Navarathri Golu -2011

     These are the steps that have scenes that tell the story of the birth of Cauvery river and stories related to Cauvery.
    The last step shows celebrations on Adi perukku , along the banks of the river Cauvery. Houses are cleaned and newly weds are given new clothes and gifts. Mulaipari is taken in procession and left in the river. Lamps are lit on mango leaves and let afloat the river. People cook food and bring to the banks and feast. Karimani(black beads), kaparusi(sweet made from rice ,jaggery and coconut) and Kadolai(earrings made of palm leaves) are offered to river Cauvery by married women for a happy married life .

            This is one of the back drops I painted for the main theme of this year that is the story of the birth of river Ganges. In this story a king loses his sixty thousand sons , who are burnt to ashes by an angry sage.This picture depicts the ashes(Not a sunny picture).
          Taking my water colour paints have made me eager to paint more . The grey ashes though are painted with acrylic colours with the help of a sponge.

Quilled Aluminium

       Inspired by a post by Ann Martin at All things paper I tried some Aluminium quilling. I used  a big needle to roll and it is not as easy as paper of course. I need to do more of this and learn how to cut smaller strips and find some nice tools to roll and clasp the Aluminium at folds.


    I first marked on the bottom of the can to size the strips. (Too big it turned out:(   )

       I cut out the strips .

             I then turned the strip with a twist and then curled it with a needle. 

            After curling for a bit I curled with my hand, somehow after a couple of curls it becomes easy.

         I adjusted the coils as best as I could to get a symmetry . One or two strips tore when I twisted them .

Navarathri Golu

          These are some of the work I did for this year Golu at Avvai.

       

    

       

This origami lotus in a pond is a miniature pond of Madurai Meenakshi temple.(Porthamarai kolam)

This is a scene for a story where the crane refuses to eat the fishes that nibble on the sages who take bath in the pond. I added a quilled lotus to the pond.The fish I cut from thermocol and added silver glitters for the scales.

It became my job to set up these steps . It has five stories for which I have created the scenes and put them up. Though we have our assigned work  , we take lot of help from others.This is just a small part of the golu, the actual story for this year about the Nayanmar , Thirunavukarasar (Appar) covers one half of the hall and two other steps form the Main golu. 

 

       This is a scene again from Madurai Meenakshi temple where lord Shiva dances in a silver stage.(I made this using thermocol wrapped in silver paper.

Along with mythological stories we also have fairy tales and moral stories. This is a tower for Rupenzal I made. I have quilled some creepers on the sides of the wall.

This is the tree I made for the scenes on the steps. I made three of them. They are made of thermocol and painted with acrylic paints.