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Pooja Umrani

Pooja Kenjale-Umrani is a self-taught watercolor artist with a drive to become a successful entrepreneur in the creative world. She quit her IT career to take on a dream to do something creative – establish and nurture a successful art business!

 

Pooja was always inclined towards art - her mother and art teacher at school being major influencers, but it somehow took a back seat when she decided to take engineering as her major. Her real art journey began in 2017 when she started painting again, particularly watercolor florals and posted them on social media with a bunch of trending hashtags. Daily pictures of her bright and fresh watercolor florals captured attention and soon she found herself inspiring her followers to paint flowers with her. Never expecting to follow the footsteps of her artist mom, within three years, she turned her creative practice into a lifestyle which she decided to take on as a career choice.

 

Pooja now works as a full time surface pattern designer based out of Canada and she absolutely loves making designs that bring joy. Her goal is to be able to see her watercolor designs on lifestyle products that we use in our everyday life.

 

She is also passionate about teaching watercolor art to creatives who wish to equip themselves with watercolor techniques! Pooja has taught watercolor workshops in the US and India, and continues to teach on an online platform called Skillshare. With a growing fan base of 105k+ on Instagram, Pooja shows up pretty much everyday on her feed to post quick and easy how-to-watercolor tutorials for her followers.

 

www.bythelakesideartstudio.com     https://www.instagram.com/by_the_lakeside/

 

During my initial days, I used Canson XL Watercolor paper a lot and it really helped me develop my style. I like the smoothness of this paper that has just the right amount of tooth to be able to work with watercolors. I particularly love this paper for wet-on-wet techniques. I also use the Canson XL watercolor paper for my gouache work.