Maa Saraswati

'Maa Saraswati' (Goddess of Knowledge and Learning)

Medium: Acrylics

Mount: Canvas Board

Size: 22cm x 27cm

Varnish: Matt + Glossy

Commissioned work.

This was the sketch for the painting.

Here are close-ups of the detailing:

'The Goddess Saraswati is often depicted as a beautiful, light-skinned woman

dressed in pure white, often seated on a white lotus

(although Her actual vahana is believed to be a swan), which

symbolizes that she is founded in the experience of the Absolute Truth.

Thus, she not only has the knowledge

but also the experience of the Highest Reality.

She is mainly associated with the color white,

which signifies the purity of true knowledge.'

- wikipedia on Goddess Saraswati Iconography

The requirements out of this rendition for the collector was

not a heavily religious undertone, but an imagery depicting Saraswati Maa

seated in the lap of nature, playing the Veena in the full bloom of spring.

In the traditional depictions and descriptions of the Goddess,

she is believed to be adorned with pearls.

I have added a very Bengali touch to her jewellery with the Gold earrings

in the shape of, and named after, 'Kaan's or ears.

Though this one is a small painting, it has a lot of detailing.

The Veena, for instance required some research in getting the structure right;

a majestic instrument indeed.

The varnish, to my mind, has added more depth to the painting

in terms of how it reacts to light differently in certain areas than in

some others. I have worked with both matte and glossy varnishes this time.

You can see what I'm talking about here:

This is one of the only two paintings I've been working on last month.

Personal life and social commitments had completely taken over.

This piece was requested by family friends

who wanted to gift this for their sister's PhD thesis defense,

which was around April end.

Originally timed for then, I have taken much longer to finish this piece :(

However, I am really happy with the end result.

This forced break may have extended some deadlines,

but I think I've got back to work with a fresh mind and renewed energy.

For all of you who have written to me over the last couple of months,

including mails with commission requests,

I am really sorry for not having responded yet.

I'll take up all my pending responses and try to answer your requests by and by.

Many thanks for your patience and love.

Missed you all - a LOT and am SO glad to be back :)!!

Femina feature

Easter holidays were spent with friends, sumptuous Bengali food and adda!

While I am still recovering from all the fun we had,

had to blog to share with you a fabulous update.

Chandana Banerjee (writer, journalist and CEO of

Pink Elephant Writing Studio) interviewed me for Femina recently.

The article has been published in the Spotlight section,

am totally loving the way they have called it 'Painting her love'.

I am a happy girl today!

Thank you Femina and Chandana for this precious gift :)

one more sketch for an upcoming commission

'Maa Saraswati' (Goddess of knowledge)

20cm x 25cm

Pencil on paper

preparing

Sketch for the first in a commissioned series.

Ganesh-ji

30cm x 50cm

Our home featured

Hello beautiful people!

How was your weekend?

We had a lovely time with friends feasting on

delectable Bengali delicacies!

Weekend was also spent in taking snaps around our home.

Hop over to Aditi's inspiring design and decor blog

Once Upon A Tea Time..............Design Stories

to take the home tour over a cup of ginger-chai!

Thank you Aditi for the feature

Ganeshji at home

Over the last few years, we have brought home 'Ganesh-ji's....

This is from one of our early morning visits to Sidhhivinayak temple

in Mumbai, the beauty of the murti (idol) at the temple is captivating.

This next one here is a tiny silver Ganesha

that was a gift from the lady at Chamba Lama,

the most famous curio shop in Kolkata.

Not just us three sisters, even dad received a tiny Ganesh-ji

after one of our generous shopping sprees at the store!

It has a beautiful Bhutanese mantra intricately carved all around.

Some of my jewellery and artifacts from the shop in the backdrop :)

I have been visiting this store from my college days..

spent hours (and most of my pocket money at that time) at the store,

which boasts of an awesome selection of

silver jewellery and Tibetan curio.

Even now when I go back to Kolkata,

a visit to Chamba Lama is indispensable.

This little Ganesha is made of sandalwood and gifted to us by Mr. Suryani when

we visited his store/factory in Mysore to purchase

a Ganesh-murti (photo later in this post) with my first salary:)

This is Ganesh-ji carved in stone, from Orissa craftsmen,

collected at a handicraft fair in Mumbai.

Arnab and I had gone with my mom. I loved their detail and form

so much... I had to take home one; it was only after

I had picked Him up that Maa looked and said,

'You picked a Ganesha with his trunk bent towards the right!'.

We are not superstitious but she could not help remark that

apparently it is supposed to be lucky and is very difficult to find

(most Ganesh idols have their trunks bend towards the left,

Siddhivinayak is another exception).

This is the Ganesh-murti we brought from the

Suryani brothers' factory in Mysore in 2004.

And here is the latest addition to our family of Ganeshas,

I painted him on a little block of wood.

Size: 14.5 cm x 24 cm (rounded corners)

Medium: Acrylic paint and acrylic ink

The vahana (mount) of Lord Ganesha is referred to as 'Mooshika'.

In the Hindu pantheon, each deity is seated on a mount(vahana)

which always has a symbolical meaning.

The mouse is apparently used as a symbol of greed and inquisitiveness.

Our mooshika here seems quite controlled and poised, thanks to Ganesh-ji!

The text reads ''श्री गणेशाय नमः '' (Shree Ganehsaya Namah)

(Meaning: 'Gan': people, 'Eshaya':loved by; He who is loved by everyone)

which is so true for Ganesha!

And the winner....s(!) are......

Wow that participation was amazing guys!

It was so moving to see the response...... I have picked not one but two winners!

So, the lucky winners are: Divya and Megha Chhatbar,

congratulations!!

~Send me your addresses ladies at happydithi@gmail.com ~

A big thanks to all of you for the lovely comments.

The festival of colours is now being celebrated all across India,

a very happy holi to everyone!

I have made a gallery of some of my favourite holi images from Flickr just for you,

do you have a favourite holi image to share?

I would love to see your picks, you can leave a link to your image after this post!

Holi hai, enjoy :)

A thank-you-giveaway!

Hello beautiful people!

Here are some happy updates from Feb-so-far...

I designed an ad for my shop that went up on craftcult.com all of last week;

a very popular place for almost all Etsians to hang out,

browse through interesting picks,

check the heart-o-matic

and even promote their items!

The shop sales crossed 100 in Feb and, that too, in my birthday week !

The shop-hearts crossed 250 and the blog now has

192 lovely readers who follow the posts.

I have been slightly laid back (to put it mildly) in 2008-09

so far as the listings were concerned.

That is not a bad thing considering the fact that I focussed more on the painting,

slightly more than the shop make-over, promotion and stuff like that.

So far as tending to my shop goes, all that will change this year

...the new banner and new listings are only a part of that change-for-the-better.

I love operating through Etsy for of many reasons,

one of them being a format and some unique features

that are so helpful for the buyers as well as the sellers.

The option of leaving a feedback on a shop being one of them.

A great way to learn how your clients feel about your product

and a great reference point for future prospective collectors.

If you are an Etsian, I would highly recommend making full use of this feature;

it is the best way you can encourage a seller, thank a buyer,

highlight the positives and even upload an appreciation photo!!

I love to see photos of my artwork from

the homes and creative spaces of my wonderful collectors

and I want to thank all of you who have been so kind as to share with me the same.

Recently, I received this photograph in my Etsy mail:

I love the way the print had been matted and mounted.

I could not resist requesting Judy, the collector,

to send a snap of her with the framed print if possible.

In this photo: Judy with her grand-children and the framed 'Naani's Lullaby print.

I was really touched when I saw your photo Judy,

there is so much love in this capture.

I felt really bad for having given you the trouble,

for any inconvenience that this may have caused,

but I can't tell you how much I will treasure this.

Thank you for your love and kindness.

Now, as promised in my previous post, I have a give-away for you my readers!

It is a print of my 'Lalita Sundari' painting on A4 archival paper

(watermarks will not appear on the print)!

To enter the draw, enter your name and a comment after this post.

You have time until next Sunday, 28 Feb, 8 pm Geneva time, best of luck!

I will announce the winner, take your address and ship this print out soon after!

Thank you for all the birthday wishes!

***Comments are now closed , I'll announce the winner later today***

Turning 31!

Hello beautiful people!! How are you enjoying the love season?

It was my birthday on the 14th, I turned 31 this year!

My eldest sis, brother-in-law and darling niece visited us from Oxford over the weekend; it was so much fun! I am the youngest of us three sisters and reasonably younger to both of them to have always been pampered silly. I vividly remember the day before each of my birthdays; my sisters would act so funny, huddle up, go into our grandmother's room to be talking to each other in hushed tones, give me a silly smile if I bumped into them, wait for me to go off to bed; only to secretly prepare the prettiest birthday tray for me with hand-drawn cards and goodies.

This is what my birthday tray looked like this year....a darling red pull, a bag of MAC goodies and the prettiest hand-drawn birthday card from my niece....to name a few.

They call me 'Tota' at home (tota in Bengali means parrot):))

It was a beautifully bright and warm day.....

we had a sumptuous Cantonese lunch at a restaurant overlooking lake Geneva,

followed by a visit to the Musée d'ethnographie de Genève

to see 'Le regard de Kannon' or the 'Kannon's gaze' exhibition. The show was sublime, the budhhist chants would go off in the hall every time we turned the prayer wheels installation.

The 'Kannon' has such a powerful and awe-inspiring form; the statuetes, the ancient Japanese thangkas, the Buddhist artefacts collected from all over the world and the prayers in the background and completely transformed the energy of the show.

It felt like we were in a Buddhist monastery in Tibet.

A generous sprinkling of La Durée macarons made the Valentine's experience complete!

Moving on, here is an interview that I did recently with creative writer Barnali Saha

based in Nashville; it was published in the online magazine 'Palki'(Bengali for palanquin).

.

Thank you Barnali, Kausik and the Palki team for doing this!

I am off now you guys, I have some printing and shipping to do tomorrow morning!

Stay tuned for a give-away in my next post!

**Love and hugs and big thanks to each one of you for making last year so precious**

New Etsy shop banner

Here is my new banner for the Etsy shop you guys!

Of course it is busy and over the top...that's just the way I like it!

I am going to work harder on the shop this year;

changing the banner was a first step.....

hop over to see how it looks on the shop page and check out my new prints listings!

Also, a big thank you for all the support on the IP violation matter

(on facebook and here on my previous post).

I am going to go through with the legal procedure, will keep you all posted.

Have a great week ahead!

xxHUGSxx

Stolen

This is a painting that I did on September 2008 as part of a two-painting Bengali couple set.

You can read the post about this set from my blog here.

I sold the set through Etsy subsequently.

One of you readers informed me on this blog a few weeks back that one of my paintings have been used for a book cover. I had no idea and initially thought this might have been a confusion. However, more confirmations from the reader(s) and subsequent googling led to us finding this:

The book is called ''That Calcutta Those Bongs'' by

the very well known publishing house Rupa Publications.

All my work is protected by a Creative Commons License

that is mentioned right on top of the blog.

Any use of my images without an authorization from me is not permissible.

Anyway, a result of this unfortunate and unnecessary development means that I will be watermarking all my work from now on....

something that I really dislike doing.

I will be writing to Rupa & Co. about this and post updates for you.

A BIG thank you to all of you readers who informed me about this.

What would I do without you guys?!

The ''Batua''

Title: ''Batua'' (or the little pouch bag)

Medium: Acrylic

Size: 18cm x 24cm

The 'Batua' or the little pouch was a bit of a fashion statement in the olden times.

It was used to carry money, betel leaves or 'paan' or other valuables.

My grandmother had quite a collection of these, in a myriad of colours and materials;

some made of velvet and gold embroidery, some were beaded and yet some others

that would have been handcrafted from beautifully hand-printed colourful Indian fabric.

Here is a beautiful example of the batua.

I have been doing quite a bit of shopping in this winter-sale season and

I think she is going shopping too, all made up and

carrying her little fashion statement with her!!

She is wearing the 'Taant' or Bengali handloom saree in the traditional style of drape

with a puff-sleeved blouse to go with it. The black and white checkered floor is also quite a significant design element in the old 'Banedi' Bengali houses.

This painting is not up for sale but I will make prints available at the shop soon.

snowy update

let me take you through snowy Geneva...

As we stepped out yesterday, to our surprise, she greeted us, right in front our building

There is a primary school in the neighbourhood, now the swing is quiet

It was wonderfully bright today, after a blizzard yesterday evening, I wasn't the only one who came out to enjoy the snow in the sun....

Right in front of a series of cafés, which, to my surprise, were all open

(in Geneva, most places shut down) and full

I was so tempted to take snaps of people inside these warmly lit pretty places

but realized that I am too shy to be a good photo-journalist :(

So, got snaps of the cars on the street right in front, instead...

Here is the post office, where all your prints and paintings are shipped out from :)

I have never lived in a place that saw this much of snow .... it is quite something

can you see the mountains at the back, we are not very far away

''un...deux...trois...'' and a collective push

and passers by kept gathering and trying to help.....

several times .......but no luck till then.....

took this snap rather nervously and felt guilty about it

well, some others, were doing just fine, moving around with a dollop on top

and this, my friend, is my pick from what I got this weekend

.....some people sure know how to party....no matter what!!!