DIY: Painting Your Own Diwali Diyas

Festive season is here. Decorations are all around. Diwali is also around the corner. What are your plans for this Diwali?
Diwali is celebrated for 5 days all over India with great pomp and show. The festival starts with Dhanteras on which most Indian business communities begin their financial year. The second day of the festival is called the Naraka Chaturdasi. The third day of Diwali, Amavasya marks the worship of Lakshmi, goddess of wealth. The fourth day of Diwali is known as Kartika Shudda Padyami. The fifth day is known as Yama Dvitiya/ Bhaiduj and on this day sisters invite their brothers to their homes.
Diwali is a festival of lights and we use different sort of lights to decorate our home. Most common are the different types of clay diyas available in market. The decorated diya's available in the market are very pricey compared to the plain ones. So why not this time buy plain diyas and paint it our own way and make them beautiful.

These are few of the things that you will need to paint your own diyas:
1) Plain diya (available in market)
2) Acrylic Paint
3) Paint brushes
4) Colour Palette
5) Coloured Glitter (Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, etc..)
6) Fevicol
7) Water in a bowl
8) Old cloth (to wipe excess colour from your hand/diyas)

Soak the diyas in water, clean them and dry them properly before you paint them, as these clay diyas tend to soak in a lot of paint or oil when used new.
Then paint the diyas as you want using different colours.

This is a plain diya that I got from the market.

This is how the Diya looks after colouring:

Flowery Diya

For small clay diyas, I first painted these diyas. When the colour dried off, I applied fevicol wherever required and then sprinkled coloured glitter onto it.

Glitter and Gum

Small clay diyas that I brought from the market:

This is how the Diyas looks after completion:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” 
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

I tried to make my Diwali little creative and colourful. Do try it out and make your Diwali more colourful too..
Have a Happy and Safe Diwali.
And if you have other creative ideas do share in the comments section below. 

Just Doodling

Doodle Art / Pattern Drawing

The name might sound something difficult to try out but we have been doing it since we were kids but never realized that it was a art form. Stuck somewhere,when we are bored or stressed, waiting or listening with a pen in our hand, we start doodling or you can say we start scribbling patterns or names. That's doodle.

A doodle is an unfocused or unconscious drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be abstract shapes. Stereotypical examples of doodling are found in school notebooks, often in the margins, drawn by students daydreaming or losing interest during class. Other common examples of doodling are produced during long telephone conversations if a pen and paper are available.  And it is found that what we choose to doodle reveals volumes about our personality and mood. Because of this, we’re usually only  half-conscious of what we’re drawing — which means our inner preoccupations surface on paper.

Study shows Emotional people who want harmony and crave affection tend to use rounded shapes and curved lines. Down-to-earth, practical people tend to use straight lines and  squares. Determined people will use corners, zigzags and triangles, while more hesitant types use light, sketchy strokes. A large doodle shows a person is confident and outgoing, while a small one suggests the person prefers to observe rather than participate. Zigzags are a particularly common doodle and show energetic thinking and a desire to get on with things. Doodling names or initials is common for those who enjoy being the center of attention. I have listed a few of the patterns describing a person's behavior,  there are even many other patterns too.

I have used black pen and paper to create the below artworks using doodles.
In this I have doodled around names to create this art. Can you find out the names in it?

And in this picture below I have first drawn a pattern, and then doodled inside the pattern to create this image.

Cock-a-doodle-do

Have you ever doodled around and created an art ? If not, this time when you doodle try to give it a form and make it an art. Do share your doodling experiences and whether you like this post or not in the comments section below.

Happy October

There is magic at the end of everyday,

You can see it on the horizon of play

The sun slowly drops down to take a rest

And then we lay down for the night until the morning crest

- Rik Bertrand

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm,
but to add color to my sunset sky.” 
― Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds

Part 3: Pencil Sketching - The Lonely Tree

GIVE ME STRENGTH

Give me strength when my will is weak

Give me strength when my heart is frail

Give me strength when my life gets rough

Give me strength when my spirit gives up

Give me strength when the sky is gray

Give me strength when the day is bleak

Give me strength when storm clouds hover

Give me strength to survive any storm

Give me strength when life seems lonely

Give me strength when friends are not near

Give me strength when life's journey is not easy

Give me strength to cast out fear.

 - By Champs Ulysses Cabination

By seeing the sketch, this poem came across my mind so thought of sharing it with all of you. 

I like the idea of being alone. I like the idea of often being alone in all aspects of my life. I like to feel lonely. I like to need things.
- Robert Plant 

I hope you all like my post, do share your thought in comments section below.

Part 2: Pencil Sketching - The Roman Colosseum

Winston Churchill once said that "we shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us".
In my mind, buildings personify and embody the diverse cultures that exist today, reflecting the power and endless potential of man's genius. It is my passion for Architecture that acts as a catalyst for inspiration and therefore have given me an opportunity to appreciate the aesthetic beauty.
To me, viewing a structure in person is substantially more potent than a mere image. Travelling has succeeded in broadening my horizons and opening up my mind, therefore allowing me to appreciate traditional Architecture. Hopefully some day I will travel around the world and see the beauty it beholds, but for now its the images that inspires me to sketch them.

One such place is the Colosseum, built by the ancient Romans, is a masterpiece of architecture. This great amphitheater was built nearly two thousand years ago for the purpose of hosting violent gladiator games (wild beasts to fight in with men in the sandy arena). Scary but true !!! This reminds me of the movie Gladiator where Maximus proves a fierce gladiator. The Roman Colosseum is the most famous monument to have survived from the classical world. 

The Colosseum also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre is an elliptical amphitheater in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy. It is the largest amphitheatre in the world. The three emperors who built it were from the Flavian dynasty, and thus was named in Latin for its association with their family name (Flavius). The Colosseum is an iconic symbol of Imperial Rome.

So moving away from history, the Roman Colosseum is one such architectural monument that I personally like and hope to see it in person someday,so for now here is the pencil sketch of it drawn by me.

So do tell me all about your travel experiences to such places or about your sketches on monuments/places.
And let me know if you liked the post in the comments section below. 

Part 1: Pencil Sketching - Forest Barn

Here is sneak peek to my personal favorite - pencil sketching. I love to do pencil sketching more than anything else. So here are some basic tips and my drawing.

The standard writing pencil is graded HB. The used "B" stands for black and "H" stands for hard and successive Hs or Bs such as BB or BBB indicates successively softer leads and HH or HHH for successively harder ones.

A set of pencils ranging from a very hard, light marking pencil to a very soft pencil, black-marking pencil usually ranges from hardest to softest as shown :

9H

8H

7H

6H

5H

4H

3H

2H

H

F

HB

B

2B

3B

4B

5B

6B

7B

8B

9B

Hardest

→

Medium

→

Softest

I have done using these drawing pencils (2B, 3B, 4B, 6B, 8B) for shading and HB pencil to draw the outline of the sketch.

This is a simple sketch of a forest barn drawn by me.

“Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space
      between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” 
― Maya Angelou 

To preserve the pencil sketches for long you can generally use the fixatives available in the market like this one,

Or you can also use a home-made fixative, like this one- take a little bit of Fevicol gum and dissolve it completely in water to make a thin liquid base and using a regular paint brush apply it to the pencil sketch and allow it to dry. This technique will also help you to preserve your sketches for longer time.

This is one of the many pencil sketches drawn by me and more are yet to come.
Have you ever attempted your hand at pencil sketching? Keep watching this space for more of my pencil sketches and do let me know if u like it or not in the comments section below.

DIY: Artwork On Newspaper/Old Text Book Pages

We generally sell away our newspaper and used books, so why not use them to do something creative.
Here are some tips to utilize the old to many some beautiful artworks.

Things I have used to create the different types of drawings:
1. Newspaper/Used text book paper
2. Black Gel pen
3. Camlin Watercolors Prussian Blue and Ivory Black
4. Paint brushes (No. 5,9,12)
5. Color Palette
6. Water in a bowl

In the below drawing I have only used the black gel pen to draw the lady on a old text book page.

The next art I have done, using watercolors Prussian Blue and Ivory Black. In black I have mixed blue to give it a little lighter shade bluish black mix, black with a tint of blue.

In the process of completion,

This is the final drawing with little patchwork to make it look torn and soiled paper.

So what do you do with your old newspaper and old text books? If you are planning to throw, then try doing these its nice and creative, and u can frame and display it.
Let me know how helpful did u find this article. And tell me what creative things did you try out in the comments section below.

Food For Thought: Rainy Day

Rain, Rain Go Away
Come Again Another Day
Little Johnny wants to play
Rain, Rain Go Away !!
A perfect nursery rhyme to sing when the rain is pouring down outside.
What are you reminded of your childhood when it starts raining?
School closed because of heavy rainfall, rain water inside the classrooms. Or maybe playing in the water puddles or making paper boats and sailing them in the rain waters. Or maybe playing in the rain and getting drenched. It was so much fun then.
But now our lives have become so busy that we don't even get time to relax, let alone have time to enjoy the rains.

Today off from work, rains pouring and weather so chilled I thought to enjoy the weather and to pen down my thoughts. This is the view outside my home, pouring heavily, perfect rainy day !!!

“Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots keeping itself alive.” 
― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Its been long time that I have taken out time for myself, its always work or busy with some or the other stuff.
So today I decided to treat myself by taking the day off, and making some hot coffee, cuddling under the blanket and reading some good novel. Then I watched a movie too "How to Lose A Guy In 10 Days". The movie was so much fun, whenever I see it, its a laughing riot for me and a romantic touch to it, so sweet. The day couldn't have been better :)

I felt good doing this after a long time, so I thought to share my feeling with you guys with some of my clicks. Feeling Refreshed and wish it could go on and on for ever.

We should find some time for our self to enjoy the beautiful things around us, before we find out, it might be too late.
So what are your experiences? Have you ever taken a day off all for yourself. If so, what did you do?
Do let me know all about your experiences by posting in comments section below.

Paint using Water colors

LIGHTHOUSE
I don't know why but I have a strange fascination for lighthouses. I love to walk along the beaches and sea shores and love to watch the lighthouses, it gives a very relaxing feeling. 

I had recently been to Pondicherry where I had clicked this snap. The old lighthouse looks so beautiful all lighted up on the beach road over- looking the beach.

“Man must behave like a lighthouse; he must shine day and night for the goodness of mankind.” 
― Mehmet Murat ildan

 So I tried to paint a lighthouse using my watercolors.

My mini water color palette, which is bit messy with all colors spilled :)

I tried to create my fascination onto paper, my lighthouse using watercolors.
So have you ever tried to paint down your imagination onto paper. 
What have you painted down?

Quick Tips: On Charcoal Art

Mystique, eerie, dreamy !!!!

                   “Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.

You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. 
Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.” 

― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

For Beginners What is this Charcoal Art? What are the different types of Charcoal used?

Here I will give you a brief insight about types of charcoal and how to use it to create a charcoal sketch.

 There are various types of Charcoal used for drawing, making rough sketches in painting. Mostly people/artist use the below mentioned types of Charcoal to draw. 

Vine Charcoal - It is created by burning wood (usually willow wood) and is turned into soft, medium and hard consistencies.

Powdered Charcoal - It is often used to "tone" or cover large section of drawing surface. Drawing over toned areas darken it further and to lighten the tone it can be erased.

Compressed Charcoal - Charcoal powder mixed with gum binder is compressed into square or round sticks The amount of binder determines the hardness of the stick. These compressed charcoal is used in charcoal pencils.

Kneaded eraser - is usually made of grey or white pliable material and resemble putty or gum. It functions by adsorbing and picking up graphite and charcoal particles. It does not wear away or leave behind eraser residue and lasts longer than other erasers. Kneaded erasers can be shaped by hand for precision erasing, creating highlights or performing detailing work. However they are ill-suited for completely erasing larger areas and my stick if too warm. 

Fixative - It is a liquid similar to varnish which is usually sprayed over a fixed piece of artwok, to better preserve it and prevent smudging. Artwork media requiring fixative include drawings done in pencil, charcoal and pastels. An artist will often fix layers of a work in progress, in order to easily add further layers, such a technique requires a workable fixative. Fixatives comes in liquid form that can be used from the bottle via a manual spray diffuser.

I got this Daler Rowney Perfix Colourless Fixative from flipkart.com

Price- Rs 450/- for 150ml

Now I will just tell you how I used these to create my very own Charcoal sketch.
The things I have used to draw:

1. Drawing Sheet 

2. Camlin Charcoal Pencils (Soft, Medium, Hard)

3. Compressed Charcoal Block

4. Cretacolor Kneaded Eraser (bought from filpkart.com) or use can use any normal eraser

5. Daler Rowney Perfix Colourless Fixative

Basically I have used Compressed Charcoal to create the background for the sky and the ocean. To detail the ship I have used the Charcoal Pencils (Soft, Medium, Hard), different types to give the shade and depth to the drawing. I have also used the Charcoal Pencils to create the waves. Using the kneaded (or normal eraser can also be used) to create the highlighted waves. After completing the Charcoal sketch I have sprayed the fixative to prevent further smudging of charcoal.

Hope you find this informative and do tell me all about your charcoal art and stuff in the comments below.