Pretatoes anyone?

June 8, 2010 at 7:59 pm (Submissions to Artsy Craftsy)
Tags: May Challenge

I had opted for Kannada as my second language in school and college. Though initially I had absolutely resented to learning this language, I grew up to love it especially since I had two wonderful lecturers who made the subject so enjoyable. One lecturer helped me with the grammar in pre-degree and the other lecturer helped me understand the romance in the language. She helped us enjoy Kannada literature, she would transform the whole classroom with her wonderful descriptions and really take us back in time. I can still remember her actions, her eyes emoting the text, her voice ebbing and flowing like a beautiful river. As you can say, I LOVED her class.   Both the teachers, in their own way taught us the rich grammar  in Kannada and the art of splitting Sandhis(meaning in the first paragraph of this link).

So why am I telling you all this?  I’m getting to it.. remember patience pays!!!

When Shruti announced this month’s challenge, I was not very enthusiastic. I am not a stamping person 🙂 and the last time I learnt it from Miss A my art teacher, I had not enjoyed it much.  This time, I kept thinking what ideas I could use to stamp, then decided to go the most simple way. I cut some flower patterns on a potato and poured a couple of colours(orange, yellow and white mostly)  into my palette, in concentric circles. Then to keep Na occupied, I asked her to start stamping away.  She loved stamping the flowers on a sheet of paper.  Looking at her having so much fun, I decided to make cards for all her friends at school and put them in the end of the year gifts that I was giving to the friends.  Since I was giving these away to others and also since I sat up quite late and did it, Na did not make these cards. The sheet of paper that she did stamp on, was torn to bits by Rad, which left a very upset Na and an even more upset amma, since I really wanted to share her art on this blog! Oh well, next time!  

I made 16 cards and put them in the goody bags for each child along with a book and little kinckknacks. Inside the card was a small poem that I wrote. The  Director of the school loved the card and said that the flowers were very pretty. This gave me the idea to call these flowers the “PRETATOES” = Pretty + potatoes 🙂 , following the Sandhi principle.. (I can hear a lot of you going phew!!!)

Below is the poem I wrote –

A year of frolic, a year of fun

A year of playing in the snow, rain and sun!

A year of sharing, a year of caring

A year we graduated to listening from just hearing!

A year of celebrations, a year of festive occasions

A year that brought to light some of our passions!

A year of learning, a year of playing pretend

A wonderful year that went by, isn’t it my friend?

A year that started off with tears

Has given me memories to last many years

So thank you <child’s name> my friend

Here’s to friendship, all boundries does it transcend!!

Couple of pictures of the cards

  The stamps

A view of all the cards

 

Some closeups

And we come to the end!

Tata!

PS – Well! What do you know! Apparently, H has saved up one paper, or rather Na had put one part of her painting on his desk(in the sacred office room that we have been barred from entering) and he did not throw it away…!  Just found it after he came home!!! Yay!! Below is the one that she stamped on and I put the branches 🙂