THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Turn anywhere in Veena Jacob’s home and you will encounter fragments of a centuries-old French artwork. Mundane household articles like candles, soap, footstools, coasters and vases have an exotic charm, having earned a fresh spin. They have all been ‘decoupaged’, an art that originated in France in the 17th century!
There are wooden scraps, clay pots and bottles are crammed into the nooks of Veena’s house. Also stacked up are cute crockery, fridge magnets and articles she has sourced over the course of years, including magazine cuttings.
These are all the raw materials out of which Veena creates her lovely art using the decoupage technique which involves decorating an article by gluing paper cutouts.
An old wooden table has edged its way into the living room. That is set to be her next canvas. For Veena, decoupaging is a passion. “Decoupage has caught the fancy of many across the globe. It involves cutting out pictures, pasting them onto surfaces and creating a work of art,” says Veena. “But it is not as simple as it sounds.”
This young entrepreneur took to decoupaging eight years back. When she first discovered the artwork, it was during a pre-YouTube tutorial time. All she had to go on were articles in foreign languages which had to be translated into English.
“I learned decoupaging online through the articles. Then when I quit my job, I immersed myself in this,” says Veena worked earlier as an engineer for a US-based company.
She recalls how she would go scouring through her parents’ home or exhibitions on the lookout for cute pieces to craft and paper cutouts. Anything that caught her fancy would be cut out and worked upon. “I used to earlier take cut-outs from magazines. My husband’s copies of ‘Young Scientist’ used to have very quirky and interesting images. I also remember taking some pages from old dictionaries. The vintage feel they evoked added much beauty to the surface on which they were worked upon,” she says. Her daughter’s toys were also not spared.
She even used to collect scraps; rusty and worn out pieces were revamped into beautiful works of art. Bags of ‘junk’ remain stacked in her home.
“There is no limit to the possibilities of this art. You can turn anything into an artwork. And mostly you can reuse old items. I also learned the technique of removing rust from articles for this,” she adds.
When she started selling the items, she used brand new pieces to do the decoupage on. “When you sell an item, you have to take into account several aspects. The pieces have to be new. It sort of limits you,” she says.
Veena says anyone can try their hand at decoupage, but it is labour intensive. “You have to be creatively inclined to get the composition right,” she says. That is clearly visible in her pieces.
Creating a decoupage work involves making the surface of the article smooth and applying several coats of a primer. Then the image or cutouts are stuck using a glue. Layers of varnish are applied over it for days.
“It takes around one week to get the finished product. Now you get decoupage paper and rice paper which can be stuck onto the articles. They are very thin materials and cutting them out is very difficult. You can mix and match cutouts and paint to get the background right,” says Veena who experiments with different techniques.
Decoupage can be done on any surface, including wooden and metal articles, or canvas and even plastic.
“The shapes of the articles are also very important. Curved articles enhance the beauty of the artwork,” she adds.
“More than decor, I am now working on utilitarian articles.” So you have beautifully crafted coasters, candles, glassware, vases and kitchen notes, bedecked in floral motifs. She has also crafted out art by decoupaging on even blown out eggshells and soaps.
She has next set her sights on 3D decoupaging. “We use clay for that. It is something I intend to experiment upon apart from decoupaging on furniture. And the high point is that you can customise it as you want it,” she says.