Hand painted fabric lampshade - When art meets craft

art Blog lampshades Shop

Before anything, have you checked out our new SPOTLIGHT series lampshades we launched on Valentine's day ? Please do.

Working with hand painted fabric for our lampshades is something we have not tried before. Though we had extensively worked worked with digital print of hand painted art, this was something entirely new.

It started as a regular conversation with the founder of TROVE (Nayantara Sarkar) who sells very gorgeous hand painted goodies. The paintings add a touch of elegance and class to ordinary products like milk cans and enamelwares and trays and others that she works on. It was an invitation to make a pendant lampshade with one of her pretty hand painted fabrics.

I did not make much of it until the fabric landed up in my house the very next day. To say it was beautiful was an understatement. After lot of deliberation, we decided that we will do table lamps to do more justice to the painting. I would rather have such a wonderful piece of art sitting right beside me than hanging somewhere up there. And thus started one of our best works ever.

So far we have been working on printed fabrics, kalamkaris, Ikats and the likes of it for our lampshades. This was the first time we were using handpainted fabric and we were really not sure how the result is going to be. And that made it a lot more exciting for us.

Everytime I take a break in the making process, I would put the fabric around the light just to get a feel of the look. And everytime it only upped my curiosity. And here is how it turned out to be after completion. One square shaped and one cylindrical shaped lampshades. We instantly fell in love with it. How about you ?

For more of our lampshade collections, do visit our online shop or our Facebook page.

Meanwhile, remember the Facebook contest we were running for Valentine's day. The winner was Mahalakshmi Rao who recommended the name "SPOTLIGHT" for our new series of lampshades. Here's what she had to say about the prize she received from us.

Can 70 douse the blaze of passion ?

art Blog inspiration oil painting Painting showcase

To be practising an art from an early age and continuing the tradition is one thing. But to show interest in a new art form, learn and master it at 70 something is completely another thing. Today, we learnt that everything is possible if the heart and mind is focused and age is no barrier to imbibing newer faculties and creating magic.

This portrait by my aunt Mrs.Loga Subramaniam, is truly an inspiration to us. Just as art is timeless, this painting establishes that talent knows no frontiers and there is never a laid down age to be trained, to learn and to acquire untried skills. 

Portrait of a traditional Indian woman

This portrait apparently is my aunt’s first painting ever (can you believe that !) that she worked on after half a year of formal training. The portrait exudes a certain charm which we believe couldn’t have been possible without a certain innate artist who was only waiting to be unleashed all these years.

Athai, we were struck by sheer joy when we saw this painting and have been talking about it all evening.  You have so evidently shown us the blaze of passion can never be doused by the passing of time. We are eagerly waiting to see more of your work.

The artist with her artwork

Over to you now. Is there something that you have always wanted to learn but have been shying away from ? Have you kept  yourself away from learning a skill because you thought it was too late to grasp the concepts ? Tell us about it. And also remember to leave a comment rightaway on what you think of this painting. Your kind words mean a lot.

~Somu

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This post is partially a translation of a similar post made by my cousin Ramalakshmi who is a passionate photographer and a Tamil enthusiast. She is a renowned blogger from Bangalore who manages a very active Tamil blog. Her photos, poems and articles have consistently found their way into well known Tamil websites and print magazines. The credit for the photos in this post goes to her.

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If you liked this, you may also like:

• Upcycle your wine bottles using this very easy idea
• An attractive name board you can make with news papers
• Warli art on a rest room wall
• An art book and oil pastels

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Linking in : Colours Dekor

Warli art - You will never guess where I found it

art Blog Painting Warli

A triangle, a circle, a square and some lines.  The tribal women of Maharashtra used just these figures to create a traditional folk art popularly known as Warli.

These paintings depict the social life of these tribes and are predominantly painted in white on mud walls. As is evident from many Warli paintings you may come across, they portray human figures that are dancing, farming, hunting or indulging in other such regular activities.

Now, why am I talking about Warli all of a sudden ? I recently noticed Warli art in the walls of my favorite restaurants in Chennai, and I was mighty impressed at where and how they had used it. Considering I found it in a space where I least expected to see an ancient art, I wanted to share it here. Even from the central figure in the art below, I can bet my bottom dollar that you cannot guess where the below picture was taken.

Warli art on the wall

Would it surprise you if I said I clicked this in the men's room ? I don’t know if it is any desecration of an age old art, but I sure know someone really put his / her creative mind into good use here. Seeing this, I could not stifle my chuckle, and in all the urgency I had, I managed to stop and click this picture J

Indian Warli on a European closet

Talking about Warli and creativity, I am reminded of Aparna of Warli-Soul and so wanted to dedicate this space to  mention her work. They say Warli does not depict mythological characters or images of deities, but here is someone who stretches her imagination to create beautiful art out of the same Triangles, Circles and squares.

Radha and Krishna on Warli - By Aparna

I so love niche blogs and I believed Warli as a niche had very limited scope for variety. I have time and again been proven otherwise by her work. She is a trained Warli artist who portrays these stick figures in newer, modern backdrops. Patricia of Colours Dekor also carried a feature of this lovely blog under the blog finds category. I strongly recommend that you check her blog Warli-soul to know what I am talking about. 

Warli Painting - by Aparna

Meanwhile, I am going to have Preethi do a Warli on one of the walls at home. Help me convince her :)

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You may also be interested in

• Preethi's warli art on a pot
• Have you seen this handmade bamboo room divider ?
• An old kurta and how we recycled it

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Linking in : Colours Dekor
- Somu

Oil pastels - A peek into my art book

art Blog oil pastel Painting

When I wanted to professionally learn art to hone my skills, I turned to Mrs.Jebamani Elango who is our friend's mom and also the art teacher in Somu's school. Both uncle and aunty are amazing professional artists, and were kind enough to accommodate my request to help me with improving my skills.

Though it was oil painting (Check out Buddha on Canvas and an Aravind Kolapkar reproduction) that I wanted to particularly learn, they advised me to start with Oil Pastel to better understand the fundamentals. While all the paintings below are my own handiwork, the credit to the originals go to Mr. and Mrs. Elango (Wish I could link them here. But they are not on any social media) whose work I merely reproduced. 

Art book and oil pastels

The below scenery apparently is a place in Kodai. This was uncle's work and he gave it to me to start off my learning process. Lot of corrections were suggested and I learnt how to give depth to a painting.



A serene place in Kodai captured in Oil Pastel

I followed it up with another scenery of the woods. I learnt more about giving depth to a painting. Again this is a view of one of the many beautiful places in Kodai.



Woods - Oil Pastel

Pencil sketch of one of my favourite subjects

All art Blog horse others Painting pencil sketch

Pencil Sketch - Horse

Yesterday, I was done with work, made dinner pretty early in the evening and was wondering what to do for rest of the day. It has been a long time since I took my art book out. So thought it would be a good time to do something with it. So here is the outcome- a pencil sketch of a horse. I have not tried much of sketching and this turned out pretty decent. Now I am all excited to try out more of it.

P.S. Linking to Colours Dekor

Inspiration : Deebeeaar

- Somu