Crafter in the Spotlight

Hello Arty-Crafty Folks,

It’s Thursday evening once again, time for us to meet and hear the story of another ‘Crafter in the Spotlight’. This week we’ll hear it from Nupur Nigam, who is an engineer by education but an artist at heart!

Nupur’s love for art goes a long way to her childhood. She is more into art but crafting endeavors also fascinate her. She likes working with paper and clay the most and her latest interest is decoupaging. Itsy Bitsy is an integral part of her creative passion and she is a regular visitor to Itsy Bitsy stores.

How did Nupur get into crafting, what inspires her, what are her tips for fellow crafters, her favourite quote, how would she contribute to the crafting world if she had magical powers? Read answers to all these questions, discover more about her interesting journey and catch a glimpse of a step by step project by Nupur in this interview. Don’t forget to leave your comments for her.

Rashmi Closepet, MD, Itsy Bitsy: Tell us a bit about yourself & your background?

Nupur Nigam: I am an engineer by education, techie by profession but an artist at heart. I did my B.Tech from NIT Raipur followed by Executive Management from IIM Lucknow. I have been involved in creative arts and crafts since the age of 5. Professionally, I have been working for the past 8 years mostly in the IT industry. Out of these 8 years, I took a break for 2 years for setting up and running my own art based company which is still functional and very close to my heart.

RC:  How did you get into crafting?

NN: My first introduction to formal art and learning was purely accidental. My parents put me into a dance school when I was 5 and I was so bad that I got kicked out on the second day. Then as a backup option, I joined a painting class and from then on it was my life. I would spend hours in the class or at home painting and crafting and continue to do so even today….

RC:    What is your favorite type of craft?

NN: While painting is my first love, I do enjoy crafting, especially with clay and paper. I am a big believer of recycling and most of my craft works fall in the category of ‘best out of waste’. I have recently got introduced to the world of decoupage and am loving that as well! I try to mix these crafting techniques with my painting skills to get the best of both.

RC: What are your favorite products at Itsy Bitsy?

NN: Itsy Bitsy is a big part of my art world. I am absolutely in love with Little Birdie Chalk paints and use them for all my mural works. Monte Marte products like their colors (water/acrylic/oil), canvas and water color book, and professional easel are my other favorites. Apart from these, I regularly keep visiting the store for new designs of decoupage napkins, pattern papers, stencils and various glues.

RC: If you had magical powers, how would you contribute to the crafting world?

NN: I would make crafting materials accessible and available for everyone and remove the fear of art from people’s mind.

RC: Your prized possession in your craft stash from Itsy Bitsy?

NN: My Monte Marte professional table easel. It is compact and extremely well designed with very high utility. It helps me make art and craft everywhere.

RC: How would you describe your style of crafting?

NN:In one word, I would describe my style as utilitarian. I try to make my craft items multi-functional so that they serve some purpose in addition to being a decorative item. In painting, I don’t have any specific choice and I work across mediums/ colors and themes while in craft, I prefer to use clay and paper.

RC: How do you organize your time for crafting?

NN: It’s the other way around. I organize my other activities around my art. On a serious note, I jump onto making craft projects whenever I get any free time be it 10 minutes or a few hours. But mostly it’s the weekends and evenings after coming from office when I get onto my art and craft work.

RC: Tips for people who want to craft.

NN: My sincere advice would be to stop fearing art and just start doing it. Just like any other thing, you will improve with practice. And trust me when I say this, once you are into arts it becomes like meditation and you will love the results as well as the process of making art.

RC: Your all time favorite quote?

NN: Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time – by Thomas Merton.

Here is a gorgeous project by  Nupur Nigam  & the step by step procedure:

Here I go for my painting…. the things I used are:

1) Mont Marte watercolor Book (trust me I have used loads of watercolor sheets and in the range on 170-200 gsm nothing is comparable to this)

2) Mont Marte watercolors ( I prefer watercolor which comes in tube. Simple reason for this is, it maintain the natural brightness of colors. )

3) Few brushes like 6 no. round brush, 2 no. round brush, 1 no. round brush, 00 no. round brush and a liner brush.

4) Pencil, eraser, masking tape, water in two different cups and few tissue papers.

5) And of-course my Mont Marte professional series easel with drawer ( you could even see in the picture below how easy it is to manage the things with this easel.. ?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colors I will be using for this painting are:

  • Sap green
  • Black
  • Prussian Blue
  • Violet
  • Lemon yellow
  • Burnt Umber
  • Yellow Ochre

Lets get started…..I first prefer to seal my art work with masking tape, be it a big or small, and then draw the outline roughly. For drawing I usually prefer 2B pencil but here I have used a HB pencil considering 2B are very light.

I usually do the base coat and the second coat together (when doing the watercolor…well its in water color only you can take this advantage.. ?) I used 6 no. and 2 no round brushes for this.After the previous coat is dry,  it doesn’t take much time to make the veins for edges ( here I am not trying to make the photo effect so deliberately wanted to give the sharp edges and hence didn’t mix the color in the border and veins (for this I used 1 no. ,00 no. and a liner brush).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are a couple of  Nupur’s other awesome creations:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many congrats  Nupur  for being the CRAFTER IN THE SPOTLIGHT – ITSY BITSY !!

 

 

 

 

You will receive Rs.500/- Itsy Bitsy gift voucher ?? & a Crafter in the Spotlight badge, which can be proudly displayed on the side bar of your blog and other platforms. Looking forward to many more creations, Happy Crafting!

 

 

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