Monday, July 28, 2008

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THE OWL



( SIZE- 10" X 8" -NATURAL COLOUR ON CANVAS BOARD )





































THE BREAST


( SIZE- 10" X 8" -NATURAL COLOUR ON CANVAS BOARD )












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Sunday, July 27, 2008

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THE OCEAN SYMPHONY




























( SIZE - 18" X 18"- NATURAL INDIGO ON CANVAS CLOTH )






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THE HANGING BIRDS....






























































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Sunday, July 13, 2008

. Eco-friendly methods, and my work.

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TORSO 1 .( SIZE - 18" X 14".ON CANVAS CLOTH )






























TORSO 2 .( SIZE - 16" X 16".ON CANVAS CLOTH )



























THE FISH. ( SIZE - 48" X 24"- ON SILK CLOTH )








Since 1996 – I have started to experiment with eco-friendly – vegetable colours and Natural Colours which comes from - Leaf, Saw dust, root, stem, fruit, petals of flower, wood extracts, iron dust, alum etc.


The Natural dye medium is a very old traditional technique which is still in practice in some places of India and other countries like Bangladesh, Java, Indonesia, Africa etc. In India – Rajeshthan, Andhra – Pradesh and Sikkim are popular places for Natural dye printing in Textile, Crafts, Traditional Arts forms and weaving.

In this old traditional technique, there are too many vivid way to get results one of which is “DABU”. In which “MUD” with Gum-Arabic and Lime is applied with the help of hand crafted wooden-block. To mask the surface of the cloth – to get desired patterns. Then the cloth is dipped into the cold dye like Indigo, for a short time, after washing the cloth and the mud covered areas – the desired patterns will come out with interesting natural hair-line cracks of mud.























THE REFLECTION OF THE MOON (SIZE -16" X 16" - ON CANVAS CLOTH )


























UNTITLED ( SIZE - 16" X16" - ON CANVAS CLOTH )




























THE COSMOS ( SIZE -16" X 16" -ON CANVAS CLOTH )








I am personally inspired a lot from this “DABU” technique of printing. And did several experiments to achieve natural cracks from – thick to fine hair-line cracks in my work – As per desired thoughts …

















THE LANDSCAPE OF SRI KALAHASTI.















THE RIVER SWARNAMUKHI.














LOCAL ARTISAN FRIENDS.














WASHING IN THE RUNNING WATER OF THE RIVER.














BLEACHING IN THE STRONG DAY LIGHT FOR 72 HRS.

















AFTER 72 HRS OF THE BLEACHING.





At the same time I had spend months with “KALAMKARI” artisans of Srikalahasti, near Tirupati, Andhra – Pradesh – to learn the 1000 years old traditional methods of KALAMKARI. I enjoyed doing my work – from step one – Developing the surface of the cloth in Buffalo’s milk and Harda paste, to the last step – natural way of bleaching the excess tones of dye on the work – 72 hrs. exposure to the strong day-light, under 1 inch level of water bed at the bank of the river Swarnamukhi … is shown in the photographs -above.




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