Antique frame

One of my Google searches for a frame design gave me this pattern with newspaper rolls. I have this habit of saving good pictures from the net as and when I see them. It was recently when I found this Ravi Varma painting card at Gangaram’s in M.G.Road, that I remembered the framing idea I’d long back saved.

The first step was to make an octagon base with cardboard. To make the base stronger, I’ve used an idea suggested by Neil Buchanan of Art Attack (I am a regular viewer and a big fan of this show. In fact, I never get tired of watching the same episodes over and over again! :) ). He has this technique of hardening any base with tissue paper and PVA glue + water mixture. Instead of PVA glue, I’ve used normal fevicol. And it really worked! The dried product had just the right thickness and strength that I needed. The plain surface now even had a texture to it. The only time consuming process in this was rolling newspapers and cutting them out to match the edges of the cardboard base underneath. Once all pieces of newspaper roll were stuck into position, painting both sides didn’t take much long. Since I had this Ravi Varma painting in mind, I’ve used a combination of metallic colors that go well with the painting. To make the picture stay in position, I’ve created U-shaped hook-like pieces with cardboard and stuck them behind in such a way that a long newspaper roll runs almost the entire length of the frame through the hooks, thus supporting the picture. And…like always, I’ve given the frame a final coat of varnish for that added glow!

Welcome home!

I’ve been making use of cereal boxes, corrugated packing sheets and other strong cardboards as the base for most of my projects. In fact, now I have so many empty boxes in my utility area that it almost looks like a trash can there! Thanks to my sister too for her contributions :) Anyways, now I was in search of something really strong enough to hold one of my upcoming projects. That is how our Saturday shopping landed me in a stationery shop in Jayanagar. There I found the cardboard I needed and was going to leave when something caught my attention - a bundle of 60 wooden lolly sticks(ice-cream sticks) that were not very expensive! At that moment I had no idea about what to make out of them, but anyways added it to my collection of raw materials.
Every time I took the stairs at our apartment, I would be impressed by the creativity and variety of door hangings available. I wanted to make one for our door too. It didn’t take me long enough to make use of these lolly sticks to create this basic sketch for our door hanging.

After carefully selecting completely straight lolly sticks, I made 7 diamond shapes with them and stuck them firmly onto newspaper. The benzene-like structure below was similarly created. Though initially I thought a single layer of newspaper was sufficient for the base, I had to add more corrugated sheets and newspapers to make the base stronger. Once the skeleton was complete, the only process remaining was painting. I wanted it to be bright and have a traditional feel to it. After sharing my thoughts with my husband we decided on this geometrical pattern and color combination for the top portion. The peacock feather pattern at the bottom portion was a sudden idea that I got while painting the diamonds. Though initially it didn’t go well with the geometry of the top portion, once I adjusted the colors and added more details to the feathers, it looked grand! A final coat of varnish added a glow to it. Glass pipes and beads were threaded together and stuck at every diamond to enhance the traditional feel. This project took longer than expected, but finally when we hung it outside yesterday (with a little difficulty for the structural support), I was happy. “Now, that’s a bright and warm welcome to our guests!” :)

Work in progress...