Colour stories: Turquoise!

Have not written a colour post for a long time ..Not that one needs to make an excuse for Turquoise anyway.. It's one colour like pink, I absolutely love, but have not imagined dedicating entire walls to!- yet  :)

Today's post is about the colour, used in a mostly traditional, ethnic scheme.... 

Turquoise in all its shades- wether  an intense burst of blue or a softer and paler version- is so unique to the gem stone it derives its name from, that the stone and the particular shade of blue are now synonymous to each other...

Called Turquoise as it was thought to have originated from Turkey at first, the gem stone hails from the Alimersai Mountain in Persia (now in Iran). The best quality Turquoise to this date  is credited to the region.

The intense shades of turquoise have endeared it to many ancient cultures:  Ancient Egypt, Aztec, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley and China. Despite being an old gemstone, it was introduced to Europe via Turkey only with the silk road novelties and  not until the 14th century was it used commonly in jewellery. The stone was introduced in India only during the Mughal times and remained unknown to the far east until the 18th century..

The color to me, denotes a relaxed, fresh and contemporary feel ..  It goes well with a bunch of warm colours, reds, oranges, pinks and yellows,  and provides a fun visual pop against muted, earthy tones of natural materials- stone and wood. It also provides a lovely foil for ethnic objects like baskets, textiles and jewelry..

Every once in a while, I change up the accessories around the bedroom and more private 

spaces of the house to make way for the Turq :)

Hopefully  in some near future, I will gather the guts for an all turquoise wall .. until then, this will have to do ..!

All that Folk-Sholk

I have had in mind to post about folk art for  some time now. That kitschy, street, utilitarian brand of artifacts that are naive and endearing at the same time.  Before pop art, and kitsch crafts became such trends in the design world were these little hand made objects, appropriating the street and everyday so wonderfully.

Each little  object brings to mind a particular street side, a  mela  or a weekly market one picked them up from. Their rough crude finishes lending texture and fun to nooks. Of course it helps that most of these objects are readily available in a corner bazaar near the home, at dirt cheap prices..
Great ideas for shoe string decor and beyond.
Here are a few snippets from around the house:

Diwali

The festival of lights just went past. Hope you guys had a good one!

Happy  Diwali and a Happy New Year folks !

Diwali

Colour and lots of hand made fun this diwali

Quick post about Diwali prep at home. This year, we have tried to reuse things we have at home,  add more colour and have loads of fun  in anticipation of the day!

The kids having a go at painting the diyas, which are soaked, washed and primed with offwhite paint first.

For many years now, I have refused to throw my used earthen diyas away. Just so long as they  are not chipped and cracked, we wash dry and repaint them using bio-safe acrylics giving them a new lease of life.

This year, we are making story- stools to prop the Diyas on too. All manner of old chowkis and peedhas,  have been sanded down and painted in vibrant colours. Some featuring motifs and scenes from my kids favourite traditional Indian stories.

Painted and finished..together with a bunch of yellow and orange foot stools  to house them on.

The stools make bright little spots- ideal to brighten up the house for Diwali. These will get used in the house easily later, as tiny study desks,  table top accents, to store books and ofcourse just normal stools to sit on. 

Since they  can be painted over easily, the activity allows for maximum fun..something my kids too have had a liberal hand in. Unabashedly playing with paint, leaving the finer details from me to tweak later  ;).

The Bull from heaven.

The stool pictured above is based on a lively  Buddhist story chosen by my son.

 A word about the illustration: I  have based the drawing in good part on a drawing by illustrator Linda Edwards, from a children's book called ~Stories from India~ published by Usborne. 

Hope to comeback with yet another Diwali post, provided I can make the time to tend to the blog while so much is going on around.

Have a good one folks !

DIY: Recycled Bookbox

 Idle Sunday afternoon.

four pair of hands, 

One discarded wooden crate

paints- brushes

varnish

=

Recycled book case.

This one here based on Mumbai  is inspired by truck graphics and wall art.

Before and underway

The finished book box

Whew!
Hope you  guys enjoy this..
We did !!

Elements of the Goan home

An article appeared in the discover India section of online design and style magazine Prismma. 

Startling colours of an exterior wall and window from a Margao house. 

Dream like, yet elemental, Goan homes preside over a lush green paradise. The warm and humid climate blurs the distinction between indoors and the outdoors.  Shaping in response to the fecund tropical conditions and long years of colonial rule,   Goan domestic architecture is enriched by the European experience, yet rooted deeply in the local culture.

Ranging from simple mud houses, to grand mansions displaying an agglomeration of Mannerist, Baroque, Rococo, Neo-Classical and Neo-Gothic influences, Goan homes are a palimpsest of architectural styles and influences.

In home after home, one will encounter delightfully syncretic architecture and elaborate interiors that blend pre-existing Hindu and Maratha motifs with European styles introduced by the colonizing Portuguese in the 16^th Century.

The broad elements of Goan houses result form a mixture of Indian and Portuguese styles. Homes that are Portuguese in origin are usually two-storeyed and façade oriented. Whereas those of Indian origin are single-storeyed with a traditional courtyard based orientation.

Between the two also, there is wonderful mixing and marrying of ideas, resulting in nuanced, hybrid architecture that is both impressive and inspiring- for example the two-storeyed house in which the top story is functional while the ground floor is merely ornamental. It was Portuguese custom to segregate the lower storey of the house for the household staff and retainers.  Since in the Hindu home the servant quarters were typically located at the back of the house, this bottom storey became shorter, until it reduced to an ornamental high-platform in time,  adorned with decorative arches, pilasters and colonettes.

For a better understanding of the Goan eclectic idiom of house building one may firstly, look at ways in which the local population adopted styles and precedents set by the Portuguese. And secondly, the ways in which the local identity asserted itself in shaping and adapting the influences passed on by the colonial masters.

As they grew in power and rank within the Portuguese administration, the upper class Goan aristocrats sought to emulate and even surpass the grandeur of the residences of their Portuguese counterparts: The examples of this trend are many- The practice of building grand staircases in the entrance halls, many windowed facades- like at the Braganza home in Chandor- busts of classical Renaissance figures in the pediments of façade windows, grand dance halls as a focal point of the home.

In an assertion of the local Goan identity, the erection of a columned porch with seats built into its two sides, called bollcaum, also became commonplace in the 19^th century. In time the bollcaum was extended to include the façade of the entire house effectively screening it from rain and the hottest midday sun.  Where on the one hand the covered porch with built in seating confirmed to the Indian ideas of decorum, it did so by extending the house into the public space- adapting to ` open-minded’ western mores. It is an interesting vantage point to observe life go by the house, a feature used frequently by the lady of the house.

Other interesting and unique aspects of the houses one will encounter in the state are the use of locally available building material such as laterite stone in place of brick and lime plaster, which make for sturdy and durable structures.  Additionally, in many homes, readily available mother-of-pearl is used to line window shutters.

The window shutters are particularly enchanting. The shiny iridescent patina of the shell lends luminosity to the spaces that glass shutters – used to replace shell increasingly- are not able to replicate.

Something has to be said about the bright colouring and unabashed love for pigment here.  In the early days of Portuguese rule, only churches and other religious structures were permitted to use white to color their exteriors. The domestic residential structures automatically adopted bold and sensational colors subsequently achieved with the use of vegetable and natural dyes in the past.

A corridor linking two different parts of the house at the Braganza home in Chandor, which seamlessly introduces the outdoors into the house.

Baroque style staircase at the Braganza and Menezes family home in Chandor.

Hindu style Jaali motifs beautifying the exteriors of newer  bunglow style homes in Candolim.

House with a high-seat, Abade Faria Road, Margao

The  Bollocum.

Window shutters lined with pearlescent  capiz shells.

Colour Stories : Foyer

Posting an after picture of the foyer. Refer to a previously uploaded image here. Have a Happy Ganesh Chaturthi guys, may the elephant headed one shower his many blessings on you and your family.

Have a blissful and sunny, golden yellow Ganesh festival.. :)

It happens to be the darkest corner in the house..the yellow brightens it up, reflecting whatever little sunlight it gets in the late afternoon, to light up the space with a sweet spot of cheerfulness.

Lit up with candles in early evening

Colour Stories : Green....

While on the subject of colour, one looks at art for inspiration. And on the subject of art, I just have to mention Rothko! Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz was an American painter born in Russia. Among the greats of abstract expressionist, his work is a sublime example of stunning beauty that is achievable with pigment.

His famous rectangle paintings, are simple, yet deeply moving works. Blocks of colours, coexist on his canvases in a harmony of four sided shapes, rich in texture and luminosity. A lot of what I did in the house is inspired by the master.

This is a post about my green wall. The guest bedroom wall. I chose a dual toned wall, an almost chutney green textured with a very dark teal green.

Posting pictures of the different Rothko inspired permutations and combinations of wall and room colours.. Have mostly restricted pattern to minimum while playing in on texture in the space.

In terms of connotations and symbolism, green is an intriguing colour, denoting both the positive and negative, holy and unholy at the same time. Often times related with growth and fertility, it is also said to denote immaturity jealousy. Where in some religions like Islam it is the colour of purity and sacredness in others it is symbolic of the devil. For the materialistic, green is the colour of cash and abundance. Luckily the most popular association of the colour links it with nature.

..The idea appeals to me a lot. Green has long been my favourite colour.

Translating the colour into the space, restricted the colour pallet of the room to a select few colours complementary to the green family, which it self is a non subtractive colour- created by a mixture of yellow and blue.

Where the base of the soft-furnishings, I then use in the room are green or a more neutral beige, the accent colours vary from those in the same family or from the complementary spectrum...

Have to mumble a complaint here about paint companies and how misleading their catalogues are. We went through cycles of painting and repainting this one until I got something I was happy with. None of the variants resembled the sample colour provided on the Asian Paints catalogue at all however!.

Unfortunately none of the painters I worked with, or the paint companies knew how to do it. If anybody has an idea about how to achieve the look, do drop in a line. Will be much appreciated :) !

Colour Stories : Red post

Starting with a colour that dominates most of the living and entertaining areas in the house. We chose Red. It comes in all shades -right from the more somber, earthy maroon and terracotta to the most vivacious deep red. Is cheerful. Goes well with the dark, natural wood surfaces and textiles I was going to pair the walls with. Is very Indian- Think Wedding saree, think tilak, rangoli, sindoor, mauli- Above all because, most reds contrast wonderfully with Black -the other wall colour on my pallet for the area- so a no brainer really.

Here is the color pallet for the living dining and entertainment areas...

The red, in shades of terracotta and deep red are paired with charcoal black and soft white for the walls, and taupe on wooden surfaces like doors and windows.

Posting the final look below.

(above): view of the Living room from the foyer. The wall sports a terracotta red.

In the family room, which is used for watching television or casual entertaining, the colours are a brighter red and black..This is the area I chose to paint myself... three coats of absolute fun and zen, which is befitting, because the area itself has a very calming feel to it , inspite of the loud  red on the walls...  

The dining area offset against a terracotta wall, has a more formal- earthy look.

A red lacquer shoe cabinet contrasts  with a charcoal black wall at the entrance.

The Colour post...

India assaults the senses with colour texture, noise and smells. The surfeit of colour and brash celebration of kitsch is a revelation to those exposed to the country for the first time. I can sense that awe in the reaction of my kids to their new home. They are overwhelmed on a daily basis by the sights and sounds .. My little girls cannot get over their bangles, and shimmering kurtas, overdose of colour in the local markets, the splendorous sarees and clothing, loud colours of festivals -Holi, Diwali, Ganesha- brashly painted faces of the behrupias sometimes seen roaming streets....

For me, moving back to India was rediscovering the familiar. For the kids on the other hand, it has been about the creation of a brand new memory bank.. I see them fill it up with colour and language and experience each day. It is hard not to be taken by their wide eyed innocent excitement for the mundane.

Naturally, the house needed to have more colours as a reflection of the excitement..! Albeit still with a little restraint, for all the red and green and blue we have up on the walls, there is black, beige, taupe and plenty of white neutral space too.. all that marries our existing, Chinese, oriental and contemporary possessions into an Indian space.

Here's is a general colour palette used around the house..

Next up pictures of the finished product by colour... do come back !

1,2,3 : About Inspiration

Three quirky uses of pictures hurriedly taken with my phone camera. A word about inspiration, when one really looks , it is everywhere... Travelling, browsing through books, mags, wonderful blogs and sites online. Thing about ideas is that they strike when one is not even looking for them... quite pensive hectic days, driving through congested roads, shopping at local bazaars, peaceful contemplative moments, fragments of dreams and in recesses of long lost memories.

What inspires you? Where do you seek that initial spark of an idea? When does it strike? How do you keep in touch with an idea and utilise it when the moment arises...

Good thing that with a camera in the mobile phone, one is always ready to pin that flash down.. listing three quirky inspirations and how they got utilised around the house.

Taking a break from reading Charle's Correa's `A place in the shade' one quite afternoon. I noticed the graphic monochromatic pattern on the jacket against a red silk cushion. We had our wall!

Even attempted playing with the texture with the help of my painter bhau before painting it solid black :)

An arrangement on a coffee table inspired by the days adornments placed in a startling red ceramic dish on the bed side table.. ( Pic above: Silver plated platter from Goodearth, Lapis and coral Buddha heads from the Jade market in Kowloon, Hongkong, Burmese lacquer tray from Kinnari, Hong Kong)

Finally, window dressing and a jute lamp shade against a terracotta wall inspired by a familiar sight at local bazaars. (Pic Left: Lamp and shade from Contemporary arts and crafts, Mumbai)