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Felt is a kind of cloth that is made without weaving fibers – it is simply made by pressing wool fibers together into sheets. Felt is very easy to model or mold into different shapes. Felt finger puppets are about as easy to make as paper finger puppets – the advantage being they are more durable. Using cloth gives you the opportunity to stitch hands, legs, ears, and tails (in case of animal finger puppets) onto your finger puppet. They definitely add more dimension to your finger puppet than can be achieved in paper finger puppets. Stitching also means you can experiment with embroidering details onto the puppet. So your finger puppet bunny can well be clad in a dinner jacket!

Crochet Finger Puppet Pattern

If you are such a crochet enthusiast that everybody in the family already has a sweater or a pair of gloves or a muffler knit by you and you are running out of things to knit, you could branch out into making crochet finger puppets! There are many interesting crochet finger puppet patterns that you can try out. The best thing about crochet finger puppets is that they won’t break or tear easily – like paper finger puppets may. Plus you can wash them and keep them clean – since they are made of wool anyway! Crochet finger puppets however need a little more practice and patience than paper and felt finger puppets. You first need to master the art of crochet and then try making crochet finger puppets.

Accessorizing Your Finger Puppet
1.Beads: Suitable beads in place of eyes can help you add a three-dimensional effect to the puppet and make it look more appealing and interesting. They can help you give a nerdy or geeky appearance to the puppet. You can even stick small glasses made out of wire onto the puppet to complete the look!
2.Wood: The body of your puppet can be made of wood if you’d like. However, that can make the puppet a little stiff! It will restrict movement. Instead you can have just a wooden face. It will help you create the perfect expressionless guy! You can draw droopy half-closed eyes on the puppet and make it the monotonous or sleepy guy! The key here is the fact that you cannot add too many details because it is a wooden face.
3.Spring or Wire: Small pieces of spring can be wrapped with wool to give your puppet noodle-hair! You can even use a bent wire to give your puppet dog a curved tail. Plastic wire pieces can add details like glasses to your puppet, as described earlier. Another interesting way to use spring in your finger puppet can be to make the entire puppet out of spring! Just wrap the spring around your finger and prop a head on top of the spring, and you can have a squiggly, bouncing finger puppet!

In the initial years of his career, M.F. Husain took up odd jobs like painting movie hoardings, landscape painting, and even designing and building toys. He was born with an extraordinary talent and creativity. He based his works on ideals that refuted old school of thought and broke the convention. He was a modernist and an active member of the Progressive Artists’ Group that believed in taking the less trodden paths in life and art. His spark as an artist was first seen when one of his paintings won him an award at the annual exhibition of the Bombay Art Society.

No one would have then believed that this hoarding painter would, one day, go on to become the highest paid painter in the country. No one would have imagined that his humble beginnings would take a magnanimous shape later in time, and that his artworks would be auctioned and sold for millions of dollars. But that happened.

MF was not only acclaimed as a painter but also recognized as a printmaker, photographer and filmmaker. Through the Eyes of a Painter, his first film made in 1967, won him a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. He also made Gaja Gamini, starring Madhuri Dixit, which didn’t do well at the box office, but did earn considerable critical acclaim. He also made Meenaksi: A tale of three cities. He was a movie aficionado, which is evident from accounts that state; he had watched some of the greatest hits of Hindi cinema multiple times. It was his fascination for films and for film actresses like Madhuri Dixit, which he does not shy away from accepting. His ‘love’ for Madhuri Dixit, he used to say, is the ‘love’ a son has for his mother. In her, he saw his mother…

He received the prestigious Padma Bhushan in 1973 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1991. He was given the Raja Ravi Verma Award by the Kerala Government. He was among the top 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World. He was happy and successful, but for the controversies that kept eclipsing his happiness, all his life. Continue reading »

In olden days, Juchizn was the term used for yodeling. This word holds different meanings like ‘it’s a boy’ and ‘it is dinner time’. Yodeling is basically a technique in which the singer alternates between natural tones and falsetto pitches. The technique of switching between chest voice and head is the core of yodeling. Head and chest voices are referred to as registers that produce sound. There is a point in the process of singing where chest and head voices overlap each other. Those vocalists capable of controlling their voice at this very point can master the technique of yodeling. One also has to have the ability to fluctuate his/her voice in order to yodel properly.

Different Forms of Yodeling
Although yodeling originated in the Swiss alps, it has spread to other parts of the world. Yodeling has blended very well with polyphonic singing of Pygmy people from Africa. It has also spread its roots in the African nation of Zimbabwe where yodeling is accompanied by the musical instrument, Mbira. Krimanchuli technique of the Georgian traditional music also makes use of yodeling. The Persian form of yodeling technique is known as tahrir. Yodeling can also be found in other traditions of the world along with those mentioned above. The Aborigines of Australia, natives of America and even the Chinese practice yodeling in some form or the other. Interestingly the North American tribes had developed their own technique of yodeling. It is therefore, argued that native American tribes practiced yodeling before the Europeans came to their land. Yodeling is often compared to the practice of scat singing of jazz music. In scat singing, the vocalist improvises over a particular syllable. You can learn how to yodel under the guidance of an expert. Continue reading »

Modern form of painting in Japan is different from the ancient ones in the sense that it originated in the post-war period (1945 onwards). Today’s art works draw inspiration from the traditional concepts and ideologies of Japan. However, artists from this country have also been able to give their works an international touch. The openness of Japanese society in accepting and assimilating ideas from the West is one of the main reasons behind their art works becoming popular on the international scene.

Painting
The material used for painting in Japan is primarily silk and paper. Acrylic colors is the commonly used medium for painting. The modern form of painting in Japan (till the end of 60s decade) was more inclined towards creation of abstract art. Western style of painting had a great impact on modern art in Japan, which is why abstract concepts were often found in the works of Japanese artists. Anime culture is another important factor that influenced the evolution of modern art in Japan. The art of calligraphy in Japan draws inspiration from the Zen Buddhist philosophy; this art is referred to as Shodou. Making corrections to brush strokes is not allowed in this form of calligraphy. Instead of forcibly making the strokes, one should just allow them to flow.

Crafts
The art of making paper crafts through origami technique originated in Japan and it has gained popularity the world over. The simple idea used in the art of Origami is that of transforming a piece of paper into a desired shape by folding it. Paper is never cut or glued in the process of creating origami art works. Some of the important types of origami are modular origami, action origami, wet-folding, kirigami and pureland origami.

Sculpture
The modern Japanese sculpture is influenced by Buddhist concepts as well as Western philosophy. By the end of 70s decade, formalism was more of a neglected concept in Japan. The 70s and 80s decade witnessed a lot of experimentation in the creation of sculptures. Formalism gained importance once again. The artists focused more on reality, rather than dabbling into abstract works. The influence of Western art reduced in this period and the sculptors turned towards indigenous philosophies without looking for any external source of inspiration. It is however, important to note that the art works created during this period did not turn into Japanese stereotypes. In fact, these art works were appreciated internationally for their originality. Continue reading »

Dickens delineates Miss Havisham and her environment in memorably vivid prose. She is described as ‘withered’ and of ‘skin and bone’; her clothing, although of rich materials, has now faded. Pip likens the woman to a waxwork he was once taken to see at a fair, and also a skeleton he once saw which had been dug out of a vault: “Now, wax-work and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me” (1, 8, p.57). Although Miss Havisham comes across as distinctly otherworldly, perhaps more suited to the dark melodrama of Gothic narrative, or possibly even fairy tale, it has been put forward that Dickens drew on real-life for the creation of his famous spinster.

A number of originals have been suggested as the inspiration for Miss Havisham over the years, although Dickensian scholarship has yet to settle on one specific individual as being the sole source. It is possible that Dickens may have based his spinster on an amalgam of real-life counterparts.

One of the most prominent is Eliza Emily Donnithorne (1827-1886), an Australian woman whose life does bear telling similarities with that of Miss Havisham. Eliza was engaged to be married to a shipping clerk called George Cuthbertson, who jilted her at the altar in 1846. Since that day, she never left her vast estate and became the focus of much local curiosity. Some consider the resemblances between Eliza and Miss Havisham’s lives as purely coincidental, yet others have advanced scenarios in which Dickens could have been familiar with her story. Perhaps the most credible is that he read about her in the press, as he didn’t visit Australia himself.

Scholars have also advanced another prototype for Miss Havisham, a British woman called Elizabeth Parker, who lived at Chetwynd House in Newport, Shropshire. It has been put forward that whilst staying at a nearby hotel in Newport, Dickens was inspired by Elizabeth’s reclusive nature in his creation of Miss Havisham.

A man who used to live in Cleadon, a village in the North East of England, is another model for Miss Havisham. As with Donnithorne and Parker, he was also forsaken on his wedding day and ordered the clocks to be stopped, although only for the duration of the year after he was stood-up. Dickens stayed in Cleadon House which some assert is a prototype for Satis House, although Dickens’ biographer John Forster affirms that Miss Havisham’s estate was modelled on Restoration House, a building in Rochester, Kent. Continue reading »