Lakshmi raave maa intiki

Varalakshmi vratham is one of the important festivals down South of India. Infact it is first one in list of festivals that goes on till the year end. Usually a pot rice is kept with coconut and mango leaves and face of goddess Lakshmi is drawn on it. Also silver cast of goddess (usually pass down generations) is tied to the pot.

My earliest memories of the pooja is my mom drawing face on bronze pot which is smeared with rice paste to provide canvas. My mom was very good at it.
So I decided to start the blog with my attempt of goddess Varalakshmi

I embossed the corners with a stamp and Stampendous aged gold embossing powder. I stenciled the damask stencil using Itsybitsy texture paste. It is like sand paste and adds nice texture . I also added Finnabair black white sand to the edges.

Once the corners were done I painted the page went with paints from Golden and PaperArtsy. The edges were painted dark with Burnt Umber and Burnt Sienna while keeping the center light. Once background was painted I stenciled multiple layers with various stencils from CrafTangles and CraftersWorkshop.

The entire piece was then coated with dirty glaze (as Gwen Lafleur calls it). It is three parts matte medium with one part of micaceous iron oxide, van dyke brown and iridescent gold. I set it to dry and started working on my focal point.

The innermost mandala was created on parchment paperby applying 3D Matte gel (mixed with bronze paint) through CrafTangles stencil.The other mandala was stenciled on the background with iridescent gold.I printed Varalakshmi on tissue paper, colored and decorated it with sequins and liquid pearls.

The golden halo was created using embossed skin. I created it by applying VersaMark on non stick craft sheet. Since my stencil was intricate I applied layers of clear embossing powder to form a base and then stenciled the image and embossed it. The skin was peeled,cut and applied using matte medium. It looks like mica flakes and is pretty gorgeous.

The beads and glass glitter were added around the mandala. I added depth by using Derwent Inktense pencils around goddess and mandalas.

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