Two from the Penn series

"Penn" means woman in Tamil.I am doing a series of Mixed Media Art paintings on Indian women in different situations. Sneak peak of two of the paintings from that series.

"Sumati ". 8X11.5 Acrylic and pen on paper. Embellishments,decoupaged elements on a newspaper background. Sumati is a prototype of a "Perfect Tamil" girl in terms of physical appearance(a rare breed these days). Sumati's proportions and facial features are slightly distorted to give a whimsical feel.

" Macchli Rani". Meaning "Queen of Fishes". 8X11.5 Acrylic and pen on paper with decoupaged elements. Initially, I didn't Intend the painting to look Andy Warhol-ish with pop art influences in it,but finally succumbed and added the retro-looking circles.The photo frame hanging is another story altogether.:-)

I'm working on getting giclee prints of my work and will soon be listing them on my Etsy shop.. Yeah,I'm going Etsy!.Just waiting for some issues to be sorted on my Paypal account. Next instalment of more in the series soon.

Have a great week,everyone.

Mea Culpa..

A teensy-weensy post for a change. The book review will happen sometime next week.

Typical conversation between the hubby and I.

Me: G, What does Mea Culpa mean?

G: Let me see. Comeuppance.

Me: huh?

G : umm.. Comeuppance.

And I am off to find a dictionary.

Edit: Thanks Suko. Mea culpa and Comeuppance are not synonyms. As pointed out by her Mea Culpa means" My fault" and Comeuppance means "Punishment for sins".Strangely, I rarely use google for finding meanings of words.I have a mammoth dictionary that I use once a week-I jot down the words I want to find the meanings of in a pocket book and as a weekly ritual I consult my dictionary,which is probably heavier than me ;-)
Have a super weekend!

Pic and more pics..

Let me leave you with the pics of my recent Arty-crafty projects,as promised. My next post will be a review of Frank Mc Court's book, Teacher Man. Sigh..a book review after a long time!. It's an incredibly cheeky book and people who've read his other books(Angela's Ashes and Tis') will love it. I think I've mentioned before that he is one of my all-time favorite authors,so I am looking forward to rave about his writing ;-)

Malli's playground. 10X12 Mixed Media acrylic on canvas.



14X18 Acrylic on Canvas. Rough copy of Putamaya's album cover.Not sure who the original artist is,all I can say is that I love his/her composition.

One of the pages from my scrapbook on college memories. The technique I've used here is Mosaicing.Scrapbooks are not available in Chennai,so I'm planning to get it spiral bound after I add more pages.I am still learning to put together scrapbook pages from the awesome resources available online,so I am not really happy with some of the pages.But what the heck,it's loads of fun.

Shabby chic layout.I've used a FerroRocher cup,a drugstore envelope and scraps of patterned paper lying in my scrap box.Another photo is tucked inside the pouch.For some reason I like this page.



Another layout of pics taken right after graduation.

Have a lovely week ahead.

In pursuit of balance

Sometime back (could be a long time ago.I am not great with time frames) Bru used to air a sweet little ad on TV. People who live outside India (maybe even South India)might not have seen it and I am not able to find the link on You tube. So,you'll have to adjust with my description.:-).The ad shows a young ,South Indian couple scrambling across town in anticipation of the visit of the husband's relatives, an old couple .The girl comes home with a pack of Bru.through the window because she doesn't want to be spotted wearing her jeans .Few minutes later, tada... her jeans have metamorphosed into a Sari and her unruly locks tamed into a pert plait decked with flowers.The old couple smile in appreciation when she hands them out tumblers of steaming "filter" coffee. Now,remember what ad I am talking about?.

Something very similar to this happens to me every time some relative announces that they'll be gracing the thresholds of our home . I scamper around my house trying to find objects of "importance" that indicate my martial status,namely the "Thaali "(Mangalsutra), "toe-rings "and if I am in a nice mood,the "Kumkum" box. Now,I wouldn't think of myself as excessively forward ,but to me wearing toe-rings or marking one's forehead are empty symbols that make no difference to my life.In the olden days, the "Thaali" was used to give out a signal that a girl was married and that guys needed to stay away from her. It was supposed to be a form of protection (Don't ask me how,because I can't understand the concept myself).I am just parroting what the movies have taught me ;-)

I think it's time we stopped taking "Thaali" sentiment dialogues that are an integral part of Tamil movies seriously and pay importance to other things. Not toeing the line or dressing and behaving a certain way doesn't really reflect somebody's culture. Infact, precluding it as the indicators of good culture is downright narrow-mindedness.Anyway,the fact of the matter is that the "wife" stereotype thrives on.

There was a time when I used to fume when people asked me about my missing toe-rings,but now I comfortably ignore any such prodding comments. When I was in school(a long time ago),I remember how one of our teachers,never wore her "Mangalsutra" (even though we knew she was married ).It shocked some of our Tamil sensibilities back then.But now that I am married and supposedly a responsible "adult", I wonder how a ten-year old can get infused with such judgmental thoughts.Is it something to do with societal conditioning? Or the fact that deep down,an uglier version of ourselves lurks waiting to be unleashed?.

Every time, I try to act like the nice,coy Tamil girl, a strong pang of guilt assaults me. Why am I putting on a show for someone who I'll probably see couple of times in my life?.My parents(and most of my relatives) have long since accepted my choice of preferring to not wear a Bhindi and not being a typical Tamil girl . I started cooking only after I got married and cooking decent,edible food only after I quit my full-time job. Probably,all this would have been a non-issue if I stayed in a different country with no relatives around to judge me from the way I dress or the choices I make. I still think a gold chain or the fact that you stock three different types of sweets at home or make the most scrumptious seven course traditional meal says nothing about the sensibilities of a person.

Still,I continue the charade.For the sake of what,I don't know.I have a lot of growing up to do,I guess.

Girl on a new day- mixed media art

I have been experimenting a bit with paper for sometime now and am hooked to scrap booking and mixed media art big time. It's loads of fun to work with more than one medium and there is something calming about snipping paper.A bit about the painting-it's an acrylic on canvas. Somehow,after completely finishing the piece,I felt that the idea seemed better in my head than on canvas. :-(.

I have loads of cute images to work with and am super excited.I also managed to finish an acrylic,few scrapbook pages and a card.Pics of those in my next post. What have you guys been upto?

Puffy thingies.. I'm out to get you!

Image from : http://beanbagchair.i-am-root.com/patterns-for-bean-bags/

Our bean bag sat deflated and flaccid like some limp, shapeless animal. We pitied the poor fellow ,but waited for him to wear himself out more and die a natural death.In the last 4 years,he's faithfully supported many butts and has served us well.We felt bad that we had to let him go.Then,someone told us about refills available to revive dying bean bags and we were excited that our friend would be saved.

We had no idea how treacherous and painful the whole process would be .. It ranks among the top 3 most challenging things I've ever done in my life .You think I'm exaggerating?

In our state of unbridled wide-eyed fascination for the magic of "beans",we inverted the humongous sack of beans into our limp friend.Coffee with Karan was on and we momentarily got carried away by some bitchy exchange on the screen, hoping that our friend would get plumper by the minute with the beans getting pumped into him.A few minutes later,we sensed something rubbery rolling around our feet.Hallucination?

No. Blasted beans all over the floor.Merry and Round. White monsters. Mocking us.

How the hell did they slip out,we asked ourselves.

KJO was the culprit,he made us lose focus,I said.

That's bull. The opening was too small, the spouse opined.

It was then that I saw what had been staring us us all along. The opening was too small and this bean-diarrhea was bound to happen.

I am convinced now that the small slit is a private joke of the bean bag manufacturer. Constructed that way to test people's patience. And let's not even talk about how slimy these beans are..They get blown away,with the tiniest of movements by anything within a one mile radius around them(ok,slight exaggeration here.)

Result: We had fractals of bean design on the floor, that got changed every time we moved toward it.Our mosaic-ed white floors added to our misery,making giving the white monsters the camouflage they needed. It was then then that we realized that the cutesy-looking ,otund shape was just a ploy to fool us. The beans were mean patience-testing objects of torture.

Armed with our knowledge about beans,we decided to forgo the KJO episode and channeled our energies into picking the stray orphans off the floor.Half an hour passed and we were still on our knees fishing individual beans and transferring them into the bag.

"I never knew it was so difficult." The spouse added deflatedly.

I didn't have to say anything.

Three fourth of the sack still stared back us sarcastically as if it was saying "Hey losers,just 1/4th down.Education blunts common sense,you know."

We flinched. We couldn't let a bunch of freaking thermocol make us look stupid. We bought out a bunch of ammunition to counter our enemy.

An saucepan.

"Too wide."

Tumbler

"Too small"

Funnel made out of paper

"Freaking slow"

Finally,settled for a small-necked utensil after rummaging through my kitchen.

An hour later,after several hundred beans "inadvertently" fell out off the utensil,the task was finally done.

We studied our handiwork with satisfaction. Our friend did look a little limp,but what the heck, he was the result of our hardwork. I don't recall having toiled this much ever ..

A week has passed since the refill and every day I find a new bunch of runaway beans tucked in the most unexpected places. I found a few inside the washing machine yesterday!. The nerve of those idiots. So,in a way my house has become like some treasure island.

Next time around,we've decided to outsource the job to someone with a better hand-eye coordination or throw the damn bag away and get one with a bigger slit.

Oh,I hate the sight of those tiny,white monsters now.They taunt me in my dreams too. No,I'm not giving up till my house is exterminated of all traces of those irritating, puffy thingies.

It's a war and may the best side win!

Yay!..A new month's here..

Hope February's started with a bang for all you guys.January just flew so fast!!.I know I've been AWOL for sometime now and have not been visiting blogs or post here .Bad case of blogging-boredom,I say. Add to that dollops of writer's block and a dash of book-boredom, and you have the perfect recipe for an AWOL-act.The next few days I'll be catching up with all the posts I've missed..

Patricia has a lovely blog called ColoursDekor ,where she blogs about design and the colorful side of life.She's sweetly featured my living room wall in this month's "Walls with Characters"segment.Do check the post out here.Thanks, Patricia!. Also BlogJunta's picked my review of War on the margins in last week's editor's pick. Do head over here for discovering some really talented bloggers.

Tamil movie buffs who would like to read the hubby's views on the movie Aadukalam, please head here. His new blog is called Clapboard and Arclights and is going to carry movie reviews and anything related to the world of movies.. Please do visit his space.


Have a fabulous week,everyone.