What have I been doing for so long ????

It's been a long time since I even thought about writing a new blog post....There are a lot of reasons I can give for not been able to post anything....like here in India it is really hot and I have been involved in doing lot of other things...blah blah blah.....but the good news is that though I have not been making a lot of art...I have been doing something related to art.

Right now I am busy doing a course at IIM Bangalore on Entrepreneurship. And for one coursework all the fellow participants were divided into five groups to raise more money using Rs.500. And my group came up with this idea of doing an art workshop for I was a part of the group. Totally 18 people registered and there were 2 year old children were making art along with 40 year old fellow participants. We all enjoyed and had fun.

The duration was 3 hours...a basic introduction to Collage as a medium...The following poster was designed by my groupmate and journalist friend Vinutha Mallya...Thanks to her...I really liked it...


And here are some photos from the workshop:














All of them had a choice to select a Peacock or a Cardinal Bird or an Apple....And we used normal gum instead of gel medium and glaced papers, Newspapers and Magazine papers to make the collage....And at the end we did make some profit which was donated to an Orphanage.


Also I made a pair of Bamboo Panels few weeks back....I love making Bamboos...I made these really dense...they have been made specifically for bright orange wall...so I used some pastel violet in the background which is not seen very well in the picture:



I will be taking a better picture of these and post it as a separate post.....

And now I am working on my biggest collage piece.....Pink Manipuri Orchids... that will be my next post.....I will be back to my studio only by the end of June...So until then I may not be able to post regularly....

Distressed Triad

Medium:Watercolor (Paper: Cold Press, 140lb.)
Size: 14" X 21"

This was done again sometime back....experimenting the dry brush technique...I used cobalt blue, burnt sienna, Indigo and violet.....this was done very quickly and the background was deliberately kept abstract....keeping the focus on the wooden triad....And I also made sure I do not overdo anything....which I believe is the main key to a successful watercolor.

I also got to do a cat card....watercolor, Derwent watercolor pencils and sharpie marker....and the palette I used was...opera, permanent rose, cadmium yellow, ultramarine blue, cerulean blue and quinacridone gold. Loved the way eyes really pop out...again I left the background abstract....

Medium:Watercolor (Paper: Cold Press, 140lb.)
Size: 6" X 8"


I use Strathmore cold press , 140 lb. paper for most the experiment...Cold Press paper provides rough texture which works very well for techniques like dry brush....I really enjoyed doing these two...very loose !

So 5 more cards to go and looks like I am really slow....Will be posting pics of Nutcracker and Chatterbox soon :-).

Duality

Medium: Oil Pastels on Sandboard
Size: 11" X 9"

I am still working on Chatterbox and Nutcraker. So I just thought of writing this new post in between about this painting which I did few months back. This is abstract Radha and Krishna
with four cows.

Have named this painting Duality because Krishna depicts the Masculine form here and Radha depicts the Feminine form. Duality exists everywhere in every form....which is one of the basis of Hindu philosophy. And even when we talk about energy body...we talk about Ida(Feminine Energy) and Pingala(Masculine Energy). Radha and Krishna symbolize that duality which exists in the universe in a beautiful way.

I did add something recently to this painting...Lot of people who saw this painting before and some of them were not familiar with Krishna and Radha were not able to differentiate between the male and female. And Krishna in sanskrit means Dark blue...a particular blue which I have used here conveys completely the identity of Krishna...But it did not seem enough to people not familiar with krishna and therefore I added the nose ring to Radha. It also looks much better to me now...so posting it...

Chatterbox

So here I am back after a long silence with Chatterbox...I started working on him while I was at the Hotel. But I just completed the painting yesterday giving it a floral and rocky background.

The background took some time...first I had thought I will leave it plain...but suddenly got this idea...and it worked exactly in line with what I had envisioned....it is detailed...and that was done on purpose as I do not plan to stick a lot of paper in there....that is the plan as of now. I did this whole painting with Golden Fluid Acrylics and defined the sharper details with a Sharpie black permanent marker.

I have not been working on Nutcraker so I will be working on these two simultaneously. Also I will be working on some small sized watercolor cards which I planned to do for first 5 people who commented on my facebook profile...I will do these cards as a part of study for my upcoming work...And also I will be making a card for Cherie Stannard who met with a terrible accident last year. To know more about her you can visit her website http://www.nelsoncreative.com/cherie

Also did some little bit sketching but not something which I would like to show now :-)...Will be taking some more time to upload those here.

The upcoming studies which I spoke about...will be Bamboos, Tiger Portrait, some more Parrots , Horse and may be a Cat. So see you guys soon with all those study cards and Nutcracker and Chatterbox. So lots of fun coming up !

Nutcracker

Medium: Collage on Wooden Ply
Size: 12" X 12"
Started working on my fourth collage...my first painting for this year...yaaay...now the interesting thing which happened is...that I ended up again with a composition in which the background and the subject are similar in color.

I am hoping that this one will be less challenging because the values are quite distinct unlike the The Cockerel. And the face of the bird is much larger too. Initially I was keeping the background flat...but then a friend suggested that why don't I make it more interesting with some foliage and mountains etc in the background...I thought let me try and it gave such depth to the paintings. I am happy that for a change now I am working with cool colors. Still not sure if I am going to keep the house red and white. Probably I will try some other colors for the house when I start pasting the papers in there. Will have to do that when I reach Milwaukee.

We are relocating to Milwaukee by the end of this week so have been working on this bird in between packing and shopping.Will have to pack some of my painting stuff separately so that I can continue to paint staying at the Hotel for two weeks. Have packed the papers and filbert brush no. 6 and glue. Still wondering if I should take another panel and acrylic colors with me....Will I have time to finish this painting and start with the next one....But anyways even if I do not take this extra stuff I am taking this drawing book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards along with my sketchbook, pencils and charcoal. One of my goals for this year is to sketch a lot....a lot( means like 3 thick sketch books :P)....I had not been doing that last year.

So my upcoming posts will be regarding the progress of Nutcracker and sketching and reading...See you guys from Milwaukee !

Wings at Work

Medium: Mixed Media on Wooden Board
Size: 12"X12"
This is a Monarch butterfly with a yellow flower. This is mixed media work where oil pastels, acrylics and multipurpose colors have been used in combination to achieve the final result.

I used only the clear color on the top of oil pastels to fix as oil pastels tend to smudge and I do not like using those sprays to fix oil pastels sometimes. This color gives a glossy finish and long life to the painting. The Calcutta Street Scene and Florida Sunshine were done using these colors. These colors are not available commercially. My art instructor in Delhi makes these himself.

So wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year :)...Have lots of fun !

The Cockerel

Medium: Collage
Size: 12" X 16"
So here I am back with my finished version of the rooster collage. I learned a lot of lessons from this painting and one of them was to use a color scheme where the main subject totally stands out from background. Initially I made both the background and the face red...and so I had to play with the values and therefore made the background around the face of the rooster more yellow and lighter for the face of the rooster to stand out. Another lesson that I learned was to work on bigger sizes when the subject is something like rooster.
Then the next challenging thing was to make the grassy foreground stand out from the red walled background...somehow it was not happening and I suddenly got the new idea of making a gray pavement on the side separating the two and I am happy that it worked really well. Sometimes spontaneous ideas really work and even though there is lot of planning that we need to do in the beginning...there should always be room for new and spontaneous ideas...sometimes they may work and sometimes not...but it is important to keep trying.

Florida Sunshine

Medium: Mixed Media on Wooden Ply
Size: 24" X 12"

Just completed this one last night. Here you can see all the three sets of complementary color (green to red, orange to blue, yellow to violet). This was an experiment where the background was done in Collage with handmade and handpainted papers like the golden apples in Golden Triplets. And did the Sunflower with accent liner and glass paint. And at the end accent liner turned out to be a good way to sign the painting as well. Initially I had no idea as to how will I do the background while I was doing the rooster (which I should be completing this week) in Collage. And suddenly a thought came to mind that I could do the collage in background and I had visualized how the painting will look finally. You know sometimes we what we visualize and what finally we end up doing are not same. But here I pleasantly surprised myself by achieving what I aimed to accomplish. So the next one in the making is a rooster. You want to have a sneak peek into it. Here you go :



I should complete the neck and the grass below. Waiting to receive the handmade papers from Judy who makes beautiful chunky handmade papers. And the best thing about her is that she makes the colors and values the way I want them.
So see you all in the next post with my completed Rooster painting and you all could probably help me in naming the painting. Something out of the box....I am just not able to do it.

Preening Egret

Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size : 16" X 12"
I love birds and this is one of my favorite bird portrait. Initially I was wondering if the red and black background will work but after completing I was completely satisfied. As I decided to do this painting in one go I had to do the background in acrylic as it dries faster. To make the composition more interesting i used a little of pink and purple above and behind the beak for shadow.

Golden Triplets

Medium: Collage on Wooden Board
Size : 12" X 12"

I did this collage at a workshop in Amelia Island with Elizabeth St. Hilare Nelson.The three days at the workshop were real fun. The main reason why i like this style of art is because of impressionistic look it has.
In Elizabeth's class the first exercise everyone does is to make an apple. And i am glad that i did one with three of those :). It gave me an opportunity to learn and master the technique.
Here we first color different types of papers...like handmade, maps, book papers, music sheets, newspapers etc..basically any kind of paper which we think we want to use. Then we make a pencil sketch on a wooden board and lay the basic color values and then glue the torn pieces of paper on it keeping the values in mind. And keeping the values right is the real challenge.
Thanks a lot to Elizabeth...my art instructor and a great friend. She made sure that all of us get our basics right. I fell in love with her work when i saw it for the very first time.

The Sunset

Medium: Oil Pastels on Sandboard
Size: 18" X 16"

The inspiration behind this painting was Banaras. But I let the painting remain very abstract and that was achieved by using "less is more" approach. This was a sort of study where I tried to work with minimum strokes and played with colors. The use of red and orange for the boatman in foreground was deliberate for the obvious reason that warm colors appear nearer and therefore achieved depth. I took complete advantage of the excellent texture which the sandpaper provides.

It's Spring time

Medium: Glass Painting

This painting is all about the play of complimentary colors...violet to yellow and blue to orange. Painted the Tiger lilies varying the values of orange and yellow to add more depth, realism and interest in the composition. And I love the way butterfly stands out. I purposely made the flowers on the bottom left violet and blue in color to create harmony.

Calcutta Street Scene

Medium: Mixed Media on Canvas
Size: 10" X 8"

This is a miniature piece of art. Here I have used warm colors like browns and blacks and yellows...And this one was liked so much that I ended up making 2 extra copies. I generally do not repeat my work but this one turned out to be an exception.

Interesting thing here is...that the inspiration behind this painting was a photograph in the newspaper. Also I looked at some street photo from calcutta and I really liked it. The photograph was black and white and months later I made this painting. And I just love it.

It does not happen always that you try create something new and you finally like it and fall in love with it. But this is one main reason why I love painting !

Bull Finch

Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Size : 16" X 12"

Bull Finch...looks so much like a sparrow yet so different... more colorful.....mostly green with little red...is what catches the eye. Happy with final outcome but the feathers...could have been done more loosely....Just wanted to complete it in one go......

Here and there I feel like making changes but something from within told me stop...else it will look overdone.....

Rajasthani Man with a Turban

Medium: Oil pastels on Paper

This is a Rajasthani Turban Man mostly done with oil pastels. Some silver and gold acrylics have been used in the earings and the pendant. This was a study which I did along with my art instructor at Delhi..."Sirish Sir"...as we all students address him.

The paper used here was a thick indian handmade paper with a lot of texture and therefore paper did most of the work for us. And I like the way white is used on the face for highlight. It gives the face a very natural look.

If you are in Delhi and looking for a quality art instructor he is the one for you..you can contact him on his mobile 9810564353....I have learned a lot of drawing and handling of colors from him.

Red Tulips

Media: Mixed Media on Acrylic Sheet
Size: 30" X 10"

Abstract Horse

Media: Mix media on canvas
Size: 36" X 27"

Ganesha

Medium: Mix Media on Canvas

Ganesha...the elephant god as some people simply understand....Lord Ganesha is considered the lord of success and is worshiped as the god of education, wisdom, knowledge and wealth.

The curvy trunk which symbolizes "OM"...big round belly...the symbol of "Maya" (the material world) and the big elephant head...represents wisdom.

I love drawing Ganesha and the colors here...golden yellow with scarlet indian red along with olive green....with pastel brown and white in the background. Happy with how the final outcome turned out !

Mystic Sadhu

Medium: Oil pastels on Sandboard
Size : 11" X 9"
This painting is oil pastels on Sandboard ( as I call it ). Sandboard is nothing but Sandpaper pasted on a thin wooden ply or compressed board. And this provides excellent texture for pastels. If you love working with oil pastels then this is a must try.
Coming on to the Sadhu...I just love this composition and anyone who is from India or understands India will find this painting very engaging. And what makes it interesting is the idea of the Sadhu holding a Beedi ( handcrafted cigarette) along with his usual kamandal ( Water vessel ) and Lathi (Wooden Stick). The credit for this idea...I mean sadhu holding the cigar goes to my art instructor " Sirish Sir" from whom I learned oil pastels and drawing.

Scene of Chandni Chownk

Medium: Mix media on Canvas