getting up close with the blue pansy butterfly.



As for May... since we had been reeling under a severe heatwave, it led to repeated illness and I had to miss my morning walks many days. Moreover, the mornings at the park - my best time to commune with nature - were crowded and chaotic due to ongoing summer vacations. But nature doesn't stop its annual cycle; the Amaltas and the Gulmohar bloomed with as much abandon this year too, though their blooms dried up much faster this time.

My idea of countering the may heat and drying blooms? - I created some paper flowers on the May page.... and they won't dry up ever! Try some yourself; they are great fun!

Crane Spotting at the Pond

Last week I worked on a bottle again. After 6 long months!.... Yes, if you scroll down this blog, you'll see the last bottle I did was back in November last year. I wasn't even sure I'd pull this one through but once I started, there was no stopping me.

This time I thought of extending my bottle design oeuvre, and worked on a large water bird motif, painting a scene that any birdwatching enthusiast would identify with.

A crane or egret walking slowly with its long legs, amidst lotus blossoms and reeds in a pond, searching for food. A slight sound, and it looks up, startled for a bit. Then, assuring itself that all is well, the bird goes back to its search. Yes, that is what I tried to capture - all on a round bottle.

The finished bottle is one of my personal favourites. And I'm sure all birdwatchers will enjoy this one! The bottle has a broad mouth, and will work very well as a centrepiece on a table. Use it simply as a vase or to hold straws at the next dinner party. Heck! you could even prop up tissues in it. 

Meanwhile, I'm already dreaming of the next bird I want to put on my bottles....