Ganpati Bappa Morya !

9:11 AM

Ganesh Chaturthi has always been a loved festival at the Mhaskar household. We spend hours/days deciding a theme for decoration, buying materials, and executing the idea.

This year I decided to do an 'Enchanted Forest' theme.

The theme first came about when Sawani suggested making flowers from wire and stocking. She asked me to buy some materials from India while I was there in August.

As soon as I heard flowers, I visualized a dense forest type setting with lots of color, big flowers, and Ganpati sitting in the middle of it all.

(click on pictures to enlarge)

So here is my process and how it all came along:

I bought 2 decent sized foam boards for the backdrop and sketched out a basic jungle pattern on it.

I have a problem - I can't follow steps. I tend to jump from one thing to another to keep me interested. So I got tired of sketching and jumped to painting :D

I used acrylics to color my backdrop.

The challenge at this point was that the foam board has SUCH a glossy surface. So the paints needed 2-3 coats of each color to look nice and vibrant.

(Here is me being silly)

I kept going back and forth between sketching and adding more colors.

One thing I kept in mind was that I definitely wanted overlapping and intertwining of the leaves and branches to make it look dense and alive.

Once again, I jumped from painting to outlining my pencil lines. Ya know .. just to keep me interested :)

I started painting the background colors. As you can see, one coat of paint looked super ugly .. but I kept going. I had faith that if I stick it out and keep adding layers of paint, it will eventually look just like I envisioned it.

Next, me and mom started making petals and leaves out of wire and stocking/nylon fabric.

We cut pieces of wire, bent it to desired shape, and covered it with fabric to make a petal.

When put together, it was supposed to look like this -

Moving on, I wanted to create a bush sort of thing to surround Ganpati. So I grabbed some old newspapers, crumpled them to desired shape, slapped on some masking tape and covered it up with tissue (dipped in a mixture of glue and water).

This technique is called 'Paper mache' and is often used in craft projects for kids.

Once dry, I spray painted the newspaper to make it green. I meant for it to be a nice dark green .. but I bought cheap spray and it turned out to be a very pale green (not even close to what the cap indicated)

Coming back to the backdrop, I added a second/third coat to parts that needed it. Then I went back in with a thick black marker and defined the lines some more.

I played with the thickness of lines to create some depth.

(its all about the little details)

We moved our dining table to place and covered it up with pretty satin fabric. Then for the first time I placed my elements together to get a feel of what it would look like.

Before this I was only working on my visualization.

(Looks so basic right? .. but you gotta pull through)

I also went out shopping and got a couple of fake leaves and flowers to add to the decor.

One great thing I found were these fake grass mats that I could easily pull apart to decorate the newspaper bush.

So I gathered all my leaves and flowers and started arranging them on the 'bush'

(Ofcourse I went back and forth between the bush and the backdrop .. so I don't get bored .. what a beautiful mess no?)

I had also bought some colorful feathers from India so I threw them in there as well.

(added some of the flowers to my backdrop to make it 'pop')

(Also added the fake grass to cover up the ugly pale green)

The next step was to make holes in the backdrop so I could stick the lights through them.

Boy! What a task that was.

We added the lights, added the flowers and leaves, added a border to the table, got our spotlights ready .. and tada!

And this is how our beautiful Ganpati looked shining amidst his 'Enchanted Forest'

I would love to hear your comments and share with me what you think :)

Ganpati Bappa Morya!

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