Exhibition in School-This time model of houses

Again, exhibition in my son's school. This time teacher told him to make model of different types of houses. Though I like making the models, this time, I was reluctant, because of two reasons. First one was, we had planned to visit our native, to attend a marriage, second, this model making requires lots of my time always :-). I informed his teacher, that he could not take part in exhibition this time, due to first reason.( Anyhow, any parent cannot tell the second reason  :-) But she didn't agree and told us at least to keep the model in the exhibition.
So went ahead making this model. 3-4 days of work, finally resulted something like this:













I made models of different types of houses, something to depict evolution of house and some special kinds of houses.
It starts from cave; I made this using Plaster Of Paris.

Then a mud house; again made with Plaster Of Paris

Then Villa, Bungalow and Apartments:

(Here I used , some readymade plastic models.)

And some special types of houses ;

Igloo:

Tent house

Boat house

This time my son helped me lot. Next time, he might not need my help, I think.

How fast the kids grow up! :-)

But as I said, he could not attend the exhibition to present this. We just kept the model in exhibition with his name plate on that: PRATARDAN   :-)

Inheritance

This is the best cross stitch work I have seen. No, I have not made this. To make this kind of piece, will take at least 10 years for me. :-). My mother made this. Few years back, she had been to Chandigarh, to stay few months with my sister. She got this design from neighbor and started this work. She worked at least 2-3 years on this. This is really a large design, measuring 1 meter X 3/4 meter.
She gifted this to her sister (my aunt).
This is a complete cross stitch work, means even the red background is filled with cross stitch. So you can imagine the amount of work involved.
I had seen her working on this. Though she used to have , household work, she never got bored of this work. After finishing her household work, she was to open the materials  and start working. Whenever she used to travel, she was to carry this with her :-). I always used to tease her saying she would never finish this work. :-). Hundreds of Anchor embroidery skeins are used for this. Once she fell short of the red skeins and  asked  me to send some skeins. I forgot the number of the color and I thought its red so, sent some red color skeins. She filled some part of the design with the skeins I sent. After some filling was done, she realized that was not the exact color. The difference was negligible. But she removed all those, and again filled with the exact color skein. Perfection! She always used to tell us, "If you start any work, do it properly and complete it, never leave it unfinished". And also "If you are giving food to anybody, take care that the person's hunger is satiated, otherwise don't give".

One more view of the cross stitch work:

Since many days I wanted to share about this. But,I didn't have the photos of this. This is in my Aunt's house, so I requested my cousin to send the photos. I think these photos have not done justification to  the work. It looks too good, like a painting. That’s why I say this is the best cross stitch work I have seen.

She is making one more like this to give to my brother. Hats off, to her enthusiasm. I always think my passion towards arts and craft is inherited from her. Isn't it?

Decoupage

Decoupage is an art of gluing pictures to an object. After gluing the picture, it is decorated with colors. Decoupage is done on many things, such as boxes, furniture,pots ,photo frame ,bangles etc. Decoupage jewelries are also made.

I've tried this on an aluminium plate. I used a poster for this. This art needs little bit of oil painting skills.
Here is the one I made on aluminium plate:

The central picture is glued and the rest of the part of the plate, is painted with oil paint. While painting,we should be careful to match the colors of the picture glued.

I have tried this on pots also. Have a look:

I found this picture in a daily news paper. It was black and white picture. I have used ceramic also to make the window and the curtain. This gives the effect that the lady is waiting for someone.

Another pot :

 Here also I've glued a poster. This has the picture of a princess Alankara(decorating herself with ornaments and make up) and her  Sakhis(friends) helping her. Is the Sakhi jealous of her ? Can you see it from her expressions? :-)

And its compared with the Darpana Sundari sculpture. Nice pictures. I cut the pictures from the poster and glued those on the pot. Rest all done with oil painting. Of course 2-3 coat of varnish shall be applied.

Now I'm planning do decoupage on a pot. The picture is deep sea scene. Very exciting.Isn't it? Lots of colors to play with and quite challenging to me. Lets see how it goes.