Ganesha Sculpture 2024

This is my 7th year of Ganapati Sculpture creation for Ganesh festival. 

This is made from eco friendly clay. 

It took me 2 days to create the sculpture. Then it needs about 10 days to dry. Once the idol is dry, I paint it using tempera washable paints. Nowadays there are fluorescent and colors with glitter available in tempera paints as well. So the idol turns out to be very attractive. The highlight of my Ganapati this year is the Himachali topi instead of the regular crown. That came about last minute thing during sculpting process, I had not planned it :)  The painting itself took me 2 days to complete. 

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Ganapati, 9 inches tall, Air dry Clay

PK_24_006

Not for sale

Ganapati, 9 inches tall, Air dry Clay

Ganapati, Joy of creation!!

Ganesha Sculpture 2023

Completed Sept 16, 2023

As per my yearly tradition, I make my own Ganesha Sculpture for Ganesh Chaturthi. But this year I did not have much time. So I decided to do it very simple. My inspiration was Moreshwar - one of the Ashtavinayak Ganapati. Read more about Ashtavinayak here.

I tried the Mooshak (mouse) a little more detailed than the prior years. I think I like how it came out..

During this time Ganesha stays with us for 10 days. Everyday we light diya and pray in the evening.

When the 10 days stay is complete, we do visarjan - i.e immerse the idol in water. Since this idol is made with eco friendly clay and non toxic tempera paints, it completely dissolves in water overnight. 

We then pour all the water in the plants in our backyard. 

Next year I make a new idol and the cycle continues...

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Ganesha Sculpture 2023, about 7 inches height

Ganesha Sculpture 2021

Completed on 9/4/2021

As per my yearly tradition, I make my own Ganesha Sculpture for Ganesh Chaturthi. 

During this time Ganesha stays with us for 10 days. Everyday we light diya and pray in the evening.

When the 10 days stay is complete, we do visarjan - i.e immerse the idol in water. Since this idol is made with eco friendly clay and non toxic tempera paints, it completely dissolves in water overnight. 
We then pour all the water in the plants in our backyard. 

Next year I make a new idol and the cycle continues...

click on image to view larger

Ganesha Sculpture 2021 in the making. Made from Air dry clay

Ganesha Sculpture 2021, about 8.5 inches tall

Code# PK_21_006

Ganesha Sculpture 2020

Ganesha Sculpture 2020 - Created 9/6/2020

This is my yearly project using Air Dry Clay. Its called MCW and I bought it from Aardvark Clay & Supplies. I create a Ganesha Clay Sculpture for Ganesh Chaturthi (Ganesh Festival). It is a 10 day festival celebration at my home. With great enthusiasm I create this sculpture and decorate it. This is my 4th time making the sculpture, otherwise I used to buy it. 

I paint it using simple washable, non toxic Tempera paints. This makes it eco friendly. After the festival is over, the sculpture is immersed in water. It completely dissolves and I spread the clay in our garden.

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Ganesha 2020 - In the making and the clay was still wet - size about 9 inches

Ganesha 2020 - Painted and decorated - size about 9 inches

Not for Sale

Find Original Oil Paintings, Original Watercolor Paintings, Fine art Prints and more on my Etsy Website here: 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/preranap

Ganesha Sculpture 2019 - Painted

I realized that I have not updated my blog since last Aug.. Just have been busy and neglected to post updates.
Here is the painted Ganesha Sculpture. I loved it and the decorations were perfect.
For the next time, (which is this year 2020) I will try to do a different pose and also do detailing on the hands with fingers.

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Ganesha idol, about 8 in height. - NFS

Ganesha Sculpture 2019

Yes, this year again for Ganesh Chaturthi I have created an eco friendly Ganesha idol. Below is a picture of the idol when it was still wet. I am waiting for it to dry now. Typically I would wait for 10 days or so, before staring to paint.
I was in a bit of time crunch, so I did not sculpt individual fingers. But I am really happy with the Head and Trunk this time. I also tried to sculpt realistic eyes. Lets see after painting how it all looks.
For painting I will be using washable colors that are non toxic as well.

Our Ganapati Bappa 2019 - approx 8 inches height, air dry clay

Remover of Obstacles

I was getting in the mood of creating Ganesha Sculpture for the upcoming Ganesha Festival. Casually browsing through Pixabay, I thought of searching keyword "Ganesha". To my surprise, I found a real good image of a Ganesha Sculpture. I could not resist painting it, even though I knew I would be delaying other projects that I should finish... I did crop the original image to just do the head and see if I could get the texture of the stone that I desired in the painting. I am very happy with the results. I will be doing a larger one for sure! Another challenge I overcame in this painting was to get subtle color variations. I just love how this came out!

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Remover Of Obstacles, 8x10 inches, Watercolor on 140lbs Coldpress Arches Paper

Code# PK_19_007

SOLD

Ganesha Sculpture

This year I did check one more of my long time bucket list item and I am so very happy!! I always wanted to make my own eco friendly Ganesha for Ganesh Chaturthi and then be able to do visarjan. I feel so accomplished that I was able to do it this year. Now every year I would like to continue this newly set goal for myself and hope to get better in this craft!
The most challenging for me was the head, which I was not quite satisfied with in the finished piece. Also for painting, I used washable tempera paints, so that they could dissolve toxin free in water during visarjan. I realized, that the pigment in these paints is not quite strong and I had to paint over and over to get the desired effect. Specially the Green... on the shawl, so so hard to get that..
The best color was blue base, and the red color was really good as well. But in my new experiment next year, I will use fluorescent tempera paints and that way I think I will be able to get brighter colors.
See my results of this year's experiment below and the final installation.

Ganesha Sculpture using Air Dry Clay, about 9.5 in tall and 8 in wide

I posted the video of closeups on my FB page, see it: Click Here to see close up Video of Ganesha

I let is dry for 2 weeks and then painted it as below:

Ganesha Sculpture using Air Dry Clay, about 9.5 in tall and 8 in wide

This fit perfectly in our setup !!

My First Sculpture - Ganesha

In my trip to India, I was looking to spend a weekend with plein air artists. Looking or a group, I stumbled upon a clay sculpting workshop by Milind Marathe in Pune. It was perfect timing, I always wanted to make my own Ganapati during the Ganesh Chaturthi. My wish came true and I was able to learn, below is the picture of my sculpture. It is made from air dry clay and using very basic sculpting tools. No mold used here, all the shapes made by hand!
Next year for sure I will be making my own Ganesha to see how it comes out...
July 29th-30th Ganesha Sculpting workshop

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Ganesha, air dry clay, 8 inches approx