It was halloween night..

..when I sketched this :P

Your love is like a sunset..

Your love is like a sunset,
wild, bright and true.
The colors blend together,
forming a magical hue.
The day's warm caress
is slipping through the air,
just as though your fingers
would be slipping through my hair.

I sit and watch the sunset,
knowing it soon will end,
thinking of you and
waiting 'til we will be together again.
Slowly now it's going,
coming to a end.
Darkness may be closing in,
but the fun has just begun.

For now I can go home,
go to my darkened room,
lie on the bed and
close my eyes,
fall asleep and dream of you.

For the love of Nature..

..I start sketching again after a long gap. Just a simple 30 min sketch to rekindle the spirit of sketching. And what could be more perfect than a nice landscape. For it's all about my love for Nature :-)

Just to clarify..

..that I haven't given up making cosmetics after starting sketching :P
I don't do it every weekend though- just imagine how would I use all the stuff if I keep making every weekend..agreed I give them as gifts too..but still :))

These are some of my recent creations -
Milk Bath Bombs - Yes ofcourse the signature ingredient being Milk Powder to add more moisture. Also tried to color them this time to make them look pretty.
Pink - Pink food grade colorant
Creamy Yellow - Annatto Seeds infused olive oil
Light Purple - Blueberry fibers with some dried lavender petals on top

Oh I really don't intend to include artificial cosmetic colors :-)

Soaps -
100% olive oil facial soap - for olive oil makes the most gentle soap and how can we compromise with something that goes on the face :P

Layered round soap - made in paper cups. Green color comes from food grade chlorophyll and the pink comes from lip safe merlot mica. And the cream colored ones have marigold petals :-)

Now you know I haven't been a slug after all :-)

Walk hand in hand with me....

Walk hand in hand with me, this is our destiny
No greater love could be, walk hand in hand
Walk with me

Be not afraid, for I am with you all the while
So lift your head up high and look up to the sky

Walk hand in hand with me, this is our destiny
No greater love could be, walk hand in hand
Walk with me

Why do I have to overdo stuff?

So I did this boat pastel sketch earlier in the day..that should have been enough for the day right? But no, I always have to overdo stuff and screw up!! Obviously you can't do something with the same attention and focus when you have exhausted your energy on other things (in my case it was - sketching, laundry, vacuuming, cooking!)

look at this screwed up sketch..I feel sorry :-(
I was trying to sketch my cutie niece - Vridhi....I had done half of it before..it was only in pencil..I should have contained myself, but I got carried away with the pastels!! I don't think it was a good idea to include pastels here! The sketch in pencil looked a lot better..but I somehow wanted some color and the results are-----sob sob :-(

Anyway lessons to learn!! Patience...have patience..patience is the key!!

Experimenting more with color...

..with my own set of pastels this time...so yes, i recently made a trip to the art store and got some new cool stuff to play with...got some raw charcoal sticks instead of the pencil, some compressed charcoal and a set of some basic soft pastels...

since I am new to pastels, I am trying some basic things to learn the technique..the thing I luv about pastels is how well they blend!! I had to blend so much for this particular sketch. There wasn't a single color to shade this sky..I had to mix 3-4 colors to get the affect. But there is so much more to learn including how to handle the messiness that comes free with pastels - my hands, my white mac and my white bed-sheet - all looked pretty colorful after I was done!!

anyhow this is just something I need to get used to I guess and it isn't all that bad afterall.

and thus another weekend just went by..gosh time flies..this is one thing I am always short of! I wish there were 36 hours in a day and human body could replenish with 5 hours of sleep instead of 8-10. sorry I drift away I know..

i am off now..keep watching the space for more :-)

Outside the comfort zone..

This one with regular sketching pencils...more detail oriented and outside my comfort zone :-)

You must think I am obsessed with Harry Potter or something; but I just find the theme very sketch friendly :P

I have realized that detail is not my thing! Couldn't get the facial features right..although these look like feasible faces, they don't resemble the actual characters :(
But I am not totally disappointed with final outcome either.

Now I have a choice to make - stick to not-so detailed sketching or keep trying detail until I get it right!!
First is an easy choice, but I am not yet convinced to give up on the second as yet :-)

So keeping my options open for now ...watch out the space for more!

The school of MAGIC...

Here is Hogwarts for you with a nearly worn out charcoal pencil..inspired by a sketch sent by Nikhil. I know it probably doesn't even look close enough to that one, but I tried. Plus the scan quality in esp this one is really poor :(
I liked the original a lot better...but you get the idea...

Want some color?

My experimentation with sketching continues...

Introduced some color this time..with very basic school pastels that a friend lent me to try!
I tried them on this very basic dress sketch. Came out very easily and I sort of like it..
Colors didn't stick to the paper as nice as I wanted them to. And the scan made them even lighter than the original!! sigh!!

Anyhow I think I should get my own set and play more..
Now ready to make a trip to SF for some more art supplies :-)
Can't wait!!

Charcoal it is!

My first encounter with a charcoal pencil - from the cover page of a Harry Potter book :-)
Scan quality is poorer than I expected, but it still is close to the original sketch.
Let me know what you think of it!!

There is so much to learn - I still can't decide my favorite medium. I had always sketched with a regular pencil before. But after trying the charcoal pencil, I am in love with it. Well anyway, we will see how it goes. I just hope this interest lasts!

To sketch or not to sketch!!

My first (well second, first one not with me anymore) sketch after more than a dacade!!
I have never really been an innovative artist! But there were those days, when drawing and I were inseparable! (I am talking about high school days). What if most of them were not my own imaginations. The ideas were mine, so were the choices. Then came along a super busy stint of my life - Well it was really busy only for a few years - but then inertia intervened and I never went back to drawing! Now years after dropping my school pencils and crayons, I mustered all the courage and enthusiasm to pick a pencil again - just to see if my hands could still hold a pencil the way they could do, to see if my fingers could move on the paper to draw some identifiable!!

And the results are before you - A picture from the title page of one of my favorite books - "The Notebook" on a piece of A4 sheet with a sharpwriter pencil :P

Nowwwwww "To sketch or not to sketch" is a million dollar question. :-)

My lil Body Shop!

Well you might have guessed by now what my new hobby could be from the title :-)

Once again people have started becoming aware of the bath products they use. Most of the store bought junk has tons of preservatives that don't really do any good to us. Our body is a gift given to us by God and we ought to take care of it. And the magic lies within the nature! For years ancient India had practiced making bath products from nature gifted herbs . Be it sandalwood, be it turmeric, be it the essence of a plant (known as essential oil), be it a clay of some form, be it the oil/butter extracted from a variety of nuts (such as shea nut butter, cocoa butter, and so many luxurious oils) - it's all natural and possesses gazillion healing and nurturing properties within.
It's high time we start harvesting these natural wonders..

And once you start exploring this territory, you would be amazed to see how easy it is to mix and match all these natural things to make something that does wonders to the skin and you get the satisfaction of making something on your own and something that has no chemicals in it. In these times, you can never be sure what all the store bought products have in them - most dangerous are the harmful chemical preservatives they use to prolong the shelf life of their products...

I started with some very basic things such as mixing some nut butters with some nice oils and tossing in a few drops of my favorite essential oils and voila there are an excellent massage bar..
Following this hobby for a couple of weeks now, I came across tons of blogs on internet about soap making!! I never knew making your own soap from scratch could be so much fun..it indeed is...and then you get to use your favorite oils, colors and fragrances..doesn't that sound so exciting...well it does to me and I recently made some cold processed (CP) soap..I am yet to try it since it takes atleast 4 weeks to cure CP soaps..

My inspiration comes from some of these sources -
http://www.soap-queen.blogspot.com/ (http://www.brambleberry.com/)
http://oatsandhoney.blogspot.com/
http://candleandsoap.about.com/

Alright more later..have a great weekend..