Its about two months since I started doing Madhubani painting and I must say that I have truly been’ lost in colours’ ! Having done more than 20 odd paintings on different kinds of hand made paper I decided to experiment on ceramic and glass tiles. I must say that it was quite challenging to paint Madhubani on both ceramic and glass! Given that I had only three shades of colors to work with on glass  it made it even more challenging to produce a brilliant effect that Madhubani normally does on paper, wood etc. I was quite pleased with my work but I think I really have to practice a lot to get that clean finish in my work!

I was living a very comfortable life in Australia for the last 11years!  I had a great job, good salary, great friends and my work took me to different places around the globe! I was quite content with my life as a research scientist and I could not have asked for life to be any better! But two years ago certain sequence of events took place in my life and thing led to another! Finally, I decided to take a break from my academic career, say goodbye to Australia and move on!  I moved back to India and travelled a fair bit trying to explore my own country! While travelling, I constantly kept thinking if I could be something else than just being a scientist! I really wanted to do something different! Then one day I was walking by and I came across ‘Reprav Creations’ an arts and crafts workshop run by Renu. Renu is an accomplished artist and manages her time between family and running her workshop. Her main objective is to spread Indian arts and crafts and also to provide support to women from under privileged society by teaching them several skills! In India one comes across such workshops and schools everywhere but the biggest challenge in a country like India is that of finding something that is genuine! Everyone in this country claims themselves to be ‘experts’ but I was fortunate to have come across a genuine teacher and master of Madhubani painting!

As a child, I loved painting with colours but then I drifted away from it over the years! But now with so much time in hand I decided to learn the beautiful style of Indian painting called Madhubani.

Madhubani or Mithila Painting is a style of Indian painting, practiced in the Mithila region of Bihar state, India and adjoining parts of Nepal. The name is itself named on the village Madhubani.

However, the origin of Madhubani paintings are shrouded in antiquity and mythology. It is believed to have originated since the times of Indian mythological era of Ramayana!

I spent a month long time with Renu and learnt the intricate details and techniques involved in Madhubani paintings! Being fairly good at drawing and imaginative was an added advantage for me but the technical aspects involved in Madhubani was quite challenging. But having a great teacher made it all easy! I am sharing two paintings one which was my very first Madhubani painting that is replete with technical mistakes and the second where I have almost ‘mastered’ the technique!

I am happy to have reignited my passion for colours, graphite and canvas and I intend to spread and share this passion! 

Fascinated by peacocks in Madhubani!

I got inspired again by my fiancé to create hand made cards with the touch of Madhubani for the forthcoming wedding of our friends and the second who are to become the proud parents soon! Once again the paintings are done on hand made paper with a mix of acrylic and poster colors using 2/0 and 3/0 sable brush.

Madhubani Peacocks

There comes a time in everybody’s life when you reflect upon life and things that always meant something to you but over the years they got neglected and then you suddenly rediscover life by embracing all those things that had remained neglected! It happened to me too when I met with a serious accident a year ago and I substained some serious injuries. It was a boon in disguise as it led me to introspect on various aspects of life and made me realize that there was more to life than to be just stuck in my world of academia and sports. I rediscovered my passion for arts and I decided to learn Madhubani by a trained artist from Madhubani itself! The art that looks so simple visually turned out to be quite challenging technically ! This is my first proper madhubani painting that took a total of 10 hours to complete. Acrylic paint colors on hand made paper with 2/0 sable brush. More to come soon!

Madhubani painting or Mithila painting is a style of Indian painting, practiced in the Mithila region of Bihar state. Madhubani  traditionally depicts animals such as elephant, turtle, cow, tiger and birds. But I thought of experimenting  Madhubani on the animals ‘Down-Under’ where I have spent 11years of my life!