Madhubani Art( Mithila Art) -Art from an ancient city

Madhubani  (painting) art form originated from ancient Indian city Mithila.
This was originated as wall art, means paintings were drawn by the women of Mithila to decorate walls of the houses. Nowadays these are practised on silk, cotton and handmade papers. Colors are natural colors.This is painted with fingers, twine brush, nib pen, match sticks etc.
The motifs normally used in Madhubani paintings are mythological figures, Rama, Sita, Krishna, Radha etc. The motifs are also influenced by nature, so include Lotus, flowers, fish ,snakes etc.
I would love to visit Mithila once to meet the artists there. Recently I could meet a Madhubani artist in a art exhibition. Captured the images of the paintings, to share with you.
Some are here:
This one has painting of Rama , Sita and Laxmana  in forest. So the motifs of peacock , Sun and Deer can be seen there.

 

This is painting of Hindu God Ganesha:

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 Some more paintings:

 A beautiful girl:

 The Sun:

And again my favorite peacock design :

 

The prominent features of  this painting are bright colors and minute black lines to highlight the design. This painting is made only in black color:

  

And the artist here:

Now Madhubani painting is done on clothes also. Blend of colors like Orange, Red,Green, Yellow , Blue etc highlighted with fine lines in Black color makes the painting really lively. 

 You can read about Madhubani art here

 With this painting, I'm adding one more section to my blog: Crafts of India, where I will be sharing about different crafts of Incredible  India.

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana 

Saree designing with screen printing- For sale

I have designed  many sarees , most of the time according to customer's suggestions. I have used the color combinations they have suggested. This is the one I have used the color combination of my choice .
The saree is fine cotton saree with two shades, Maroon and Green. As the shades have covered half of the length, so I have used big motifs along the border.
The motif I have used is :

 

The motif has two Apsaras (Angels)dancing and a pair of peacock on top of them. 

The motifs along the border looks like this :

 

The pallu:

 

And this has attached blouse, on which I printed paisley design on both the side :

The closer view of the motif on the blouse

 

 I loved the green and maroon combination. Hope the Gold color motifs good on that, which goes well with Maroon as well as Green, making the saree very traditional.

This is for sale on my FB page : https://www.facebook.com/RanjanasCreations

  Hope you liked the saree. Wearing this a lady will definitely look like an Apsara . What do you say?

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana 

Interesting Sculptures - Dancing Nataraja Of Badami cave temple

Badami-Aihole-Pattadakallu is the ancient architectural wonder in Karnataka. If you are lover of history, and ancient architecture, you should visit this place. You can read more about Badami-Aihole-Pattadakallu, in this article.
Badami is famous for the cave temple located there. This has four cave temples, situated one above the other.

I have already shared about an interesting sculpture carved on the  pillars of the cave temple in one of my earlier posts.
In this post sharing about another interesting sculpture. The first cave temple has the sculptures related to Hindu God Shiva. This sculpture is located to the right side to the entrance of the temple.

 

You can see Lord Shiva in the form of Nataraja (King of Dance-literal meaning), beside a small idol of Lord Ganesha(Son of Lord Shiva)

Here is the closer view:

 

It can be observed that, there are totally 18 arms, 9 on each sides. The significance of this sculpture is  - each combination of the hands represents Mudras of Bharatanatyam ( a form of Indian classical dance). Totally 81 mudras are depicted in this sculpture.

 And Lord Ganesha is enjoying the dance I guess ! Or is he trying to learn the steps?

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana 

Mantapa Decoration for the arrival of Ganesha

This is the festival I eagerly wait to celebrate. My preparation starts from fifteen days earlier to the festival. Every year I visit my mother's house for the celebration and last year I missed it.:-(.
I didn't want to miss Ganesha festival this year. So had planned everything fifteen days earlier. I had bought many decorating materials, and was waiting for the day with excitement.
Finally the day had come. At my mother's place , decorating Mantapa was my responsibility. This responsibility I love always. Happy to share about the decoration
The Mantapa frame fixed :

I decorated with garlands of flowers and some decorating items:

And finally, with Ganesha,

 

I felt Ganesha looked happy with the decoration :-) and I was contented.

May Lord Ganesha bless all with health, happiness and prosperity to all, who believe in him.

Soon will write about another Radha -Krishna painting ,I made

Until then, 

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana 

Scrap Metal Art- Creativity in scrap

Scrap metal art is the art  made from scrap. You can know about this art by browsing,  and you will amazed to see how the creativity and imagination take form of art from the scrap metals
Chitrakala Parishat in Bangalore is one of my favorite  art addas. Every time I visit Chitrakala Parishat, I could see scrap metal art. I have captured them and sharing with you.
I guess these are in clockwise direction helicopter, fish, tortoise and a guitar:

 

A lady and a man. The bicycle chain is used as necklace for the lady :-)

 

Butterflies 

 

Two other creatures , hen and a buffalo , I guess .:-)

A flying horse ? 

Quarrel  between  a couple, I guess so :-). All married couples will guess same about this I think :-)

Oh, this one is cute, Ganesha ! ?

 Loved  the creativity here. I have interpreted according to my imagination. Eager to know about your interpretation about these.

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana