Madhubani painting on book cover

I am fond of Indian folk/traditional style of painting..  Madhubani or Mithila painting portrays nature or hindu religious themes... One of the popular design is the tree of life.. A tree blossoming with beautiful flowers and leaves of all shapes and sizes and some birds.. thus representing life, nature,happiness and hope.

Well..It all started when I saw my almost 2 year old sketch book cum diary lying there all plain and drab.Many ideas came to my mind as to what to do to give it a remake.. to jazz it up..Do you have a old book lying at the bottom of  your cupboard in dire need of remake..well let's pimp it up!! All you need is a design to paint and some colors...I used acrylics, water colors, permanent marker and a black pen for outline. 

This is how I made it .. Sketched the design with pencil. Filled it with colors..To give it a dimensional look.. I used thick acrylics for some flowers, leaves and branches to make it look kind-of raised from the background. Some flowers I painted with watercolors.. giving them a softer look. Used marker to highlight some parts and outlined it with black pen.

And Viola!!! There its done!! A revamped book which I no longer have to hid inside the drawers!!

Joining Metamorphosis Monday and Weekend wrapup !!