Stone wall

This would be the second painting I am planing to send to India.

I took a few reference photos behind my work place. The beautiful stone retainer wall has always drawn me in.

As I finished painting the stones in, I realized, they looked like mosaic kitchen back-splash. Something I would love to have in my kitchen, but not so much in this painting. It looks flat.

I just painted a dark color over the back splash and went over it again with palette knife this time. Now I feel that one can get a sense that the wall is leaning backwards and the large stones are almost stacked on top of each other. I also desided to make the side wall curve up to the right as in the actual photo.  I was struggling with the grass on the side. 

I started using my M. Grahm paints and went a little overboard with painting the lines as you can see above. However, once it was done it started looking a little too childlike/unrealistic. 

Sept 17, 2013:

I changed to fan brush and changed up the gran durung class at WAM.

Beboo

 

This is Beboo or Renee'. One of my youngest nieces.I am not a big fan of doing the drawing before the painting. So I started painting straight away. A big problem with that is, it is difficult to draw correctly with a paintbrush. But thanks to acrylics, I could keep on modifying the shape of face and lips and the color of different areas as the work progressed. I do like the end product. 

 

Free art lessons

I stumbled upon this amazing website today which had quite a few art lessons..

http://www.livepaintinglessons.com/FREELandscapePaintingLessons.php

I usually put these things in my blog reading list.. but this link was not accessible as a reading list. So I decided to make a post out of it so that I and (any readers for that matter) can have it at hand for future.

This is the artist's blog where he also has a link to a free ebook of his California painting trip. Which is quite nice I must say.

Flower Garden

Loosely based on my previous painting  'Flower meadow' this was a commissioned painting. I tried to finish it in two days as that way I could have sent it to India through one of my Aunts who was traveling there. I wasn't too happy with it and as J pointed out that the flowers actually formed a patterns (it almost looks like an eye with the red square for iris) and were quite distracting.

I like the final version with a more filled up tree, some sun rays poking over the mountains and additional details on the flower. I finished it with a varnish of gloss medium.

Evening clouds

I wanted to paint clouds. After studying the evening clouds for days, I am pretty happy with the clouds. I even signed the painting. But I kept on hating the uneventful foreground. 

 

I digitally modifies the picture on my phone to try put what I was thinking about in PicsArt. I like the focus these dark foreground trees bring to the clouds. I have to say I really like this approach.

Now this is how the painting actually progressed. I used burnt amber, black and pthelo blue mixed in different quantities.

I always have a hard time painting thick foliage. I was using a round number 6 taklon brush initially. But looking at how sparse this was looking, I changed to a round flat-top almost stencil like large brush.

I wasn't going to add any highlights to the foreground and keep the foliage dark. But it was looking flat. So I added some green highlights to it making sure the colors were different from the shoreline greens.

Imli

Aug 03, 2013:
Just finished blocking for a portrait of my friend's sister Imli. And while doing that I am realizing what makes her cute...
Her head is exactly the height of the rest of her body.. atleast from this angle. And her fur looks thick and cottony soft even in a picture. Her undetbite, though may look menacing at first, makes her look almost sad upon closer inspection.

Though a spoiled youngest child of this super affectionate family, she is quite sweet and loyal.

 

Aug 13, 13:

I finally gathered enough courage to start working on the face. I decided to use black for the eyes.. But as soon as put them in, the picture started looking like something out of a horror movie.. i had to force myself to continue working. 

Luckily I was working from my phone and could zoom in. I added a little bit of brown about half way around the eyes on the right, added an approximate pupil with black, added the nose and mouth in thinned out black.. I don't mind the face as of now. 

I also changed the direction of the thigh remembering that she does not sit perfectly but a little on one side. I think I need to make that thigh a little larger and bring it more to the front though.

Aug 15, 2013:

I added some browns to the white fur. It is interesting how you see only one color, and as you continue painting, you start to notice the other colors.

Aug 20, 2013:

As I was finishing the details on the actual dog, I realized that the weird shapes in the background were actually a bottle, a picture frame, a table cloth and its shadow on the wall. I also added some details to the shawl and. Dulled out the portion of couch on the right with some yellow.

  

Aug 22, 2013:

It took me a few tries and a revelation that I am 'shape blind' when I did the second painting with my friend in it. It doesn't quite look like her, but I like it for the bright colors and the fact that it is my first portrait ever.

 

If you are interested in having a portrait of your pet made, post a message below and I can send you the details.

Calm pond

J recently took me to the super peaceful weekend at Lovett's inn in Franconia, NH for my birthday! And ofcourse, going with my current obsession, I packed my basic painting gear.

However, after the eventful flipped canoe on Saturday, the only time I had was about 2 hours Sunday morning after Bella's walk and breakfast and before the checkout time. Unfortunately, as beautiful Franconia is, I had still not found a view that truly inspired me. I think it is the effect of peak summer. Everything is green.. and given the heat wave, there aren't that many flowers. Well, even if there were flowers, flowers are not really my thing when it comes to painting.

Anyways, when we were out on the walk in the morning, we met an elderly couple, who apparently had been married for 50 something years if I remember it correctly. They were playing with the inn owner's dogs and the wife mentioned that right across the street from the inn was a beautiful pond. We checked it out, and indeed... it was right across the street but hidden by bushes and flowers, and surrounded by tall trees on one side and and bushes on the other with a reflection of s faraway mountain making it even more pretty!

Unfortunately, my camera and both our phones had gotten wet in the canoe trip and the only camera we had left was J's film camera that he swears by as the best camera in the world. Unfortunately, not so much for me. This is the picture I pieced together with the pictures we developed.

According to J, some parameter was not set right! And her is the other view where you can see me painting.

Given the short amount of time I had to setup and that the sun had already started coming out and warming up the place, I did not get too far it plein air.

Here is the progress as I try to remember the actual colors and beauty of the view and put it on canvas.

Plein air easel

07/17/2013
After reading a bit more, I have realized that my current easel works for me for the ease of carrying it and for the size. All I need is a tripod painting shelf as show below.

The leftmost one is actually designed by someone and the rightmost one is sold by Cheap Joes's for $38.

I like this one the best for its larger size and if I can make it foldable by adding hinges in the middle, and a little cup holder hole, that would be perfect!

07/15/2013
Since my first attempt of plein air painting was so enjoyable, and I would like to do it more often, I thought I should have a good plein air easel.
I currently have a simple aluminum easel. It works fine. But the first day I was painting, I had to setup near a bench as I had not carried a table.. which sort of ended up defining my painting layout.. and the second day when I actually carried a little fold-able table I have home, it actually ended up being such a production, hauling the table, easel, my bag of paints, brushes, water and other supplies, that I haven't tried it again.

After a lot of online research, I decided that a french plein air easel fits my requirements the best.But these things are pricy and I am not sure if I will ever sell my paintings, so the expense is not exactly justifiable... except that, last week was my birthday and I decided that is what I want for a gift... and lo-and-behold.. Ocean state job lot had it for only $55!! Yey!!

 

Ofcourse I got it.. opened it up in the store itself to make sure that it was functional. Except that I got is home, and my paint tubes are too 'fat' and 'long to fit into the neat little drawers in the easel.. which means I will have to carry them separately, instantly removing the entire purpose of this  style easel especially give that it weighs atleast five times my aluminum one!

Hmmmm..... back to the drawing board...

When J and I were away this last weekend, I did carry my old easel with me.. and it is infact much easier to set up compared to the plein-air easel.. The only thing was that all my supplies were on the floor and I had to bend down if I wanted to add a color to my palette or wash my brushes. Now only if I can figure out an attachable tray or something to the right of the easel, that could solve the biggest requirement I have of a table.

P. L. Deshpande park 1

This is based on a picture of P. L. Deshpande park or Okayama friendship garden, a new Japanese style garden in my home town Pune, India by Ajay Adiya.

I really really like this painting. I like the effect of sunlight, I like the rocks, that I have been able to paint for the first time. I like the water and rocks in it. I like the bushes and distant trees and reflection of sun on water.. basically I am excited about this painting!

 

One thing I learnt was if I am laying down a background color, I better lay it down according to what my final image is gong to be in that area. E.g. The leafy area in the front has brown and dark green as background colors, but while laying down I kept the brush strokes as if I was painting leaves and not just as a random wash. That way I did not have to do too much work while building up the top layers.