Hues and Shades

After years of painting on charts and drawing papers here's my first canvas painting. Acrylic on canvas. I realised its a bit tricky working on canvas but with patience you'll definitly get a good result. Eager to do the next one 😉 This painting is for my best buddy Ayyappadas and his beautiful fiancè Aishwarya! Wishing you both a life time of happiness.

We girls were out shopping when we saw an advertisement board shouting out "All for 100" !! Well....what more did we have to think?? In all the 7 of us went and I happend to see a plain olive green top, that too for just ₹100 :) I bought the top and gave it a complete make over. I call this "Faces" because these are unique faces of women , a type of painting I've never done before. The evolution - Time for some modelling ;) I combined it with a yellow dupatta and pant. I love the silver jwellery they are wearing so i got a similar one for myself :) But I must say , buying cheap clothes do have their down side. I had to paint the cloth over and over again as all the paint simply seeped through the cloth onto the plastic sheet I had kept underneath!! Here's a picture of the other side  I had to apply almost 3 coatings to get the final look. :( So just a piece of advice- if you're planning to do...

So here comes the third kurthi for Renu which has a beautiful lady collecting flowers from a tree in full bloom. The bright design stands out beautifully on the yellow coloured kurthi. I had so much fun doing this painting especially the areas with the skin tone and the orange drape. I was really worried as I did not have the skin colour but then a little brown (Fabre Castle) with lots of white did the trick. I was so pleased with myself for discovering the perfect colour but guess what the same trick didn't work with another brown (Pidilite). This painting should have actually taken only a day but because the past few days were really packed it took me 3 days for completion ( So basically I was simply mentioning  that I do not paint 24x7 but have a job to do :) ) The evolution- At a glance :) From now on I have decided to personalise all the pictures I upload. I think it looks pretty good.

Here's the second hand painted kurthi for renuka. Yellow creame and purple paints were used on this maroon colour kurthi. But for the first time I have no idea what I have painted. I usually have clarity in my designs but this one lost me. Nevertheless she gave me the design and I did my best. The design she gave me vs what I painted.  At work 🎨

So finally I tried my hand at painting on a phonecase! It all happened when my friend Reshma came to me with an old phonecase of hers and asked me to do something to hide the parts where the paint had peeled off. I was a little skeptical at first but the final result made me happy and Reshma was happy so....... 😉 I couldn't cover all the paintless areas but I guess the painting will catch your attention more. To this

My second attempt at painting on a kurthi. It took a while for me to upload this one as I had been putting it off due to lack of good photographs. I bought the unstiched material for the kurthi from Chennai. The painting was done on the right hand corner and because of the black background the painting really stands out I feel. It took me two days to do this painting.

Peacock and its feathers have always been a craze. This kurthi was finished overnight but I am not really satisfied by the result as I couldn't get that perfection like my previous ones.

And once again a mural painting... This one is a personal favourite and I gifted it to a favourite aunt. By the way I completed this particular painting in record time  (considering my lazy nature 😉) For Hand Painted Mural Sarees Contact at meghashaji@gmail.com / passiontree92@gmai.com

So I was thinking of painting something apart from murals when my friend Renuka asked me to do a hand painted kurthi for her. She got me a stiched plain kurthi and the dupatta & pant she was planning to match with it! All I had to do was paint 🎨 The Front Back And here's s Renu wearing her first designer dress & the first i designed for a friend :) Well she seems happy & so am I!!

My love for mural painting just keeps growing. Here's my latest work on a kerala saree Pallu Design The full view Design on the borders It took me a whole week to complete this saree. My little sister helped me out in giving the final touches and finally when it was done we gifted it to our mom :) When mom wore it to a function!!

Silhoutte of a deer with a sunset backdrop. Medium used - watercolour

The sad little eyes, the sitting pose and those fluffy ears.....I didn't think twice before drawing this lil puppy, a lab I guess, thought the shading turned out a bit scratchy. Original artist: unknown Source: google images

Original artist: Giovanni Source: google images I tried using acrylics and watercolor and I learnt never to use them together again!! Because acrylics appear bright and shiny even after it dries but watercolored areas attain a matt finish sort of texture which is really going to show on your canvas.

Pencil sketch of Radha and Krishna

Little sunflower's are a lovely sight when they're in full bloom and it saddens me to see them wilt. So I found a plan to preserve them. I plucked these little beauties a separated each petals. After applying a little fevicol I pasted the petals to resemble the flowers and buds :) I completed the look with a few leaves and stem. DIY Sunflower Card Made it in to a simple card, something anyone can easily make.

The colours, the trees, the shades of nature and the man you love!  Watercolour painting of silhouettes of a couple on the bridge yet again a recreation of a painting I found online.

My lord......my love

This was done using a flat brush and watercolor directly from the tube. Fast vertical strokes for this painting. A few more flowers would have made the painting more beautiful, but well there's always a next time!

Its fun painting on walls. Well, what do you think?? Birds :) Girl with the butterfly - My hostel room looked really plain and one fine day I did these!! The walls do look a bit dirty but one can't expect more from a 5 year old hostel wall right? I used black poster colour and it took less than half an hour to complete the whole look. The silhouettes were downloaded ( each separately) and then put together. One day I'm definitely going to paint my room. ;)

Ever since I saw a similar picture online I've been wanting to do it myself. I finally found a tutorial on YouTube and that's how I realised that I'd need lots of crayons and a hair dryer to recreate the picture! I couldn't bear the idea of wasting so many crayons and I did not own a hair dryer either. So here's what I did : I drew a silhouette on a black chart and after cutting along the outline pasted it onto a white background. I clipped the white drawing paper on to a drawing board and put it up vertically. Using watercolor and a little bi t of extra water ( so that the paint would drip down) I completed the painting. Note  : You can decide the length of a dripping paint by adjusting the alignment of your drawing board.  Also remember to use a cut out for the silhouette or else the paint will run over it and not along the sides of the umbrella. And yes I'd advise you to paste a tape along the upper edge so that after completion it can be pe...

Kerala saree looks beautiful on almost everyone and my first Kerala saree was a birthday gift from my mom. I was planning to do an elaborate painting on a saree and what better way to start than on your own?! The saree being my own I didn't have to be afraid even if anything went wrong! It took me a week to complete this design and I wore it to college for our batch day celebration. :) (The original image was downloaded from a website) Here comes the Lady with the Lotus: I started with the head part. As I'm not professionally trained in mural painting or any other art forms I do what I think might be right. I recently read that each and every part in a mural painting has a unique proportion. Being self taught I was unaware about it, so my paintings do not follow any particular rules. This is the finished look. What I learnt:- 1. Its always better to draw the design on a paper and then trace it on to the saree because if you make a mistake and then st...

After the success on paper I did the same design on a cloth. Though the lady looks slightly different the result made me happy. Here I am wearing my self designed churidar to a function ( proud of the self designed part. Haha) Black churidar with mural painting teamed with orange dupatta and shawl would be perfect for any function. I guess the orange in this design really stands out. Jhumkas!! A pair of jhumkas to complete the look  :) I used quilling paper for the jhumkas and acrylic colours for the painting. The black beads were added for the final look. If you loved this and want a similar one contact me. Mail me - meghashaji@gmail.com,  passiontree92@gmail.com

My devotion to Kerala Mural Paintings started a few years ago when I was gifted with a diary which had a mural painting on its cover. I tried recreating it on a chart paper and.....here it is - My first Mural Painting- First I drew the outline on a white chart paper and then the background in a gradient technique with 4 similar colours. Since I was using watercolor the outlines were clearly visible after doing the background. Next I started painting.... Once the paint dried I did the outlines with black. I pasted it on a black chart sightly bigger than the white chart so that it would get a framed effect! Before doing the outlines - a contrast picture to see the difference borders can make in a mural painting.  This can be framed and put up on your walls or else gifted to your loved ones! If you want a painting like the one above do cantact me. Mail me - passiontree92@gmail.com