Watercolor Story Illustration - Nanhi Chidiya

Nanhi Chidiya - Small little Bird....

This is a story of a little bird, a dainty-darling, cute little thing,
even a strong wind can blow her away, but whose courage was as big as she was small....

A story me n my first grader wrote for her class's "show and tell".

One day a dense forest caught fire...

All the animals were running scared, looking for shelters to save their life...

Perched on a tall tree our little bird was observing all this...it got in her head that she should do something to stop the fire before it spreads and destroys their home & their beautiful jungle...

She flew to the jungle's stream, collected as much water as she can in her little beak,
flew to the where the fire was and poured it on a small plant which had just caught fire...

It didn't made much difference, but she kept at it relentlessly.
Flying back and forth between the river and corner of the jungle where the fire was ragging.

Seeing her effort, many animals stopped running. Some were impressed, thinking they should also pitch in, but most off them thought of her as a fool and started laughing at her.

She felt hurt and said to them....
I know I'm small and alone can't stop the fire. But I'll not give up. I'll try my best.
But if we all get together, we definitely can, not only stop the fire from spreading and destroying our homes but our beautiful jungle too.

Everyone loves their home, so they got together to try. Elephants brought water in their trunks and sprayed on fire, so did the birds. Dogs and cats even the small animals like mice helped by digging the ground and throwing the mud on fire.  Encouraging and helping each other.

And that's how they not only saved their homes but their beautiful jungle too.
And in the process they all learnt few very important lessons....

1. We should NOT GIVE UP, for the fear of  failure.

2. We should keep TRYING, till we SUCCEED. 

3. We should do our BEST.

4. Unity is STRENGTH.

So,

What do you say....How do you like my my little one's story....
Do let me know .....your feedback means a lot....

Cheers
Shilpi

Mixed Media Arty-Crafty Magnets

Hello and welcome dear friends....

At the end of my kid's exams (means just 4-5 days back) I came across Mudra Craft Stamps 1st Challenge , and I Loved the theme - ANYTHING GOES ....
And being a crafter what else you can ask for ;)
So here is my take on it....

I have this beautiful mudra stamp named "Dreamcatcher" which I have been wanting to use for some time.

As I made 4 canvas kind mixed media magnets.
I had planned to sketch a face on the forth one to complete the story,
But instead used "Prima marketing inc 's Bloom collection"

I loved it even better....It so very much goes with the visual image I had.

There are layers of fun involved in these magnets....
but as I'm running out of time for today, I'll write the detailed tutorial post tomorrow ;)

Can you guess my secret....No!!!.... I'll reveal it all tomorrow....

I have used die-cuts,
I have done stamping,
I have done decoupage,
And off-course
I have done coloring...

Linking these Magnets to

MudraCraftStamps CHALLENGE #1 - ANYTHING GOES

So,

What do you say....How do you like my magnets....
Do let me know .....your feedback means a lot....

Cheers
Shilpi

Fun with Water colored Scraps….

Happy Anniversary Card 

It seems I’m too much into water coloring now a days. (At least in my head for sure;)

Trying out different – different inks and dies on every bit of watercolor scrap paper I can find. Exploring techniques and combining them for different looks.                                                            

I think it will be good idea to do them on little big paper instead of small small scraps that way I can make a proper catalog of all my trials-n-errors. Hmmm!  Well that’s a task for coming week then. 

 

So here I’m with bits and pieces of vibrant water colored paper, ready to make a LOVE card. For making these colorful scraps I have used Pebeo’s cake watercolors, Nirmal’s transparent photo colors, Tim Holt’s Distress Ink, Camlin’s liquid watercolors to name the few. Tried techniques like wet on wet, wet on dry, color blotting, color lifting, splattering, blending, salt on wet wash, stippling, stamping and even stenciling. If you are not into water coloring, you must be wondering what gibberish I’m talking about….don’t worry, these are just big big names for actually having lots of water coloring fun……       

My next post will definitely be all about water coloring only as I had loads of fun for sure!!!.... 

 

Now, the only problem is, these scraps are of 300gsm watercolor paper, pretty painful to punch. But I put all my “Heart” punches to good use. And just to be on safer side, simultaneously I punched some layers of foil too. It keeps the punches sharp, you know that- Right!!! I punched all sizes of hearts, and what I was not able to punch, I ended up cutting with my paper cutter.

Stamped “L.O.V.E.” from “Simon says STAMP’s –All about Love set“ with permanent Black Archival ink on my card stock. I had cut the alphabets separately and assembled them together by overlapping them. 

 

Stamped “YOU & ME” from CRAFT’S clear stamp, directly on my card with “Festive berries Distress Ink”. Added clear rainbow glitter around it, so that it shimmers under the Red Heart cut scrap.

Stamped small “Love” from MSE’s - Anniversary Innies & Outies clear stamp set on a small card stock, again with “Festive berries Distress Ink”. And added Aqua rainbow glitter around it in Heart shape. And on top added Light Green color negative scrap left, after punching the heart. 

The rest of the Anniversary sentiment on and inside the card is also from  MSE’s - Anniversary Innies & Outies clear stamp set. Stamped with permanent Black Archival ink.

Ended up using 4 different clear stamp sets for just one card, bit too much, but so worth it. They all came together beautifully. 

 

With the whole combination of stamps and punched scraps I can make many more cards and tags. Will just need to alternate between negative and positive of punched heart scraps.                              O !!! I’m so happy !!! 

 

Hope you enjoyed.

Do leave me your valuable suggestions, I really do appreciate them ...

Thanks for visiting....

Do drop in again and check what other cards and tags I make with these scraps.

Love

Shilpi

Linking it to 

1. Paru's Card Making Challenge  (Valentine theme using SCRAPS)

2. The Artistic Stamper  ( HeART Art + Rubber stamping)

Hibiscuses in watercolor

Things on my table.... 

Some watercolors, some brushes 

Some blank paper, some sketches 

Some emotions to pen down.... 

And some colorful stories to bring around. 

Hello everyone.... 

Today I'm here to share some of my recent musing. 

Few days back, I have been to Goa, beautiful tropical place, our favorite family get-away destination, in winters. We have been there end number of times, yet it's never enough, not nearly enough. 

Nice bright and sunny, away from Delhi's freezing gloomy cold. 

Sun, sand and sea, that does it for us.....We love it. 

There is so much to see, so much to do.... 

This time I smuggled a bagful of my papers and colors, along with other paraphernalia of beach vacation.  ( Don't ask my dear hubby's reactions, once he realized why my hand luggage was so heavy ;-)  that's a story for another time.... Lol) 

Anyway..... This is what I came back with.... 

Lot's of sketches and pictures, water-coloring and even mixed-media.

(Off-course!!  That I did with sand, soon enough I'll share that as well...) 

Freehand 1st trial of Red Hibiscuses.... No pencil sketching, just colors straight on paper... It was fun to see colors flowing into each other.... 

Now here starts the sketching bit, and I realized I have become so rustic that I must have erased hundreds of time..... The cold-press watercolor paper must have gone for toss, because I had erased all the size... Hmmm.... Will try and see how it takes color... 

This was White Hibiscus, so before I did it on really good artist paper, I tried my hand on my little ones sketchpad.... Not bad!!  I never thought that a simple sketchpad can take watercolor so beautifully, though paper did go wappy while I was doing the background. But it turned flat later on.

I'm really impressed by the colors of real Hibiscus in all the coastal areas.... From whites to yellows to oranges to reds to pink....some simple and plain in solid colors, some with such awesome shades in the center..... It's simply Wow !!! 

I could spend ages gazing at them (And I actually did, oblivious to my kids long faces. And trust me, that's really big feet to achieve,when they are constantly going on and on "Let's go to BEACH ") 

This definitely had turned up far better than the previous one.... ;-) 

Love the shade of mustard to bring out the folds of flower petal in-comparison of purple.

But still a long long way to go it seems.... It's so much easier to paint them with solid acrylic colors Or other mediums, especially for canvass or textile prints.... Watercolor definitely demands quite a bit of patience and practice....

Yet another try with different kind of water-coloring style.... 

After drawing and painting them single single, I tried my hand at composed sketch... 

I like the way this sketch has turned out -  hope I'll be able to do justice to the whole composition.... 

For all my water-coloring explorations I have used

Pebeo's water-colors,

Campap's water-color pad, A4 size, 200/300 gsm,

Brustro's water-color paper 300gsm 7"x 10", 

A4 size Classmate's sketchpads,

Sakura Koi waterbrushes, 

Camel brushes,

Hope you all like my foray in water-coloring flowers....

Please do leave me your valuable suggestions, I really do appreciate them....

Thanks for visiting....

Do drop in again to check out how I manage to do rest of my water-coloring....