Madhubani Birds on Postcards: My Fine liners Met a Stack of Cardstock
Sometimes an artwork begins with a grand idea. And sometimes, it begins with a pile of postcard-sized cardstock sitting on the table and a few Postcrossing addresses waiting to be sent. This one began with the latter and Madhubani birds on my mind.
I had a few postcards to send out for my Postcrossing addresses. I already had a pile of cardstock cut to postcard size, so instead of leaving them plain, I decided to draw on them.
Out came my favourite fineliner pens.
And, naturally, Madhubani happened.
Three birds, three little compositions
I started sketching the Madhubani birds in the familiar Mithila style that I enjoy so much, filling the forms with lines, dots, patterns and little details.
The birds themselves were quite simple. But then I began working on the borders. That is where things got interesting.
As I concentrated more and more on the border around each postcard, the space inside the rectangle became smaller. And when there was less room for the bird, the bird had to become smaller too! So one of the Madhubani birds ended up looking rather compact and almost “stuffed” with patterns.
I didn’t mind. In fact, I quite enjoyed seeing how the available space changed the way I drew. It is something I keep discovering in folk art. A border is not merely a decorative frame around a picture. It can actually influence the entire composition inside it.
Why did I leave them in black and white?
I could have coloured these Madhubani birds. But I deliberately didn’t.
There is something very satisfying about a fine black line on white paper, especially when there are so many little patterns to discover.
The fineliner itself does all the work. The dots, the tiny curves, the cross-hatching and the repeated motifs slowly build up the character of each bird.
And perhaps because these were going to become postcards, I wanted them to retain that simple, hand-drawn quality. They were not meant to be elaborate paintings.
They were little pieces of my art desk travelling out into the world.
From my desk to somewhere in the world
That is probably what I like most about these postcards.
I made them for a very ordinary reason that I had postcards to send. But once the birds were drawn, they became something more. Someone, somewhere, would receive a little handmade piece of my day. That is one of the things I love about Postcrossing. A postcard doesn’t have to be a precious work of art. It can simply carry a little bit of the person who sent it.
And these three birds certainly carry a little bit of me.
They also reminded me, once again, that I don’t always need a large canvas or a complicated project to enjoy making art.
Sometimes a small rectangle of cardstock and a favourite fineliner are quite enough. These are index cards and I found them to be in the size of a postcard. I thought, why not give it a try on these index cards! Of course, they were too small for Madhubani birds art.
And if I get carried away with the border? Well, the bird simply has to squeeze in! And they did! 😊
These Madhubani-inspired postcards were drawn by me using fineliner pens on postcard-sized cardstock. They are part of my continuing experiments with Indian folk-art-inspired drawing from my art desk.
The cardstock and fineliner pens I use for these little drawings are among the simple supplies I keep returning to at my art desk. I have listed some of my favourites here.
