June 20, 2010

poppies 03


batik on silk with embroidery
48 x 68 cm

During the poppy phase I had tried one out on silk.  Not completely satisfied, because of too many crackles , I had kept it aside with the idea of trying out embroidery at some point.

So : my second attempt at embroidery (well, simple running stictches really), + the use of beads.
Quite fun to do.  It's good to try things out :)
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experimenting with back-lighting the batik.

June 19, 2010

bird of paradise


batik and sequins - on cotton
48 x 69cm

Where I grew up in the Sivalik hills (Dehradun, India); the house was built on terraced land overlooking a river, and hills.  We have quite a big garden, mango and litchi trees amongst a variety of flowering trees, a patch of land dedicated to a Eucalyptus 'forest' and tall lucious bamboos growing wild in the dark slopes where the monsoon rainwater runs off towards the river.

Even though over the years, the neighbouring fields have been sold and converted into residential plots with more and more houses, more people, more noise; our little pocket still retains its 'green-ness'.  One of the beautiful memories I have of this house is the amount and variety of birds which stopped, nested, or just visited.  During spring, on rare occasions we would see Birds of Paradise.

This is my ode to them and to the magic of my childhood.
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On a more technical note : I am experimenting with adding embroidery onto the batiks.  First of all : I need to learn a LOT about embroidery (was always more of a tomboy); and second : I'm not certain the sequins were the right choice, even though I like the rainbow shine of them.  I figure I need to leave this for a while, then take a fresh look to see if I want to do it again, differently.

June 13, 2010

mes petites fleurs jaunes (my little yellow flowers)


on cotton
47 x 47cm

an experiment in technique
wanting to work on the difference between background and subject through texture and just 2 rounds of waxing (well 3, if I consider the little white lines as round 1)