Making a psychedelic coaster ! here's how..

Materials you need

Blank Coasters (available at Staples / Hobby Ideas stores) ; Acrylic art paints ; brushes (flat brush size 4; soft round brushes - size 2 , size 000) ; pencil (white pencil), Liquid Glass; rag cloth; carbon paper (if needed)



How to ?

First, paint the coaster on all sides. I have colored mine green. Give two or three coats of paint to give it a clean finish.


Now draw out a design on the painted surface. I have created my psychedelic design using a white pencil. You can also use a carbon paper to transfer your design on to the coaster.



Choose your colors, and start filling them into your design. I have used really bright colors, to give it the psychedelic effect.


Give 2 coats, once dry, use a fine tipped (000) brush to make the outlines on your design, as needed.

Let it dry for a day.



Now mix the Liquid Glass solution (mix equal proportions of the epoxy resin solutions). Pour on the dried coaster and spread it using a brush OR take small quantities using a brush and spread it evenly (without bubbles)



Keep this under cover (in a box / under an inverted bowl) for a day or two - till fully dry.



Pronto ! Your coaster is ready to use !
Create similar patterns on the other coasters and make a set of 4 or 6 coasters !!

Why a 4 year old does not need art classes

Of late I have had many parents ask me if I conduct art classes for 4 year olds (or even younger ones, sometimes). I have had to politely say 'No' ! Most parents feel a little disappointed ....after all, their child draws well, is really keen on drawing and painting, and is always engaged in doodling ..and they feel with guidance their child can be much better at art ... so, why do I say No ??

Well,  really younger children need to have a LOT of freedom to express themselves. I feel that as grown ups we have a tendency to interfere ...even in a well meaning way, and that can be quite discouraging to a child that age. Second, children below 5 years are usually not great at listening, and want to exercise their free will !! So really, putting a child in a formal setting curtails that freedom, and there is really no art instruction that can happen. If the idea is to encourage the child to freely express themselves, is'nt home the best place to do it ?

So what can we do as parents ?
Let you child try a variety of art media ... get them finger paints, poster colors, sponge (instead of brushes) , crayons, rangoli powder, playdoh (or atta flour), sand, glue, color paper, glitter colors ...anything ! Try different sizes - give them full size chart papers, get a white board/ black board at home (if you care about the walls in your house :) )
Introduce these one at a time, so that the child does not feel overwhelmed !

Also, don't fret if she draws the same thing over and over again. That is really how they establish their mastery on a subject that captures their fancy ! (I used to mostly draw just women until I was in college !! In fact I was obsessed with drawing just my feet for a whole year in college ...so for a 4 year old being obsessed with fans, or flowers or buses ..is really nothing to worry about !!  :) )

And they have finished one amazing work of art ..take some time to talk to them about it. Ask the child to explain the piece of art. Let her narrate the story behind what she has drawn. That is the real encouragement you can give your child. Try to not be critical or even give constructive feedback on her art. She is too young to even know that art is expected to be 'good'. In her eyes, she is not creating a masterpiece...she is expressing herself and her world (real or imagined) and any suggestion to improve could just mean her world is not good enough for you !! Be generous in your appreciation. Put up her work for display in a prominent place in your house. Show it off to your guests.

A child's view of the world they live in.....

In an earlier post, I had mentioned about how children insist on drawing houses in the typical way that their pre school teachers probably teach them to.
I have hence also noticed that most 5 year olds when asked what they would like to draw (in the first drawing class) mostly want to draw a house....and then they draw it in the typical style ...it seems almost instinctive !


But I wanted to experiment a little with these instincts ...so I started asking the child if they had ever seen a house like the one they have drawn.....Mostly that drew a blank face, and then a rather shy..."no
I have not seen it...but I imagined it all by myself !"
Then I prod them to draw a picture of the house where they live ...(imagination, btw is a great thing, but somehow the pattern that every 5 year old draws a house this way, makes me beleive this is just drawing what they may have learnt in kindergarten or seen in drawing books !)
I ask them if they live in an apartment, how many floors and so on.
This blog is to share the results of that experiment ...

Each child has been able to, with just that little bit of prodding, draw a picture that closely resembles the actual house they live in.


Here is T's picture of her apartment. She tried counting how may floors her apartment has while drawing the picture. She even improvised this the week after, with watercolors !


This is P's version of his apartment. He even weaved a whole story around the picture ...that he is waving to me from his apartment !













This is the latest one (see below sketch) is A's version of his apartment complex ...he managed to draw an aerial view of his entire apartment complex, detailing car park areas, pool, play area,
the 5 apartment blocks (marked A - E), the walkway all around even marking the speedbreakers ! I was indeed taken aback that a 5 year old was even capable of visualising an aerial view ...an amazing perspective that comes probably from living in a high rise apartment!!!

It is amazing how children can visualize and express in rather innovative ways !!
It is also a lesson for us adults to stop assuming that 5 year olds are capable of drawing only houses that we teach them to draw ! We may need just a little more patience to listen to the stories that the child narrates after drawing the picture, we would be able to appreciate the creativity and talent in the little ones!
So, if you have a young one at home or in school, never tell them what / how to draw, just be prepared to be suprised by what they have to show you !

Nature abstracts

Like most people I know, I used to make fun of abstract paintings :) ..as in you could get away with positioning scribbles as art :) But I have always been curious to find out what abstract art could really mean.

So I started exprimenting with abstraction and have done a few paintings this past year...

My initial attempts were just color play ...using a limited pallette, and without any specific object in mind, I started to paint as my hand would lead me, and 'Hope' is the result of that. It was great experience in just understanding colours, blending, and brush strokes.

I was satisfied with the end result, but I was not willing to accept yet that this is all what 'abstract' art is.

It was also about the same time that I had done 'Bamboos' - this was the beginning of what I would like to classify as 'nature abstracts'. In this painting, I was'nt focussed on makingan exact replica of the Banboo shoots itself ...not to try and replicate the size/ proportion of the actual shoots...instead I focussed on what inspired me about the bamboos - the angles, and the color variations.

Soon after this, I did "Summer rain" - again, my approach was to focus on what the particular object/ scenery/ moment had that was inspiring me to draw/ paint....in this case it was pattern of the drops falling on the window pane, and how thery merged into small streams of water.

These were all done almost a year back, and after that I had not attempted abstracts until very recently.

With "Dancers" - I tried this again - this was inspired by a photo of 2 Rajasthani dancers - there was a lot of movement / color and the swirls of their skirts was very insteresting. That is what I wanted to capture in the painting - I wanted to convey movement, and color, and hence there is no detail of the women's face.

This - the "Gulmohar canopy" - was inspired by a photo a friend had posted on Facebook (sorry, I can't remember who it was ...it was a very beautiful photo..so Thanks, friend) - The wonderful , randomness of the branches, the speckles of flowers and leaves - was irresistible ...I had to paint it :)

This time I got a little adventurous, and tried this on a 2 ft by 2feet canvas...I wanted the focus to remain on the few main branches, and capture the randomness of the smaller branches as well as the speckles of flowers/ leaves. I started by trying out a few thumbnail sketches to find the arrangement I liked.

I wanted the background to be as neutral as possible (unlike in "Summer rain") and painted with a lot of white mixed with prussian blue and raw umber. Then I painted in the large branches, with a myriad of colours. At this point the 3 large branches were the guding lines for the painting, and I wanted the flowers, leaves and smaller branches to remain as subtle and with as little detail as possible....only wanting to capture the random arrangement. So, I got a little more adventurous, and made a watery mix of my colors and just made "drops and streaks" of paint on the canvas for the leaves, flowers and braches.

It was an exhilarating experience and I finally feel like I have made some progress in abstract art ...at the very least I now have a different perspective of viewing nature !
I hope to continue on this journey and more experiment in abstracts ...

comic strip of my misadventures in marketing !!!

In an earlier blog ( "Marketing mayhem") about my marketing attempts for my art school, I had ended by wondering how many inquiries would really convert into a registration. Since then there have been a handful of inquiries from parents, and some of these have been hilarious !!
My first idea was to draft these experiences into a write up...but on second thoughts I decided to attempt a comic strip featuring myself !! This is my first attempt at a comic strip... !!
Enjoy !!

Attempting a frame worthy painting !

We tend to think that children normally are capable of drawing only easy, smaller, simple pictures and that we have to show them "how" before they can even start......I tried a different approach ...
I maintain a collection of photos of places / flowers / anything that could work as a reference photo for a painting, and also newspaper / magazine cuttings. I let the children pick up a photo that they would like to draw. It is entirely their own choice and I don't interfere with my 'suggestions' of what might suit them.
I only make it a point to tell them that they shouldn't expect to to complete their work in one class (1 hour), but that they should be prepared to spend as much time as it takes to make a great painting.
After that, I let them pick their choice of medium ...pastels/ watercolor/ poster colors/ acrylic/ pencil /charcoal....(very interesting to note that most children think color pencils and crayons are not worthy of being picked up ! )
That done, they start off on their project ! My input after that, is to check on them once in 15 minutes to see how they are doing, provide a tip or two, show a demo of how else they could their medium, or just wait for them to call me when they are stuck...which , by the way, does not happen too often !!

This is the result of 4 classes of work - S. picked up this photo of a beautiful evening sky. She had an experiment sheet which served as her palette to test her oil pastels. For the silhouette of the mountains, I asked her to not use black, but to try and derive black using other colors. After a focused 20 minuted effort she had made 4 varieties of black , and had also duly noted all the color and the order in which she used them to arrive at the specific shade !!! That is amazing given she is just 11 years old !

Here is another picture...D picked this one from the collection. We chose to do this in watercolor. With this painting, we had some time to reflect on physics ! Drawing reflections and ensuring that the reflection was exactly like the original...! D tried his best to get it right...especially with mixing colors..at one point he was working without even lifting his head...so focused...muttering to himself on what would give him the right colors...oh, by the way, I restricted his palette to just 3 colors....he could use only red, blue and yellow...and had to derive all the colors  required to get the painting done. Most of the 'figuring out' was done by D...my main part was to instill some patience in the child ! I pointed out the parts which he had to paint in each class...this painting was done in 3 classes. Even when the painting was almost done..D would always find some or other part that did not look just right and would start thinking about how to correct it...and would try it. It was only when he was satisfied that he stopped and then announced...."I am getting that framed! "

The art of record notebooks...

What is it with parents and record notebooks ?
Every other parent  stopping by to inquire about art classes, want to enroll their child for the sole purpose of completing record notebooks in school ...I mean...really ?
An art class to help you complete record notebooks ? Really ???

I have done my masters in Botany ...and I honestly don't understand why you need to be creative and artistic to complete a record notebook ...!!!
The record notebook is to 'record' information based on observation , in such a way that when you come back to it at a later point, you have all the relevant information in there ...
of course we don't see it that way in school ...it is something that we need to get done, because if we don't, we wont be given any marks !
So anyway ...even if you're really into record notebooks, I don't see why it needs to be a work of art !!!

So what am I upset about ??
These children in my class never cease to amaze me with their creativity ... a couple of classes of giving them freedom to draw / paint whatever they want pushes them to experiment and express as creatively  ...
See my blog post @purple

They are great at colors, even better at freehand drawing. If they are not good at record notebook drawing...to me it just feels like maybe they don't like what they're doing or don't understand why they are doing it.
Yet, their parents invariably feel that they are not 'good at drawing' because they don't do a good job in the record notebook ...like that is some benchmark !!
I find it even more hard to understand why parents are so keen to pay for an art class so their can do record notebooks better ??? You already pay a bomb in school ...and schools are supposed to get the children interested in lab work and records ... !! Parents should be telling their children the underlying purpose in 'recording' ...and also that it does not need to look beautiful ..it must capture the essence of their observation of something.
So ..there is now a collective panic in the parent community that record notebooks are something to be dreaded, and they consciously pass on their dread to the children...and everyone now successfully fears the wretched record notebooks !!
The solution is push the problem to someone else.....the art teacher , of course !!!
The best course of action for the art teacher is to find the easiest solution to this problem which is to teach children the evergreen skill of 'copy art' ! This somewhat explains why many art schools hand children a picture which they then need to copy pixel to pixel.
That is what children need to master...after all they are going to copy from some artistic child's record notebook, so let us train them to copy, and save everyone from panic...except of course the children...who are now under a pressure to correctly copy not just in record notebooks but also in art class !! Great !!
(BTW...pssst.... children work their way around this ...by outsourcing record work to the artistic record notebook drawing boy or girl in class !!)

So were'nt Da Vinci's awesome anatomical observations the foundation for his accurate life like art.
Exactly my point .....he used his real life observations to define his art.
So should'nt children use their knowledge from life, and from what they learn in school and put it to good use in the art class !!
Is that not how it should work ???

Yet, children are completely cut off from reality ...ask any child to draw a house, and he would (about 98%) draw a hut ... nearly like this ..

WHY ???
All the children who attend my classes don't live a house like that. I bet they have not actually seen a house like that anywhere ...so why are they not using their real life observation to express themselves.
Simply because that picture of a house is the stereotype that shools feed  children right from pre-KG. Why ? because the teachers in pre-kg find it hard to draw a high rise apartment !! May be. or may be they are cut off from reality too ...because they are also a victim of the stereotypical art fed to them !

Well, yes, I am all for helping everyone all around get their record notebooks in order ...but not by copying. The real solution is to get children (and parents) to observe and then use that observation effectively and creatively. Easier said than done ...but definitely worth a persistent try.