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.

Flower Meadow

This is an imaginary painting I did for a friend of mine. She wanted something springy or fall like.. but sadly (note heatwave!) its summer.

I started off with J's suggestion of a mystical feel.. But I couldn't get there, so I changed the gears and decided to go in the 'evening' route.

The day I was supposed to give this to her, I still was not a 100% happy with it. So I got up early, walked Bella and started adding flowers to it based on some photos I had taken on our walk the previous day.

I also added a vine based on all the vines that are covering most of the large tree trunks in my area.

But, it still felt a little empty. I added some more reds after this to get to the final version. And I have to say I do like it.

The settign sun

 

I was a huge fan of Thomas Kinkade growing up, until very recently. I had always thought that he was some kind of pioneer in painting the light and was from the 18th century the latest!

But then I googled him....

As it turns out, he was mainly famous for mass reproductions of his work that people could buy at an affordable cost, and hence the most possessed by common people. And just like it does most of the times after over-inspection, his work lost its charm on me. I started noticing a cartoonish, fantastical feel in his work, and not necessarily in a good way.

 Luckily for me, a few months ago I stumbled upon Helen White's work. She is a UK based artist, who does this beautiful photo-realistic work with light. And she also shares my other love, windows! At this point I almost want to thank Helen for doing her art and keeping the 'torch' lit for me.

This painting is based on a picture taken from my living room window which overlooks the Indian lake. The sun was setting, bathing the sky and the back forest in beautiful colors.

According to my current teacher at the Worcester Art Museum, the sky still looks like an under-painting. 

Day 1 at the class

Day 2. I tried to remove some of the yellowness from the clouds that are higher.

I added some more light greens in the bushes and slightly corrected the direction of the reflection on water.

Here, I added made the reflection more orange than yellow and added more file lines of orange across the rest of the water. The lines might not be very apparent as it was a thinned out paint, but I am hoping it gets the feel of very small waves. I need to add more greens to the bottom layer of trees such that it almost forms a halo.

The paint photographs differently in day time as compared to at night time as in previous two pictures.

I added the basic color to the houses lines for sidings and shingles, and the second tree on right.

I added a stronger perspective to the shingles on the left house than needed. In fact, if I add any significant increase in the shingle sizes going from top to bottom, I am going to end up in trouble with respect to the right side portion of the roof of the same house as that does not increase in size top to bottom. As I am typing this now, I can also see the problem with clouds that Ella pointed out.

After waiting a  few days, I changed the colors of the roof and the left house, added some details to the left window. I should add the siding lines to it, but I don't want to draw them as I did in the right house. I do not necessarily like that effect.

Cat in the hat cake

I tried my first attempt at fancy frosting today.

 

Many many years ago, back in India, I used to love baking. 

But frosting, that I never even tried.I remember my mother toiling over a bowl of butter and sugar for hours at a time before each of our birthdays, whipping those together literally by hand! That is how she was taught in her baking class. It looked painful and I didn't care much for the frosting anyway! 

And back then, there was no internet to teach you things. 

And the fancy frosting tips and bags were the things of either rich people or professional bakers.. 

But recently I came across this tutorial through Pinterest, and I wanted to give it a try. And the chance came with my friend's daughter's first birthday when her usual cake maker was busy with the new baby. She asked me to make an individual cake for her daughter. (Thank God for one of the supermarket bakeries which offered to make the big cake with rice paper printed frosting.. it would have been a nightmare to do this on a big scale the first time.)

First attempt using Betty Crocker Whipped butter cream frosting..

The good thing was that, even though I could not find black color for the border, I was able to mix the three standard colors to get a darkish gray color! 'Yey' for painting basics!

Second attempt with the same.

But this time it came out nice and looked fabulous while still on freezer paper! But the problem with the store bought frosting is that, it does not freeze solid. And this is what happened when I tried to peal it from the paper!

Finally, during my third attempt, I decided to not be lazy and make my own frosting, simply by mixing butter, sugar and vanilla extract. And I was amazed as to how easy it was!

  
I still had the leftover storebought frosting, and it worked out perfectly to frost the rest of the cake as it did not have the slight yellow tint my homemade frosting had and took on the blue color beautifully!

Finally, I added the peaks of blue and white using the $3 frosting tips I bought from Christmas tree shop, and voilla! Love it! Can't wait to try it again!