Country Cottage Arts

Monday 14 February 2011

Oooo!    What a perfect day....It's Valentine Day today  and to all those in love with their spouses/ mates and especially to all those who are generally in love with everything and everyone around them, here's my toast to all of you lovely ladies - Have a terrific time and celebrate life to the fullest - here's to a great Valentine Day out .


A decorative painting approach to batik design. This was what I saw at Tengku Norashikin's house when I went there a few days ago.  It was quite different from the country style painting of course, but then,  batik is a unique art by itself.  The finished product is what you see below:

Shikin's batik in decorative art style














Siti Zulainah with her proud handiwork















This is Ara Maisarah's handwork.  The blue background is Jo Sonja's Blue Violet.  It does make a good contrasting background for the white daisies.   I've never tried that combination before but will do so now!

Definitely like her turban style headscarf, so Arabesque and gypsy like................................








 A beautiful rose design on a clock plaque by Shikin


















 This is one of the cute small metal tubs
 painted with bows and ribbons . I think it was made for Tom Thumb's wedding ! 





 The same tub as above but here the ribbon design as painted in the back.

 Items like these are usually given to guests at Malay weddings as  wedding tokens.  Most often,  names of the couple are printed and attached to these lovely giveaways.    





 Happy reading and painting





Lakshmi

 

Thursday, 3 February 2011


Today  is the start of the Chinese New Year celebrations and I wish all Malaysians of Chinese descent, a very Happy & Prosperous  Chinese New Year and " GONG XI  FATT CHAI " .  This is the year of the Rabbit , according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar and  is supposed to be a harmonious year, but judging from the events happening all over the world, from Egypt to Tunisia and  Jordan, not to mention our ongoing continuous by-elections in  Malaysia, it is anything but that. !

Everything and everyone seem to be doing something silly/momentous all the time  ( depending on how you view it  la ) and  if it's not the people, then,  it's the climatic upheavals  of biblical proportions - from horrendous flooding of Queensland to volcanic eruptions in Indonesia ...........  It's really beyond my scope but  suffice to say that I'm very comforted and safe in  my   our  own  sheltered  world of Decorating Painting .


And so , this is what I painted the week before MIDI magazine/ Karangkraf Publications Bhd  had their carnival .  The painted pieces pictured below were  my contribution as gifts/ lucky prizes for their  carnival. 

This was the easiest to do so I painted this first.   Normally, I would use the slip-slap technique to soften the areas around the flowers, but this time, I painted free style airy-fairy roses in the lightest of colours - double loading  with  Americana's  Baby Pink and Jo Sonja's  Warm White ( I dressed the brush with glaze first ) and sort of painted a mock pattern - the pattern/design  is my own  but feel free to use it as a guide ).  The  actual painting was done over these layout.  You can notice the airy-fairy flowers in the receding background.  This creates ' fullness' and  depth  and also give it a a softer  and whimsical look,  as can been seen above. 







I had been wanting to paint this for a long long time and simply kept putting it off.  The carnival giveaway gift was just the perfect excuse and I finally finished this in 2 days -in between my baking and cooking and housekeeping work .  I think it turned out pretty well, considering that I changed the colours to suit my taste and modified the pattern to my liking !!.  The basic pattern was taken from  Debbie Toew's  " Home for All Seasons ".





 Now, this was a big one - a canvas measuring 3ft by 2 1/2ft.  - and the subject matter was under the apple tree.  This picture was painted  based on one of the  the lovely calendars by Lang, US.  The colours, were as usual, changed according to what I  wanted it to be........and what I had at the time of painting. It was a bit of a rush job and canvas painting is really not for the beginner or inexperienced artists, for it really really takes Time to paint, with a capital T  no doubt !

I really hope the recipients of these paintings  are happy with my giveaways. 


Happy reading and painting




Lakshmi