A few months ago, I took an amazing trip to a friend's wedding, near Jaipur, in India (I recounted the wedding itself in this post). Of course, once I arrived in such an exciting, long-dreamt of location, I couldn't just head right home - I had to explore! I find bright colors and interesting textiles incredibly inspirational, and my entire trip was a continual jolt of creative stimuli. I traveled around the 'golden triangle' - a popular tourist route, through Jaipur, Ranthambore National Park, Agra, and back to Delhi - and this route is classic for a reason. It gave an amazing introduction into a huge, complex and fascinating country.

I was also lucky to be in India during the festival of Holi, a spring festival famous for vibrant colors and joyful celebration. We played Holi with the classic fluorescent powders in Jaipur, and it was a unique, lovely day.

We also arranged for exfoliating scrubs that night at our hotel so we got squeaky clean after all that playing with powder.

After we washed off the awesome rainbow that was Holi, we set out to explore Jaipur. Jaipur is known as the 'pink city' although the color of all of the gorgeous historic buildings is a bit more salmon-hued, in my humble opinion, but no less beautiful for being a slight misnomer.

In addition to the incredible architectural detail that graced every corner, Jaipur is famous for its textiles and jewels. I was lucky enough to learn about about how they make the classic block print pattern, and I even got to try my hand at it. [Not pictured: all of the textiles and clothing I purchased and brought back with me! We did a lot of research so that we made sure to shop in places with fair business practices that pay their artisans proper wages. I also learned that due to the nature of block printing, slight overlaps in the blocks that show in the reprinting can actually be desirable, as it shows that something is actually blocked out by hand. I had a number of pieces made just for me, using textiles and saris that I fell in love with, and every piece is so colorful and distinct.]

Of course, I was also inspired a bit more directly by some of the sights in India - since I paint animals, I couldn't resist depicting a few of India's goofiest and well-dressed camels.

This is just one of the animals I was lucky enough to depict from my own photographs!

I hope you enjoyed this peek into my adventures in Jaipur and the creativity they inspired; may the colors, shapes and patterns of the photos in turn spark some of your own creative thoughts!

Lauren // Wandering Laur Fine Art