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photographed a small statue and printed it in black and white; inked that up and photographed it; repeated inking and photographing it to get the character outline; printed and colorized with pens; photographed and stylized using photoshop.



Ganesha (Sanskrit: गणेश;) is one of the deities best-known and most widely worshipped in the Hindu pantheon. His image is found throughout India and Nepal. Hindu sects worship him regardless of affiliations. Devotion to Ganesha is widely diffused and extends to Jains, Buddhists, and beyond India.

Although he is known by many other attributes, Ganesha's elephant head makes him easy to identify. Ganesha is widely revered as the Remover of Obstacles and more generally as Lord of Beginnings and Lord of Obstacles, patron of arts and sciences, and the deva of intellect and wisdom. He is honoured at the beginning of rituals and ceremonies and invoked as Patron of Letters during writing sessions. Several texts relate mythological anecdotes associated with his birth and exploits and explain his distinct iconography.

While some texts say that Ganesha was born with an elephant head, in most stories he acquires the head later. The most recurrent motif in these stories is that Ganesha was born with a human head and body and that Shiva beheaded him when Ganesha came between Shiva and Parvati. Shiva then replaced Ganesha's original head with that of an elephant. Details of the battle and where the replacement head came from vary according to different sources. In another story, when Ganesha was born, his mother, Parvati, showed off her new baby to the other gods. Unfortunately, the god Shani (Saturn), who is said to have the evil eye, looked at him, causing the baby's head to be burned to ashes. The god Vishnu came to the rescue and replaced the missing head with that of an elephant.

See also:

• more about Ganesh at Wikipedia

hanuman-100218

photographed a small statue, tweaked it with photoshop; printed it in black and white, and inked that up; photographed that; then stylized using photoshop.

हनुमान्
Hanuman (IAST: Hanumān) is a Hindu deity, who is an ardent devotee of Rama, a central character in the Indian epic Ramayana. A general among the vanaras, an ape-like race of forest-dwellers, Hanuman is an incarnation of the divine, whose fate it is to aid the hero Rama in the struggle against the demon king Ravana. Hanuman's exploits are much celebrated in a variety of religious and cultural traditions, particularly in Hinduism, so much so that he is often the subject of worship according to some bhakti traditions.

Several different traditions account for Hanuman's birth. One is that at the time that Anjana was worshipping Lord Shiva, elsewhere, Dasharatha, the king of Ayodhya, was performing the Putrakama Yagna in order to have children. As a result, he received some sacred pudding, payasam, to be shared by his three wives, leading to the births of Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrughna. By divine ordinance, a kite snatched a fragment of that pudding and dropped it while flying over the forest where Anjana was engaged in worship. Vayu, the Hindu deity of the wind, delivered the falling pudding to the outstretched hands of Anjana, who consumed it. Hanuman was born to her as a result.

पवन तनय ब्ल पवन समाना बुद्धि विवेक विज्ञान निधाना
कवन् सो काज कठिन जग माही जो नहि होय तात तुम्ह पाहीं

You are as powerful as the wind;
You are intelligent, illustrious & an inventor.
There is nothing in this world that’s too difficult for you;
Whenever stuck, you are the one who can help.

See also:
More about Hanuman at Wikipedia

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