Punya Ramesh and Pooja Ramesh took up bottle art as a time pass activity during lockdown in 2020, but now they are turning large numbers of discarded glass bottles into work of arts generating an income of Rs 250 to Rs 500 from each bottle.
Both Punya and Pooja, twin daughters of Ramesh O N and Radhika Ramesh of Mulavoor in Muvattupuzha in Kerala, have won an entry in India Book of Records for upcycling glass bottles, which usually end up as trash in landfills, into treasures for people to hold as memories and decor in homes.
Punya and Pooja, who are studying in nineth standard, started bottle art without any formal training. “We haven’t learned drawing or painting. Our father bought us acrylic paint during the lockdown and we started trying our hands at it. We gradually enjoyed it and learned how to draw portraits of people on the glass bottles,” Punya Ramesh told “Open Digest”.
The girls initially started with portraits of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mother Teresa and APJ Abdul Kalam. As people approached them asking to draw their portraits on glass bottles, the two began attempting it which turned out to be a big hit. “Soon more people started approaching us. We used to draw their portraits on the glass bottles looking at their photographs. We charge around Rs 250 for each work,” said Pooja.
Earlier, the girl had to go to the houses in the nearby locality asking for discarded glass bottles for doing bottle arts. Now people come to their house and provide them with glass bottles in different shapes and sizes.
“We are now getting on-demand orders from friends and family who want gift items for birthdays and for special occasions. We have so far turned around 50 glass bottles into artworks. We are focusing on making more waste glass materials into work of arts, mainly home decors,” they added. Ramesh, the father of two girls, is a carpenter and Radhika is a homemaker. Punya and Pooja also have two twin elder sisters – Sreya and Swetha who are studying for BSc Nursing.
Be First to Comment