First things first, DTIYS is short for Draw This In Your Style.

At this point, my Inspiration for artwork is myriad. Some days, it’s a found object on my walks, it’s a story about my childhood in India, other days it is quotes and words, a plant and fabric story or for this week, simply a prompt online that is posted by fellow creatives that kept me intrigued.

Pretty much, the entire community of artists I am surrounded by online is celebrating the world watercolor month in July! I still have a few hours to decide if I might jump in on that track, but let’s get to this story for now.

Incoming into my feed was the prompt of DTIYS or “Draw this in your style” for Jess Miller draws Instagram account. See below for snapshots of the challenge to play along! As you can see, the game was to play along and get going with painting this woman in sunglasses with a parrot.

And so, it struck me within seconds of seeking this post to draw an Indian bride…..lehenga, choli, parrot, long braid and all. I gave myself three or four nights to get cracking and I’m sharing some process videos that I managed to record each weeknight.

I made myself a quick DIY glass trace box out of a photo frame and shadow box I had in the studio that I picked three years ago at Michaels. HP (my husband) had ordered LED string lights for a project he was working on and I (cough!) borrowed it.

Then came a glass trace of my sketch to watercolor paper for the main piece.

The colors and inspiration board are part of my Pinterest collection in addition to mental imagery of what I wanted to bring to life. I paused quite a bit to dwell into the jewelery detail and promptly got distracted into the world of Sabyasachi jewelry! Do you blame me? Okay, back to the piece.

I will leave a slew of videos that showcase snapshots of the piece I was working with to share the process. Hopefully this will narrate a bit of the story and process.

This piece was a a time problem for me, and I am glad I took this up. I have been pondering very much about portraiture and have not shared much online but several attempts lie buried in the studio that may never see the light of the day.

But with this challenge out in the world, I am now getting more ideas for larger and slower pieces going forward. I share the finished product on the main gallery, but this one is a process story for some BTS (behind the scenes) action.

This piece was not meant to be perfect. I can pick on each aspect of it and tear it apart, and it would never have made it here….things like, I should have used a H pencil lead, I should have planned the braid better, etc. But I told myself, it is what it is, it is a studio piece and it pushed me out of the regular styles and subjects and now I have a little more confidence tackling editorial pieces in the future. And that this purpose of this piece and it has done its job, and with that I move along!

I hope you like the insight into this quick one. I am new to the process of recording while working. I do like watching other artists share their process too, it feels a bit personal to share that, but we are in the age of talking and acknowledging one’s design process rather than just see a before/after transformation, so here is mine!

Cheers!

Radha