A castle and some sand

Hello All,

One never really knows when a challenge will come one's way! When this frame order came, the deadline was highly inflexible - ONE WEEK (including courier) and there was no concept whatsoever. Starting from scratch becomes a little hard when you don't even know what to scratch! :D

The starting point finally became the initials of the family this frame goes out to. Their initials make the word SAND. So, sand castles, yay! Since the family is moving and will mostly likely be furnishing a new house soon, sand castle was all the more relevant :) The criterion was that the entire frame be colourful!

When time is short and order complex, beehive always comes to save the day! And since the last time we made a frame, we have acquired this additional expertise of polymer clay. Polymer clay saved the day by being both quick and 3-dimensional. The alphabets were sliced out of black clay and jazzed up with orange. While they baked, a simple castle was outlined using quillography and filled with beehiving. I was extremely lucky with the background paper as I had bought this beach themed paper almost 10 years ago and never did anything with it (talk about hoarding!!!)......

A work in progress photo (the only one that I took, unfortunately!). The alphabets aren't stuck there yet.....

And here it is (after a burnt night!)......

The extra shaded touch is acrylic paints 'rubbed' onto the beehive pattern :)

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........:-)

A blog hop with a difference

Hello All,

After a long long break from writing, I am back with a very unique blog hop, where I got involved, thanks to my College classmate and an avid crafter, Kripa Koushik. The number of years I've known her can't be counted on the fingers on our hands! We did Graduation together and then, recently got back in touch through the world of crafts.

She works magic with her mixed media layouts, and unlike me, cards! She has a distinct style, which often begs careful examination, for there are so many tiny details that add up to the big picture :)

I agreed to be a part of this hop because of the different format! This hop actually helps us all get to know each other better, as people and as crafters.............idiosyncrasies included! :D

More about me:

1. What am I working on?

A lot of things, like always. Quilled jewellery is something that always adorns my table. In addition, there are a couple of frames in various stages of non-completion. I just finished this jewellery piece (which took quite a bit of time, split over 3 days, to make). This is my attempt at recreating the ancient jewellery making technique - Thewa

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I don't know if there is a lot of difference between the work I do and the others do, but I try to play by my strengths, namely, free-hand drawing and an understanding of the chemistry of the materials. The combinations of materials become a lot easier to devise once you know how they work in tandem. I try to exploit that information to get better at my work.

3. Why do I write/create what I do?

The simple answer is: Because that's what I can see myself doing day after day, for years to come. My husband once asked me: Where do you see yourself five years from now, and the only vision that I could come up with was: In a giant craft workshop, doling out really good craft pieces. I craft, because I live for it :)

4. How does your writing/creating process work?

This is a complex question to answer. Most times, the most difficult/tricky part is to come up with an idea. Often, ideas strike seeing something completely unrelated. And sometimes, something similar sparks an incremental idea. Often, it is the craft material itself that makes me think about how I can use it in a different way. 

Once the idea is in place, the first thing I do is a strength test. In my mind, I run through the process of creating it (earlier, I used to draw them but with experience, I am able to visualize them now). On the way, I look for loopholes like a hawk. I've an almost manic obsession with sturdiness. If my work is not sturdy, I take it as a  personal insult. So, making designs sturdy or devising processes to introduce sturdiness is what comes next. Often, I modify the design/idea to keep strength a priority. Once the process is clear in my head, I start with the actual execution. There have been rare times when I have been stumped by hurdles (largely, because of lacunae in my information database) but mostly, I've been able to foresee mistakes. If some mistakes get the better of me, I restart the whole process, subtracting the mistake.

I'll give one example. There was this one time I was making a yellow jhumka and no matter what I did, the yellow colour kept "leaking". It'd separate into a pale yellow part and dusty brown part. It took me 4 trials to figure out that it was the problem with the yellow paint (which I figured out after trying three different and top-of-the-notch brands) and the 4-step process finally because 7-step process to eliminate this pigment separation. 

To pass this baton on, I choose two of my favourite crafters: Manuela Koosch and Cecelia Louie.

Although neither of them need any introduction to crafters and quillers alike, I'll go ahead and introduce them (pardon me if I sound like a star struck teenager, but both these women are my role models!)

Manuela (or Manu, as I call her) is a crafter with superlative capability to transform the mundane to magic and if you think I am exaggerating, drop by to www.manuk.ro and see for yourself :)

Cecelia redefines "Design isn't when you can't add anything more, it is when you can't take anything away". She gives simplicity an elevation the way I haven't seen anyone do. Minimum talks maximum is a quote written for her.

Happy Hopping and thank you for dropping by!

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........:-)

Vrrroooom vrrroooom...........

Hello All,

A very quick post (while I nurse myself back to health) about a very interesting and different frame I got around to doing :)

Profile: A car lover's B'day, and he has a long name :D

So, I got to work. When I got this order, I had a very different idea in my mind. But when I aligned that idea on the frame, it just wouldn't work out properly. So, I had to abandon that and start afresh. And this is where I landed up! :)

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........:-)

Send your quillography frames safely - Tutorial

Hello All,

I am sure all of us face it at one time or the other.............how to send our lovingly crafted quillographed frames safely? It is obviously safer to send them inside a frame but that poses the great and often confirmed danger of the glass breaking. Acrylic framing leads to opacity over time. Also, glass framing increases both the weight and the volume of the frame substantially and it can be a crippling number as far as International parcels are concerned. So, Priyanka and I once brainstormed about it and after discussions with Richa, we came up with a solution that worked beautifully for us.

Here is a tutorial on how you could possibly do it......this is merely an indicative tutorial, you might need to improvize according to what you intend to send.

When I made this frame and needed to send it to Singapore, the challenge was to pack it with minimum weight and volume gain......

What you will basically need is TWO boards of the same size. This is a precaution you'll need to take from the very beginning. On one of the boards, you make the pattern and use the other board as the guard. You should create "spacers" of a width more than that of the quillography part. I have quilled with 4 mm strips and the width of the spacers is 10 mm. 

The spacers are TIGHT COILS made using 10 mm quilling strips

A representative layout is here:

And this is how it will be in reality:

On the right hand side is the frame (wrapped in cling wrap for protecting it from dust) and left side is a blank board with the "spacers" (10 mm blacks). 

After you bring the two boards together, wrap them together tightly using bubble wrap and newspaper to prevent their movement against each other. Adding spacers in the middle of the board can be a bit tricky, make sure you place them carefully before adding the second board from top.

Hope it helps you all :)

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........:-)

Quilled Name Plate - Sharon and Mårten

Hello All,

After almost a week of now-on, now-off work on this name plate, here it is, in all it's glory :) [Size: 22" x 14"]

Some details and WIP photos :)

And then, an insect decided to inspect my quilling ;) 

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........:-)

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair.........

Hello All,

If I say I've been bursting with things to say, I'd be grossly understating it........

After two months of working, here I unveil the very pretty, coy and colourful Rapunzel......

At the outset, let me clarify that this is NOT my design. The original of this is a digital painting by Barnali Bagchi, which has been adapted (heavily in places, actually) to quilling. I can never thank the lady enough for creating a stunning piece that I couldn't resist quilling.......

For the first time in my quilling career, I spent 1.5 months just figuring out how to convert this painting to quilling. And as usual, there were anxiety pangs about whether I could even make it at all!

The most daunting factor in this painting was its size. Massive is more like it. The painting stood at 3 feet x 4 feet and I literally stared at the blank board, alternating between escapism and determination. Finally, I got started and the first part (quillographed outline) was a song. Once the hair started, my nightmare began. It was only much later that Barnali was kind enough to inform me that the dame's name is Rapunzel! For almost 1 month, I made JUST tresses! Some snippets from the WIP (work in progress) times.......

Pre-beginning printout, which is a compilation of 8 prints of A3 size.....

Version 1 of the lady's face (which was scrapped to make a better once later)

A bit of progress :)

And this should put the size in perspective :)

The flowers getting added up

The never-ending tresses! Rapunzel indeed

Nearing completion

Version 1 of background, which gave way to a different one later on

Nearly over, just a little short of completion......

And one of those rare times when I have a photo of me working on the project :) Thanks to my husband for this :)

I also have to thank Manali for doing the beehiving on the right arm of the "moon" Rapunzel is perched on. Thank you to Richa too, for doing the left arm of the "moon" :)

Happy Quilling

Pritesh 

Fifty three strips and three ml of glue

Hello All,

It is a terribly belated post but one that had reasons for getting delayed. A happy event in the family kept us all busy......so, here comes......

When this order was placed, the original idea was completely different. It was to be a "fall" theme name plate. Then came the change and it got to "abstract" and then, Yulia's "Noel" was given as a reference......

Now, when someone cites Yulia Brodskaya's work as a reference, you know you've got an impossible goal to meet. And it probably is wiser to not even try! ;) That is what I ended up doing.......I decided to throw in a bit of henna designing (the oh-so-Indian patterns) and spring colours......this is for the first time literally that there hasn't even been a rough sketch. It was just an idea that kept moving my hands.

To all the people who aspire to try quillography, this piece used up a total of 53 quillography strips and is 10 inches by 16 inches. Apart from the glue needed to glue the background of the piece, I used a total of 3 milliliter of Fevicrylk Fabric glue to make the entire quillographed nameplate. THAT is how less of material is really needed for quillography :)

Some details of the name-plate......

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........:-)

A quick nameplate

Hello All,

I have been so inactive that I almost feel like a potato at this moment! :( In-laws are away and my neck is paining so bad that I feel like my head would roll off from over my shoulders any minute now! :( Work is so far behind the schedule that I am doubtful I will ever catch up! :(

I got a call from a friend who wished a quick nameplate to be made. I didn't have the heart to say no and the neck pain was not that bad at the time. A commitment made is a commitment made. And my job was already made easy by providing the background colour and the palette I had to work with. BUt still, I had to pop a painkiller and get back to work.........here are two images: One of the finale and one, a collage of work-in-progress......

 

As usual, there are always firsts...........this one was the first time I used multiple strips at once, while working. The font was so tricky, it needed me to be using more than one strips, or else, I could never have probably gotten it working.

I know, this is not the best I can make but darn neck pain needs to go! :(

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 B'day Radio One :)

Hello All,

If you ever visit the Radio One office in Pune, you'll come back impressed, happy and more than willing to go back, just to meet the people :) Such is the energy and charm of the place. Having been there twice, I am perennially looking for reasons to meet up with the most amazing people - Shubhra (with her incessant mother Hen pecking :D), Tarun (with his never ending curiosity), Kaustubh (with his sheer cuteness), Regge (forever fighting with Kaustubh about one thing or the other), Tia (with her spontaneous bursts of singing)!!!!!!! I could go on and on but then, I think, you got to be there to know what the hell I am rambling about! ;)

So, here is my REALLY quick number 5, for the 5th B'day of Radio One and wishing them many more years of Music, Masti and Fun! :) The whole monogram was finished in 1.5 hrs (I am heading to a vacation tomorrow, so wanted to do something with a bit of free time today :D) and measures about 20 cm by 12.......I loved making this for the sheer pace of it! :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........:-)

Quilling - Bengali style

Hello All,

A quick post to show you my experiments with mixed media - Quilling and Beads :)

For anyone who has doubts about strength of quilled jewellery, this piece was swung around by my son before it made it to the place where it was photographed. I have to thank Sumi for getting me into trying this, so that I experimented with very Bengali colour combinations :)

Some more stuff will be up 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........:-)

Tutorial: Quillography style symmetric flower

Hello All,

While it is still fresh in the memory, here was the album I made using microquilling:

Lots of people askied me how I made that flower. Well, I don't know how it is supposed to be made but here is my take on making this flower :)

For those with unstable/slow Internet connections, here are the snapshots :)

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........:-)