A few pounds of grey matter

Hello All,

It is not every day that one gets to lay one's hands on something creepy and enjoy it! :D When Gautam requested a frame for his wife's PhD thesis defence, he gave the suggestions as well, he wanted either a brain or a neuron quilled. Task reduced! :) All it took was to take a reference picture (I can't for the life of me draw a brain correctly freehand!). I used an image created by John de Rosier as reference...........the background for the image is from a University's website (I was stupid enough to not save a reference) :(

Making these few pounds of grey matter with quilling was a totally different ball game!!!! The folds of the brain are tricky, the lines wind and straighten out and then, wind again.......as if it wasn't enough, the time on hand for making the entire project was a mere 20 hrs (sleeping, eating, quilling and dispatching the courier included!). As the project began to take shape, I actually shuddered every once in a while as this was 2-3 am and I was working alone! :D Hardly anything creeps me out like that but the pinks of the brain kept making me think of Hannibal! Eww! The reds in the project are not paper strips :) The only thing that looked good there was shading with a gel pen, so nearly an hour was spent on the shading part alone :)

A sleepless night later, this is how the project looked :) Gautam liked how it turned out and this project was a gift for his wife's PhD completion :) Congratulations Dr. Aparna :)

In this project, a LARGE credit for delivering in time goes to the courier agent, Fairdeal Couriers. They packaged it REALLY safely, helped with minimizing of the volume of packaging and delivered to USA promptly in 3 days' time. Heavily recommended for those living in Pune. The owner of the company is super approachable, personal attention was paid to packaging and they don't try to rip you off (they actually pitch in with suggestions about how you can reduce the weight and volume of your packages) :) What more can one ask for?

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........:-)

Say Cheese!

Hello All,

Someone said, I like the swooshing sound deadlines makes when they zoom past! Ah well, that's the sound I dread the most and avoid like plague! But right now, looks like all projects have decided to sneak upon me and the swoosh is getting closer to my ear! In the middle of this mania, there does come one project which leaves me happy, which gets over in time and which allows me to write a post for it :)

This project was particularly challenging because it is meant for a professional photographer. I don't know if this is a more universal phenomenon but I get 10 times more self-conscious when my pieces are gifted to people who are in some creative field. It's almost as if I imagine them with a magnifying glass in their hand, looking for that tiny gap in paper strip measurement or that dried glue dollop which ought not to be there. You might call me crazy but when this one came to me, I was not sure what to make. The recipient profile: Professional photographer, Introvert, Fiercely private, Simple................ooh la la. Makes my job tougher. After breaking my head with the concept for a few days, it finally struck, make a photographer for a photographer :)

Simple and oh so obvious (now that I think back)..........So, here goes from my client to a photographer. I hope the recipient likes it :)

The photographer girl image is from Microsoft Clipart gallery, it is not my creation. I have merely used it as a template for quilling (with my own brand of modifications, of course) :)

The font used in this project (Adine Kirnberg) was a specially tricky one to handle. It thins down so much in places that I had difficulty sticking beehive coils into it. But then, what is the fun if everything comes easy? :) The little tulips were almost an afterthought as there has to be a feminine graceful touch to a lady photographer who does magic with her fingers and eyes :)

Minus the frame, the project is 9.5" x 18.5". With frame, it is 11" x 20"
:-) I can never seem to lay my hands on small projects :-D

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........:-)

Happy Valentine's Day - Two times over

Hello All,

A quick post to finally announce the two Valentine's Day frames, made to order by Aadyaa Originals.......hope you like it :)

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........:-)

Mesothelioma awareness

Hello All,

This is a truly offbeat (and very belated) post, quite unlike what I normally post. I was approached by Heather Von St. James, a strong and determined survivor, to post about Mesothelioma. She is hoping to bring knowledge to people so that the chances of survival of the patients of this disease go up.

I wish I had had the time to post this on 4th February but better late than never. This blog-post is dedicated to awareness towards Mesothelioma, a rare type of cancer. I will copy what Wikipedia has to say below (as I am no authority on the subject).

Mesothelioma (or, more precisely, malignant mesothelioma) is a rare form of cancer that develops from transformed cells originating in the mesothelium, the protective lining that covers many of the internal organs of the body. It is usually caused by exposure to asbestos.^[1]

The most common anatomical site for the development of mesothelioma is the pleura (the outer lining of the lungs and internal chest wall), but it can also arise in the peritoneum (the lining of the abdominal cavity), and the pericardium (the sac that surrounds theheart),^[2] or the tunica vaginalis (a sac that surrounds the testis).

Most people who develop mesothelioma have worked in jobs where they inhaled asbestos, or were exposed to asbestos dust and fibers in other ways. It has also been suggested that washing clothes of a family member who worked with asbestos increases their risk for developing mesothelioma.^[3] Unlike lung cancer, there seems to be no association between mesothelioma and tobaccosmoking, but smoking greatly increases the risk of other asbestos-induced cancers.^[4] Some people who were exposed to asbestos have collected damages for asbestos-related disease, including mesothelioma. Compensation via asbestos funds or class action lawsuits is an important issue in law practices regarding mesothelioma (see asbestos and the law).

Signs and symptoms of mesothelioma include shortness of breath due to pleural effusion (fluid between the lung and the chest wall) or chest wall pain, and constitutional signs such as unexplained weight loss. The diagnosis may be suspected with chest X-ray and CT scan, but must be confirmed pathologically, either with serous effusion cytology or with a biopsy (removing a sample of the suspicious tissue) and microscopic examination. A thoracoscopy (inserting a tube with a camera into the chest) can be used to acquire biopsy material, and allows the introduction of substances such as talc to obliterate the pleural space (a procedure called pleurodesis), preventing more fluid from accumulating and pressing on the lung. Despite treatment with chemotherapy, radiation therapy or sometimes surgery, the disease carries a poor prognosis. Research about screening tests for the early detection of mesothelioma is ongoing.

Heather Von St. James writes her own blog on this link and this is one of the most inspiring and empowering links I have come across ever. Do spread the word through your blogs, forwards, FB etc., specially to those people who work in the proximity of asbestos processing plants etc.

Let's increase awareness and lower the mortality rate of mesothelioma........

Wishing everyone happy health and safe and healthy life

Pritesh

Dhishkyaon - a quilled photo, my first

Hello All,

Whenever something new comes my way, it gets me excited. But it isn't always that I get to accomplish it as soon as I'd like to. When I was asked to make a quilled picture, I had no idea how much work will go into it and how complicated it will turn out to be. The photo itself needed special editing to make it quilling compatible. And I wanted to use beehive technique to pull it off. This considerably increased the size I had to work on. The final picture ended up being 10 inch by 10 inch but I'm not complaining. After endless beehiving, here is the work that has kept me busy for a long long time.......

Thank you Shylashree, for egging me on to post. As I had said, now there'll be a flurry of posts for coming two weeks :)

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........:-)

Simple punch craft flower tutorial - Video

Hello All,

A quick post (and my maiden one from phone) with a video for making a simple punch craft flower using a daisy punch. This is the flower I made for this frame:

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........:-)