BENGALURU: Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, they say. That is definitely true in the case of Madhuri Umashankar, a visual artist who often uses cork and eggshells as canvas for her artworks. The city resident is now holding an online workshop where others too can learn how to create art from waste. “The idea came to me during the lockdown. The bottom of an egg happened to break off in a way that left the top perfectly intact. When I started painting it, I realised they actually make good home decor,” says the former marketing professional, who moved to the city a year ago from Melbourne.
The one-and-a-half-hour-long event, held in association with Dialogues, will be on how to paint an expression onto eggshells. “It’s a ‘paint and sip’ event, so people can indulge in wine, beer or whatever their choice of poison is, as we create the eggheads,” says Umashankar, who says the creations lend themselves well to home decor.
“I have fixed mine onto two small wine glasses. But people can also crumple brown paper to make it resemble a nest. They can place these eggs with different expressions on them and place it on a shelf. There’s a lot of scope for creativity,” she adds.
Previously, Umashankar, who goes by @madsterdrama on Instagram, has also dabbled with coffee art, painting with wine, glow in the dark paints and tea. “Changing things around is what keeps me going and prevents things from getting monotonous,” she says. It also helped her during the lockdown.
“Earlier, watching a series was something we did at the end of the workday. Doing it all the time takes away the novelty. Art helped me, I’m not sure what I would do without it.”The event will be held on Google Meet at 7.30pm on Sept. 18. Details on dialogues.space