Work In Progress on Wednesday - Dress design

Starting a new series on my blog. As the title says, I will be sharing about the arts and crafts projects, on which I'm working on. It can be anything , sewing, embroidery , crochet, tatting, or paper-craft etc.

Why I started this series (WIP) ?

There are two reasons , why I started this series. I can get some suggestions about the work from my readers, like about color combination, technique etc. Second is, I can post the completed work as soon as possible :)

Today , starting this series with a dress design. I had bought a hand-block printed Madhubani cloth from an exhibition. Madhubani is an ancient art , about which I have written in one of my posts. Also I have tried painting it on a wooden box. 

Madhubani paintings are also used on sarees and dresses nowadays. The clothes with hand painted Madhubani paintings are very expensive. We can also get hand block painted ones in the market now. Though these hand block printed cloths do not match the elegance of hand painted cloths, if we use it properly in designing dresses and sarees, these look very nice.

Here is the hand block printed cloth I bought:

Hand-block printed Madhubani design on cloth

Hand-block printed Madhubani design on cloth

For Madubani hand-clock printed cloth,  I have chosen hand-woven cloth in pink and off-white. The hand-block printed cloth , I want to attach as border. Here is how the combination look:

The combination for the top

Both look good. But I have chosen to make the pink cloth as top, as the duppata is off-white with Madhubani prints. What do you suggest?

Once it is stitched, will share in coming post.

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana

Madhubani painting on wooden box- Tutorial

In the process of organizing and decorating my craft room, I'm making many hand crafted items. Already I have shared  about the wooden boxes painted. One box with Warli design and and another with decoupage.

About Madhubani art I have written in one of my posts,Madhubani Art( Mithila Art) -Art from an ancient city .I have been wanting to learn Madhubani art. But never got an opportunity to learn it from a professional. Still my search is on for a professional Madhubani artist to learn this beautiful art. Thought of trying this art , by painting it on a wooden box. I searched many tutorials online, and tried to paint. This is my first attempt in Madhubani art.

Here it is :

Tutorial to paint on wooden box:

First step is to paint the wooden box with wood primer. You can use acrylic white color too.After the application of  primer wait for 4-5 hours so that it dries completely. Then apply white acrylic color.I have mixed a drop of yellow color, to make it look like a handmade paper. :)

Wooden box with after first layer of paint applied

How to transfer the design :

The tedious task is to transfer the design, may it be embroidery or painting. If you can draw , it is  good. If you can't then the design should be transferred. There are many techniques to transfer design.I used pencil scribbling method. Here are the steps of the method:

1. On the wrong side of the design page , scribble with 2B pencil. 

Scribble on the wrong side of the design

2. Now keep it on the surface where the design has to be transferred and draw lines of the design with sharp pencil.

Draw on the design

The design will be transferred on the surface:

Design transferred on the surface

I prefer this method over using carbon papers to transfer designs , as carbon papers leave black patches sometimes.
After design transferred, paint it with the required color. In Madhubani art the major colors used are  red, yellow, green and black.
Here it is after painting:

Madhubani art on wooden box

There may be many mistakes in the first attempt.
Hope soon I will find a Guru , from whom I can learn this traditional art :)

Planning to design a saree with Madhubani designs. Will share the saree design soon with you.

Until then,

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana