Hello Everyone: I had an idea that I floated at this month's workshop, thoroughly inspired by Vaishali's "Carpet Pages IV" project---why don't we students try on the different roles of miniature painting apprentices, mailing the work to the next artist after each round? One of us can draw/trace an outline, the next person can gild, the next can color fill and burnish, then someone can work on pardakht, and then another person can do the final outline, and maybe another person can do the borders....and we can share the whole process here on the forum/instagram/wherever else we'd like! What do you all think? tagging people i know on here but this could be open to anyone who would like to join: @Alison Guest @Amélie Couvrat Desvergnes @Anastasia Doran @Ary Nassiri @Bonny W @Cécilia Duminuco @Dominique Fayad @Fatma Gadhoumi @Geeta @Genève @Karima Cammell @Mary Yaeger @Nadia Bouhdili @Pranav Prakash @rehana.sulaiman @safar04 @Sara @Sharmina Haq @Sheetle Shah @Yasmin Solomon If you like the idea, please reply with a picture you'd like us to apprentice on together. or perhaps we could get @Vaishali Prazmari to assign us one and make it a new course offering....
How about we replace the gun of the hunter with a sketchpad and brush?
@Dominique Fayad it was wonderful to see all the progress you have made with tracing so far. Do you want to post a picture of your current tracing and outstanding questions on the "track your progress" part of the forum? Thanks for all your hard work getting us started on this piece.
@Dominique Fayad hope we see you at our monthly miniature painting meeting (later today)!
Thank you Nadia for organizing!! This file is such a great idea :) Looking forward to starting our painting! I found a high resolution picture of our "Conference of the Birds" image, so I can start tracing :) Do we want to keep the exact same positioning of the painting on A4 paper to leave space for the gold sprinkles in the margins? or do we want to make the painting slightly bigger?
This is super, Nadia! We will have so much fun!!
Well done!
Ok, I've figured out a new configuation where we can sign up and leave our mailing address:
Travelling Apprenticeship Signup
@Sara @Mary Yaeger @Dominique Fayad @Nadia Bouhdili @Susan Dobrian @Anastasia Doran Please sign up in whichever section you think is best suited to your talents.
@Nadia Madden This is a brill and beautiful idea, and sorry to respond so late in the game. If you do it again in the future, I'd be interested in taking part, and perhaps more in the style of the current carpet page idea, where we try co-improvising a piece rather than copying one. Bravo for this beautiful initiative, I can't wait to see how it turns out.
That would be brilliant, Vaishali! Thanks!
That’s amazing! Thanks Vaishali! 🥰😍😘🥰😍
I’d happily oversee the whole thing if that would help (I’m quite swamped with painting myself now) and thanks again for all the brilliant ideas… I’m happy also to be a kind of central touchpoint if people have questions providing direction and support. I was thinking that after the general discussion/book club portion we could use some of the Monthly Miniature Meetings to have feedback on the process of this work? That way I could check in with you all on a monthly basis and see how it’s coming along and offer gentle guidance and keep track. If you’d like my help getting started with the creation process as well @Sara @Nadia Madden let me know.
Totally agree (again!!) with Sara!!
Thanks Vaishali 🧡♥️💗for all the postal tips & teaching / mentoring support, would you like to be part of the painting / creation process? I’d also happily paint The Conference of the Birds! 💖❤️♥️💗❤️
A4 size sounds best to post, yes @Dominique Fayad , that's what I've done for Carpet Pages IV: Flying Carpet. Also - recommend that you send via international signed and tracked and recorded delivery (ie the best services with tracking numbers).
Another idea: for mine, Carpet Pages will hold the finished painting until it's sold; you can assign someone eg starter @Nadia Madden or the last person to finish it and then sell it/donate it/give a portion to charity/make prints of it. If you make prints, then you'll all get a copy and then can also decide collectively what to do with the original. Very exciting!
And if you all work on it a little bit it won't actually take much of your time, you can do it in between other things (at least that was my idea anyway as people are so busy) - yes let me know how you'd like me to be involved!
Hi all, I think this is a BRILLIANT idea! I remember Nadia you wanted to do this yes, and be inspired by the traditional workshops of the past in a collaborative way. And your idea is sound because you're following the traditional methods of working and all working on the same image. My Carpet Pages IV: Flying Carpet is an exquisite corpse where nobody knows what the outcome will be, so that's exciting in a different way, and relies on the international postal service rather than being together in the same workshop, but there is also a history of painters collaborating remotely in the past, they'd work on eg. a canvas in Germany to do the background and send it to the Netherlands to a fellow painter to work on the figures or whatever. So there is actually historical precedent!
May I make a suggestion? It would be lovely - and a fittingly beautiful thing to arise from this forum - if you worked on the image of the Conference of the Birds that forms the backdrop for this, actually! I've got high res images I can share with you all. Let me know who's involved and I can send you all the files if/when you decide and are ready @Nadia Madden
How would you like me to help/how may I be of service? Do you want my superior organisational and marketing skills (I jest, naturally), plain old teaching, advice/mentoring...? You let me know!
Oh Wow! Dominique! they are all sooooo beautiful! 🥰🥰🥰 I’d be happy to paint any of them! ♥️❤️♥️ Thanks for posting them! 💙🙏💙
Hi everyone! Here are some ideas to get us started. It covers several themes (nature, architecture, animals), and some will be easier (the first 2, I think). I found the painting at the top of the discussion "Majnun on Layla's Camp" in high resolution if it ends up to be the one! I like it a lot too. The 4th one below "Marriage of Khosrow and Shirin" will also be challenging. But if a whole painting looks too overwhelming, we could also zoom on the part we like the most. And why not trying the last one below, the cover of the miniature forum! What do you all think?
(continuing on the next post... too heavy)
Hi Nadia. Wow! 🙈🙈🙈The travelling Apprentive image? All of it? Not just the man in the tent bottom left hand corner? 🤣😂🤣 the whole image?..... that does feel quite overwhelming! I’ve never tackled anything that complicated. I was thinking more like this? But I’m happy to give the Apprentice a go! As they say nothing ventured nothing gained! 🥳🎉🎈
Love all the ideas here! Let's start with one painting, and if it goes well we can certainly keep going! Here's what I've got so far:
Tracing: @Dominique Fayad
Gilding: @Mary Yaeger
Color Fill: @Nadia Madden
Pardakht: @Sara
Outlining/finishing: @Anastasia Doran
Geometry/borders: @Susan Dobrian
So we just need an image that we all want to work! let's get some suggestions going....I want to suggest the one at the top, although it has a LOT of detail, and we might want to put our geometer in earlier....
Count me in, Nadia! I think Sara's idea is fabulous (as are all her ideas!)
I love this idea, I think it sounds wonderful! I’d be absolutely delighted to be part of this!!! :) I feel most confident about finishing, and pardakht in paint or in ink (the things I’ve spent most time working on in the Faces Masterclasses, basically!) I’d be happy to be a finisher, if that’s alright with everyone. It would be great to work on something as a team in this way!
Hey Nadia & everyone else that wants to co- create Indian Miniature Paintings. I did have a little thought this morning....... if there is enough of us, we could all trace something & set up a postal order for the group & post in that order each of us to the same person in the group but they’d always be completing the next step of the painting ( which should always be a different one) until each painting is finished - so we’ve always got a little image to work on? Do you know what I mean? I hope I’ve explained it so it makes sense? Then we could all get to keep one or actually I don’t mind what we do with them. What do you all think? Big Love Sara ♥️💖❤️🧡💗
Hi Nadia and all! That's an amazing idea! Thanks for initiating it, I would love to be part of it :) You guys are all much more advanced than me in miniature painting so I would be totally happy doing the tracing. What are we making? I love the miniatures with the purple rocks with faces, and the Simurgh flying in the clouds. We could also make it completely our own by picking elements from different miniature paintings and creating a new composition. What do you think? Should we aim for an A4 size to make it easy to ship everywhere? That would be large enough to have some elements going out of the frame, if you like that too :) Looking forward to chatting with all of you! Have a great day! Dominique
I’m happy to give any of it a go though I’m delighted the colour fill is taken. 😉 you know how tricky I find that one!
Oh great! You’ve got so much skill… Maybe you would like to do the pardakht? I want to do the color fill, and @Mary Yaeger offered to gild so maybe all we need is someone to start us on tracing and a finisher. @Ary Nassiri ? @Susan Dobrian ?
Hi Nadia! 🙌🌺💖That’s a brilliant idea! 🎉🎈💗 I’d be up for that & the joy of working together with people in these mad, crazy times to produce something beautiful & sacred! Did you ever play that game as a child where someone would draw a head fold the paper, someone else would draw the body fold the paper, then the legs, fold again pass it on & then the feet pass it on to the next person who would unfold it and reveal what had been created! Often to much hilarity? I’m not saying our painting would be hilarious- though you never know! 😉🤣😂🤣 but it just reminds me of the collaboration & joy of that game I loved playing as a child. I love too that our collaboration will be winging its way around the world from continent to continent! I don’t mind what we paint but I would ask as a starter could we keep it simple? 🤔 well simple-ish! Or maybe not! Let’s just go for it! 💖💗🧡❤️♥️❤️🧡💗 Big Big L🧡Ve & TH🙏NKS for a fab idea Sara ♥️💗💗❤️🧡🌈