9 Ways to Add an Artsy Touch to Your Life

Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum and neither do artists represent an alien being. Art belongs to us all and we all have an artistic mind, however, the perception around our ‘artsy’ self depends largely on how we infuse creativity in our everyday life. We all might go to an art exhibition from time to time but that doesn’t make us artsy. Unless you express art through the commonest things in life you don’t exactly enhance your life with art. Here are 9 ways how you can add that missing artsy touch to your life in simple ways.

• Statement furniture:

Beds and sofas are expensive pieces of furniture that adorn almost every household, however, they aren’t the kind of things that impress the eye or satisfy the seeker of creativity. Statement furniture adds a dimension of the artsy in your house. By adding an old Victorian wall clock in a modern drawing room, or an old Oriental cabinet in your wooden floored library you significantly enhance the look of your house which also becomes an extension of your artsy personality.

• Old curios & collectables:

The east is the goldmine for unique remnants of the past, which not only add a sense of history to your home but also tremendously enhances its aesthetic value. War memorabilia, vintage typewriters, old sewing machines, old photo frames, vintage chairs, and rare toys often set the room in the perfect mood. These can sometimes be found at very low prices in antique stores and flea markets, and one such collectable can influence the room significantly.

• Up-cycling everyday clothes:

Although more familiar to a bedroom set in modern-day interior designing this can be used in other parts of the house too. The success of this technique depends on the quirk of the design. For instance, even a simple addition of fresh flowers to a basic earthen teapot transforms it into an aesthetically pleasing vintage item. Some readers like to see books around them even more than they want to read them. This often messes up the room and makes it look untidy. Storing them in old steel boxes and metal trunks give you the sense of the mess that the masochist self wants yet decently avoiding any mess that it can potentially create. Similarly, if you don’t find a cloth stand, simply up-cycling a ladder not only creates a functional and durable cloth stand but also gives a different dimension to your room.

• Thinking beyond the obvious:

There are many affordable options and mediums that can be used to decorate walls but often when we need to decorate our walls, we only think of paintings. Beautiful metallic flowers, an artistic mirror, an intricate marble hanging, or interesting vintage maps – all of these, and more can be perfect for bringing in the artsy touch in you.

• Books- got looks:

Beautiful coffee table books are a great way to enhance the décor at home but not too many people think of this. Big books with stunning covers, when stacked together, or placed at angles, look great on coffee tables or even side console tables in the hallway or living room.

• Traditional is the key:

Perfect for bringing an ethnic touch into your home, traditional Indian art is exquisite, detailed, and not that expensive. Indian art forms such as Gond, Madhubani, Warli Art, Pichwais, Mughal Miniatures and Tanjores not only adds an artistic touch to your home but also becomes a medium of reflection of your taste and preferences to the world, a window through which they peep into you.

• Photo walls:

Create a photo wall by framing some of your favourite photos from weddings, birthdays, travels etc. Photographs sit on corner tables inside a photo frame and we love displaying personal photographs around the house. Why not add a quirk to them and make the extra hatke statement? Using bold frames of different sizes, and creating an interesting collage to cover a large wall in a stairway, study, or bedroom adds to our sense of aesthetics an artsy element.

• Master Artist Prints:

A large painting in the living room always screams for attention. But an original artwork, even by lesser-known artists, could burn a hole in the pocket. Instead, you can invest in limited edition prints of beautiful artworks by master artists, such as Husain, Raza, Vaikuntam, etc. High-quality prints, usually made using the serigraphy technique, have a very similar texture to paintings, and hence, look stunning. So imagine owning an authentic Raza print, signed by the artist himself, for less than 30,000 rupees. Can it get artsier than this?

• Paint-it-all:

It is very trendy these days to keep walls empty and show art through them. Adding a splash of colours always helps. Painting an entire wall can be expensive, but adding colour to a small part of a wall, or a panel, using an interesting pattern, can look extremely artistic, and most importantly pretty easy on the wallet.

Why do people go gaga over art inspired items?

Art is the source of magic in the material world. Art is what makes even the commonest thing look the most beautiful, therefore, it is likely that people have a fondness for art in general and anything that has rich elements of art in specific. Items of daily use and luxury items that we in the modern age use are mainly of the same mould that you would find in your neighbour’s house. In such a case, the only thing that makes you stand out is the incorporation of art. Do we all not know how tea-pot looks or what purpose does it serve, then what makes us buy a new tea-pot every now and then? Yes, it is either the design or the print or the unique motif it has got etched on its surface.  This viewpoint holds true for almost every art inspired item. You don’t just buy the item, you buy a piece of art with you that you get to show off. Let us see what are the aspects that make art inspired items stand out.

Innovation: Innovation always sells. Whenever you see any regular item in art inspired design or texture, it suddenly becomes innovative, something that probably the consumer’s imagination could never have mapped. Therefore, something like this also becomes a centre of attention for the visitors to your house.

Elegance: One can’t clearly explain this but it is true that anything that is art inspired, naturally comes across as elegant. When items of regular use get a similar form, they don’t just remain a utilitarian need but become collector’s choice and this consequence largely arises because of the sheer elegance art that the inspired items boast of.

Aesthetic sensibilities: Very often you’ll see that you get upset when you are out to buy a new sofa or a wardrobe because you don’t get what you want because the stuff you are planning to buy is not matching your aesthetic sensibility. We all have an aesthetic sensibility and they vary as per our tastes in each other. This aesthetic sensibility is only satisfied with distinction in the design of every item, and that distinction is achieved by what kind of art it has inspired from.

Personal touch: Art inspired items to speak of a different side in us to our friends or family. It is not necessary that you have to make something yourself to show an extension of your personality in that, even the reason that you have made a choice for that particular item is also reflective of who you are to the world around. This adds a ‘personal touch’ to the items you buy.

Mostly handmade: Art inspired items are usually handmade and you rarely get an exact copy of the same in the market. Even if you find the same design there will be a difference in some strokes or impressions on the surface. Handmade products always appeal to the consumer’s choice because they are unique. Even popular opinion rates handmade products higher than large-scale manufactured products by connoisseurs.  

Can Lefties Do Calligraphy?

Calligraphy is an art that requires precision and detail in its very essence. To say that instruments aid doing calligraphy will not be entirely untrue, however, it is the movement of the hand that decides the extent to which calligraphy can be perfected. If you do not have sufficient control over your hand you cannot do good calligraphy. Clearly, lefties being a minority, most knowledge and training available for calligraphy is premised upon a righty’s dexterity with the pen. But it is not true that lefties cannot do calligraphy. By taking in cognizance the common mistakes, using the right technique, and with adequate practice, a lefty can do calligraphy with as much ease as a righty. Let us see how.

Patience:

Something which holds true for both righties, as well as lefties, is to keep patience. The victimization that lefties subject them to by exaggerating most disadvantages they face in the initial stages deters them from moving ahead out of frustration. Smudging, clammy palms, not getting the right writing angle, the ink not cooperating with you is a myth. Everything needs some time for basic familiarisation and consequent practice makes you a pro. Just keep experimenting with the paper placement/rotation, placement of your hand, the different angles you can try until you get it right. But to begin with, give yourself time, more time if you are a lefty. However, the fact that you are a lefty needs to be obliterated out of the mind.

Finding the perfect grip:

The most important thing to find for a lefty doing calligraphy is a grip that suits him or her, the first thing to do is try to develop a grip that keeps your hand under the calligraphy. If that just doesn't feel right to you, then you can try writing with a hook. In the end, as long as your grip allows you to exert even pressure on both tines of your nib, then you are holding the pen correctly. It is seen that most lefties write in different ways depending upon what the writing instrument being used is. For some writing with a regular pen or pencil makes their hand smudge their lettering as in the process they run over it. Will you stop doing calligraphy in that case? Of course, one has to identify the problem to find a solution. Just try and change the position of your hand so that you place your hand underneath the line that you are writing in to avoid smudging. There are other errors we make, and through practice, we also find adequate solutions to them. All this is aimed at perfecting the grip.

A pen-7-nib combination:

This comes after spending some time doing calligraphy and finding yourself a favorite pen nib combination. If you find what brings out the best calligraphy out of you, then you will enjoy practicing and honing your skills. There is no one favorite style that you are expected to choose, depending upon what kind of calligraphy is in trend, and your preference may change. It is important to initially try out different pens and nibs to find out what works best for you. Commonly used pens and nibs are the straight Tachikawa T40 pen, Hunt Globe 513 EF, or a Hunt 512 Ex-Fine. If you are just beginning to write then you can also try Nikko G or Zebra G.

Left-oblique pens:

There are different kinds of pens available for calligraphy and from them, an oblique pen is such that it is very commonly used. Most lefties make the mistake of buying them and face difficulty while writing. Oblique pens are generally made for righties by design. You should always use a straight pen if you are a lefty. In case, it gives you trouble you can then especially use designed pens for lefties, left oblique pens.

Practice:

A lefty or a righty, given the intricate understanding, the calligraphy demands it is paramount that you put in adequate time in practicing. Initially, it is likely that you will fail at getting the right stroke and feel unmotivated. But the trick is to keep practicing without much cribbing and the process becomes the best teacher eventually.

All you need to know about GRAPHOLOGY

Imagine that just by reading someone's handwriting you can identify most traits about that person's personality. Will that not be crazy? Graphology is the science which lets you predict most things about a person just by examining his or her handwriting. Graphology also enables you to know the person's state of feeling of the person writing in real-time. It is a very complex process and needs close attention. Let us give you some basic knowledge of this complex craft.

How did it start?

Artists and scientists for long have been interested in the relationship between handwriting and the writer. The first treatise on the subject appeared in 1622 and efforts at graphological systematization began in 1872 with the work of the French abbé Hypolite Michon, who gave graphology its name. Both Michon and his compatriot Jules Crépieux-Jamin developed the so-called school of isolated signs, which attempted to relate specific handwriting elements to specific human traits. The French psychologist Alfred Binet became convinced that graphology had potential as a technique for personality testing.

Aspects involved:

Graphology doesn't uni-dimensionally understand the workings of handwriting. It has many aspects through which inferences are drawn and conclusions are reached. The following are the different aspects of graphologist analysis-

• Pen pressure
• Slant
• Size of letters
• Line spacing
• Margins
• Space between words
• Line direction
• Doodles

Common mistakes:

The large area of verifying inferences tends to arrive at common errors. Avoid the common mistakes and you will get much more accurate readings with graphology. Some people get incorrect results with graphology because they don't avoid the common pitfalls. When analyzing a handwriting sample, you must look at the sample as a whole instead of focusing only on one feature of the writing. For example, you shouldn't look at Pen pressure alone without taking the slant, line spacing, and other factors into consideration. It is advised that you use another personality analysis method beside graphology so that you compare the findings of the two methods and get more accurate results. You must also understand that what mood the person is in can affect his handwriting sample. This means that taking more than one sample and finding out what's common between them can help you get more accurate results.

The psychological undertones:

Graphology is also a method to investigate a person's psychological state. Theoretically, the writing, made up of more than 20 elements, such as degree of slant, breadth, and height of letters, and space between lines, letters, and words, represents the different, yet interrelated, aspects of the writer's personality. How the writer combines characters from left to right and from top to bottom on the page creates a unique writing pattern. One should always record such observations and juxtapose to heighten the conclusions drawn using graphology.

Employment opportunities:

It is but obvious that in today's day and age marked by motives of practicality, any skill learned is assessed by its practical utility. Professionally as well as personally, graphology has a wide variety of applications, from choosing the right candidate to choosing the right life partner. Graphologists are in demand in various sectors such as psychiatric and counselling centres, career guidance, personality development, child development, employee recruitment, marriage compatibility, police department, forensic department, private investigation centres, etc. Business Owners, Personnel Managers, Journalists, Financial Service Providers, Law Enforcement, Investigative Agencies, Legal Professionals, Psychologists, Medical Practitioners, Academics, and Questioned Document Examiners also need the services of a Graphologist. Forensic departments usually recruit graphologists to analyze signatures and handwritings to detect forgery.

All you wanted to know about Warli Painting Colours.

Warli painting is an art form that has originated in tribal areas Maharashtra, primarily in Thane district. It is an indigenous art of the Warli tribe. They have historically used walls to portray various aspects of their lives.The art form has off late gained immense popularity and, in general parlance, is known as Warli Painting.

The subjects used vary but are mostly based on day-to-day activities in the life of the tribe. Warli paintings can generally be seen portraying stick figures running about, farming, rearing animals, building houses, dancing on festivals and so on.

Warli paintings usually consist of not more than two colours. The usage of material for extracting the required colour (s) has evolved over time initially, mud and cow-dung mixture was used to get a brown background. As for the white detailing, ingredients like rice paste mixed with water and gum were used. Over time, most Warli paintings have had a red background as base which was then painted with white caricatures. This colour combination was a result of availability, evolution and affordability of red bricks and limestone. At times, this red background would get switched with greenish to dark brown shade. This colour was achieved with the help of cow dung. But the prime reason behind not using colours was the fact that colours had not been discovered yet.

With the discovery of paint in modern times, the painting media for Warli art has changed too. Bricks, cow dungs and limestones have been replaced with acrylic paints, water colours, crayons, colour pencils and much more. But the original aesthetic of sticking to two colours has largely remained unchanged. Maybe it is the simplicity of a dual coloured painting that makes it stand out amongst a crowd of crying colours. With the advent of these media, Warli painting has become an art form of more delicate linings and detailing, which was difficult to achieve with the minimum availability of fine resources in the earlier ages.

In today's day and age, while people don't paint their walls with Warli art any more, yet the art form has found its place in our lives! Warli paintings are used in making art pieces, DIY diary covers, home decor items, tea coasters, drapes, curtains, cushion covers and much more. This art form also acts as a great stress-buster, as it involves a lot of concentration and focus. So apart from being a release of creative energy, the art form has also evolved into a wellness tool!