[Pastimes] Rangoli for Deepawali 2013

The rangoli that I designed for Deepawali this year was a variation of peacock.

Peacock is associated with Goddess Lakshmi and hence is an auspicious design for Deepawali. The colours are significant of peacock. 

Hope you like the designs do share what designs you had done for this Diwali by posting a comment.

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[Pastimes] Rangoli for Dhanteras 2013

The first day of Diwali is celebrated as Dhanteras, when we welcome Goddess or Wealth Sri Lakshmi to our house and also wish for prosperity.
This is Rangoli I created for Dhanteras

I chose to do it in green and warm colours like red, orange and yellow because green and red colour are used to represent Sri Lakshmi in various cultures, while yellow is the colour of gold and orange was used to connect the colours. The paisley is one of the traditional rangoli designs inspired from mango; which is an auspicious design. 
It was a really windy day and so I was not really happy with the haziness that became a part of the design. I prefer my rangolis to be sharp but could not do anything.

Hope you like the designs do share what designs you had done for this Diwali by posting a comment.

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[Pastimes] Rangoli For Deepawali- Part 2

After yesterday's post (Read here) on my Diwali Rangoli Designs, today's post is about the designs I created for Diwali of 2009. By this time, I gained much more confidence and was ready to explore little more complex designs than those from last year. This time, I decorated my doorway for 3 days.
Diwali is celebrated for 5 days- first day is Dhanteras, which is celebrated to please Goddess of Wealth, Sri Lakshmi and a lot of precious purchases are made on this day; the second day is Naraka Chaturdasi, which is to celebrate victory of Lord Krishna over a demon named Narakasur; the third day which falls on a no-moon night is the main festival and is celebrated by worshiping Goddess Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth and Lord Ganesha, the elephant God, remover of all obstacles. People light of their houses with clay lamps and welcome Sri Lakshmi into their houses. The fourth day is celebrated as Govardhan Puja in north to commemorate the victory of Lord  Krishna over Lord Indra by lifting a mountain called Govardhan on his little finger, while in southern India it is celebrated as Bali Pratipada, to celebrate the victory of Lord Vishnu in his dwarf form Vamana over demon king Bali. The fifth day is Bhai Duj when sisters and brothers express their love and affection for each other. 
So the celebrations goes on almost for a week and it is a great fun when you celebrate with family and friends. 
Now, coming back to Rangoli, in 2009, I designed rangolis for first three days and here are the pics.

This design was done for the first day. If you know me by now, you will be able to see one of my signature designs- the paisley.

This design was created for the second day. I kept it really simple.

This design was done on the day of Diwali at the doorway. Again featuring the other design which I love to create - the Peacocks. This is the most elaborate design I have created till date.

This design was done at the Puja area. If you notice in the last post also, both the designs in the puja area have lotus motif. This is because Goddess Lakshmi sits on the Lotus flower and these rangoli motifs signify the seat of Goddess Lakshmi. We invite Her to our houses and also keep a seat ready.

Hope you like the designs and share with us what kind of designs you like to create by posting a comment.

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[Pastimes] Rangoli for Deepawali- Part 1

As some of you may be aware of the Indian Hindu festival known as Deepawali or Diwali or Divali. It is the most widely celebrated festival among Indians. It is also known as 'Festival of Lights'.
One of the significant custom is to do the Spring Cleaning of whole house and decorate it well. The doorway and the 'puja' (prayer) area is often decorated with 'Rangoli'. 
Rangoli, also known Kolam, Mandana, Alpana etc. in various parts of India is a folk art used to decorate the floor of doorways and courtyards during festivals to welcome the deities. Various media can be used individually or in combination- dry colour powder, flowers, rice paste, coloured marble chips, paint etc.

When doing a rangoli on Deepawali, I prefer to use Colored powder which is easy to sprinkle, yet requires a lot of practice. The first time I tried doing Rangoli of Deepawali was in 2008 and here are some pics-

The first two pics are of Rangoli done at puja area while the last one is at the doorway. I love doing floral and geometric designs and sometimes combination of both.

Do you like doing Rangoli on Deepawali or any other occassion? What are your favorite type of design?
Do leave a comment and share...

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[Pastimes] Doodle Complete...

Hey Everyone,
I was talking about this latest doodle that I was working on, in one of my last posts (Check here). I thought it's going to take a long time to finish, was expecting to finish it by coming weekend but could not stop myself to go back to it as and when I had some free time and here I am with my completed piece a bit too soon.
But never mind, let me show you how it went on after I left in my previous post...

[Pastimes] My new Doodle... the most elaborate one till now

Hey everyone,
Almost after a year, last weekend, I spent some time on doodling on a piece of paper. You can see my previous doodles here. The paper was lavender colored and I was using my favorite Uniball Signo 0.28 tip black pen to work on it. I just love this pen as I can use this for fine detailing. Again the design that came out had to include a paisley... cannot work without having them in my designs. This is the most elaborate doodle I have done (or rather have been doing still) up till now. I don't know how long it will take to complete but will definitely show you all once it is done, in the meanwhile let me show you how the design is progressing. 

[Pastimes] Initials on Handkerchief...

There was a time when I was obsessed with embroidery. It was vacation time in schools and universities and I used to be at home for most of the days and those were the days when I embroidered for around 10-12 hours a day. 

I decided to embroider Initials on Mr. Scientist's handkerchief and surprise him. So I sat down with my PC to select a nice font for the same and within an hour I had my design ready and so I embroidered his initial (Y) by the time he came back from work. I used satin stitch, stem stitch and french knots for this design.

Later in the evening, pleased with my work, I told him that I have something for him and showed him the handkerchief and the reaction I got was something I never imagined. He was like, 'It's good but why there is no 'N' (my Initial) here? We are together and hence, with my name, your name should be there always, so I would like if you do something with both Y and N in it...' 

For a while, I did not know how to react, I was pleased by the significance I hold in his life and also a bit upset about beginning the whole design process again. But next day with CorelDraw software, I created Y and N, and this is what I finally embroidered using satin stitch and stem stitch.

How do you like these? Do leave a comment and let me know...

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[Pastimes] Love for Reading and Embroidery!

My love for books and needle & thread once lead me into creating embroidered bookmarks. I really enjoyed making these bookmarks and used my favorite embroidery stitch- satin stitch. This I feel is the trickiest stitch as those who love it can work very well with this and those who don't really like it can get this really messy. 

The motifs are inspired from Parsi Embroidery, which is a very fine and delicate form of embroidery, using mainly satin stitches, long and short stitches, french knot etc. 
White cotton fabric was used as base and cotton embroidery threads were used to create design. After completing the embroidery, the fabric was sandwiched between a layer of colored paper and cellophane paper and was finished with a border of coloured paper.

Hope you like the two bookmarks... and if like me you also love reading and needlework, why not create some of your own. And if you do, don't forget to share the pics with all of us here!

Till then, 

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[Pastimes] Doodle Doodle... Doodle

As mentioned in my last post What I loved doing... and still love to do, one of my hobbies is doodling. Doodles are referred to those drawings, which are done unconsciously, mainly when the attention is occupied somewhere else. Most of my doodles started and ended in the same way but for some, they start as unconscious doodles but then I liked them so much and ended up spending sometime to specially complete them. Similar doodles were used to make bookmarks and cards as well. The only problem with all this was that not all were photographed. I am left with very few pictures to show, but nevermind... see what all I have and now I'll make sure to click pictures of whatever I do :)

The best way to doodle for me is to use mechanical pencil with B2 lead on any paper. I always carry a mechanical pencil with me for the same reason. Another medium I love to use is Uniball 0.27 tip pen on coloured paper. I mainly use this to make bookmarks; being an avid reader, I am in need of loads of them as sometimes I read 2-3 books at a time and moreover, cannot remember to take them out of my library books before returning them! I also tried to make bookmarks with bamboo leaves, using a Rotring pen for doodling.

Also, you'll see a lot of paisleys (mango design) and peacocks and a combination of both, needless to say that those are my favourite and always end up including atleast one of the them...

Pencil on Paper

Pencil on Paper

Pencil on Paper

Bookmark with Black Uniball Pen on Colored Paper

Bamboo Leaves Bookmarks 

Acrylic Paint on Canvas

So these were few of my creations, Hope you like them! Do leave a comment and let me know...

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[Pastimes] What I loved doing... and still love to do!

Hi Everyone,

Hope you all are doing well!

I was just going through some old pictures, and then this idea struck me to introduce you all to my other hobbies, that is apart from blogging, making people look and feel great, looking after my home and son; I have a great interest in embroidery and doodling. Before I became a mother, I used to take out some time from my busy schedule of teaching Fashion Design, to do some embroidery and doodling on bookmarks etc.  Today, while searching for some picture, I started browsing through the folder in which I have pictures of all my art and embroidery work, I could feel the itch in my hands to hold the needle and thread again and creating some lovely stuff; and then I thought of restarting embroidery as soon as I get time after going back to Singapore. Just hope the itch continues after going back as well and I will share my creating with you. In the meanwhile, I thought why not share some of my older creations and may be with your encouragement, I can start again...

After looking at those pictures (because for most of the things, I am left only with pictures as the actual products are either kept in storage somewhere or have been gifted to someone), I could still feel the thought process that went into creating each piece and the execution and the joy of completing the work...

This picture is just to give a glimpse of my work, will talk about some of these and more creations later... Hope you like it, if you do, please leave a comment to show your appreciation and encouragement!

Will come back with more soon!
Till then, Take care

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