Love to Kyoto

Hello All,

I have been unnaturally silent for a long time but Pune weather decided to be a pendulum between summer and winter and illness took a tight hold of our family. Now that nearly everyone is on recovery path, here comes a long pending post.

Someone said, I like the swooshing sounds deadlines make when they go past you! I must admit, I hate that sound and true enough, there was a pushed in the corner situation here. For past 2 days, I've alientated nearly everything and been working exclusively on the second half of the assignment.

It all started one fine evening when a very soft spoke Japanese gentleman paid me a visit. I couldn't hide my surprised but well, he had seen the sign boards we had delivered to Beaute Naturelle and wanted something on those lines. A brief talk ensued and within an hour and a half, I knew pretty clearly what he wanted. Work started, got stalled, thanks to illnesses. But well, about 1 day shy of the deadline, I've managed to wrap it up! Now, I know what the expression "My blood and sweat went into this" means! :D :D I've been up late nights, early mornings, skipping afternoon naps and working on these pretty much non-stop.

So, here goes:

Musical Tree: The wife of the gentleman who came to see me is a Music teacher and she employs a unique method called Eurhythmics to teach piano to children. Music holds such a sacred part in my life that I was all ears. I must confess, I'd never heard of Eurhythmics before and had to Google it. The name of the school she runs is Music Tree and the gentleman wished something quilled along those lines.

I was honestly at a loss about that but he solved my problem. He provided me with 7 choices (I love it when I can choose!) and well, I was idiotic enough to choose the most difficult of the choices he gave. So, here goes, the Musical tree. The total working time in the piece is close to 24 hrs of work alone. I faced a question about whether I painted the background for the tree 'stem'. Answer is no. I've hand-cut that paper, pasted it on a hand-made blue shimmer paper and then, quilled on it. The original idea was to make the entire tree black but it looked almost ominous that way. I wish I'd saved a photo of that. So, I decided to fill in colours. The G clefs had to stand out, so they automatically were assigned red (ah, I can never let go of my favourite colour, can I?). The leaves were an obvious green. The notes, however, took some work. I settled for red as my husband said, the notes are the cherries on the tree :) A Cherry tree to send to Japan? OH YES! :) So, that is how the colour scheme worked out. The background alone took about 1.5 hrs to prepare. There is a white base to the hand-made paper as the blue paper is quite translucent. So, a double layer background, with drying time and then, allowing the board to straighten out. Phew!

This project nearly killed me but as they say, you can't enjoy water if you haven't a parched throat. And I nearly walked a desert country reaching THIS water! :) Worth it in the end! The project stands 18"x18" - minus the frame.



AND

Attitude towards Sustainability. This project's text was the toughest I've handles so far. It just went on and on! The words were long, the font tricky! It took almost 10 hrs to just do the text. I am almost swearing to never touch this font again! :D :D

The ladybirds in the project are quilled but the leaves as a merger of punching, paper-cutting and 3D outliner (the MOST useful piece of knick knack any crafter should have, in my opinion!). The leaves are punched with hand-drawn veins and distressed edges (I am swearing off distressing as well!). The 'stems' are spirals in brown and the 'berries' are styrofoam balls in peach colour. The flowers are modified daisy punch with a 3D outliner core. The project stands 12"x18" - minus the frame.

And a rare one here, me with the finished projects (will give you an idea how massive these ones truly are)

Well, now that this hurdle is cleared off, we (as in Aadyaa Originals) gear up for our stall at the Pune Wine Festival, the first Wine Tasting experience in India. So, drop by and check out what all Aadyaa has to offer :)

Till the next challenge excites me, I'll sign off. Hopefully, I'll be back with something challenging and striking soon :)

Happy Quilling

Pritesh

PS: If my posts inspire you to create something on similar lines, I feel highly flattered. But please, do respect the effort I take in conceptualizing and executing, please give a direct link to my work when you are inspired by mine. Thanks for understanding........:-)