footsteps in the journey of art

Bridge on N2, Cape Town - Virtual Paintout Mar'11

2011-03-31T22:14:00.003+05:30

After hunting a lot of locations in Cape Town on Mar'11 virtual paintout, I liked this view from the Bridge on N2.
Size is 17cms*12.5cms. Pen and watercolour on 200gsm paper.

Beacon Sreet - Virtual Paintout - Jan2011

2011-01-09T11:09:00.004+05:30

This is for the first virtual paintout of 2011... the approx location is Beacon Street, Boston, Massachusetts, United States... size 12cms*12cms, pen and watercolours on 200gsm paper...

This is also the first painting for year 2011... I havent made any art resolutions this year but will definitely make it a point to pull our more time for my art in 2011...

The Red Windows - Virtual Paintout - Dec2010

2010-12-29T20:20:00.000+05:30

This is the first sketch that I made in my new Moleskine watercolour book that I picked up from London... For those who don't know, Moleskine has started selling though WilliamPenn stores across India...

The location for Virtual Paintout for month of December was County Clare Ireland...

The size is 8cms*12cms, watercolour and pen, on 200gsm paper...

sketches from Ludhiana Dec2010

2010-12-28T20:30:00.001+05:30

While some friends shopped Jutties and Phulkari shawls, I made this sketch at Ghantaghar area in Ludhiana... This is possibly the busiest area in Ludhiana, very close to the railway station, full with hustle-bustle and noise levels are beyond explanation through words...

virtual paintout 1/2010 Apr

2010-12-26T20:03:00.003+05:30

I am not sure how I missed to upload the sketch I made for Virtual Paintout 's April edition...

This is pen on paper, 26cms*20cms...

This is the link to the location of the sketch - http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&layer=c&cbll=28.373497,-16.761855&panoid=1n02rneEn8Bo2dPTZgQRRg&cbp=13,88.95,,0,1.47&ll=28.373579,-16.762047&spn=0,0.528374&z=12

sketches in London - 4

2010-12-11T12:10:00.003+05:30

After I made the first sketch at the Heathrow airport, they announced that our flight would be delayed by an hour... So I made another sketch... However, I had no idea that the wait is going to be much longer... an entire day!.. and spending time in that enclosed space(airport and hotel room) really was getting crazy... and couldn't put pen to paper after this sketch...

When this post gets published, I would be on my way to Delhi for an official trip... and I hope the flight leaves on time... Work will also take me to Ludhiana... I hope to do some sketches during this trip than what I did last time... Also plan to get some nice photographs for inspiration for paintings...

sketches from London - 3

2010-12-08T10:05:00.002+05:30

I got some time to sketch at the Heathrow airport while waiting for the flight... I liked the way she had tucked the bag behind her legs!..

sketches from London - 2

2010-12-04T10:12:00.002+05:30

Continuing from the last post about my visit to the National Gallery during recent London tr... after the guided tour, there was about an hour before the gallery closed... so I went on to check paintings from the impressionist... There I found a lot of artists sketching from the originals... I found the originals a little intimidating so sketched one of the sketcher :)

sketches from London - 1

2010-11-30T10:54:00.002+05:30

I went to London in end Oct... I visited the National Gallery on friday evening with an intent of attending one of the guided tour... I reached earlier and got some time to do a quick sketch of Trafalagar Sqaure... The guided tour was nice.. The guide covered about 8 paintings and its a good insight apart from the obvious visual treat... I went back again next day for a detailed visit of the gallery... more sketches later...

sketch from pondicherry

2010-11-26T23:41:00.004+05:30

I went to Pondicherry in July with some friends... I like Pondicherry a lot... the cafes, beachfront, weather and general attitude here is such that one tends to forget the usual stress in life and relax a bit... We stayed at Mango Hill and the experience was nice... this was the view from our room down the pool... interestingly the balcony of the room was such that it extended over the pool... and having been made of wooden planks placed apart, you could see the blue water underneath...

Bangalore edition of 27th Worldwide Sketchcrawl

2010-05-16T13:17:00.007+05:30

Mr.Beans coffee house on 100ft Road, Kormangla was the venue for this sketchcrawl... There were four participants myself, Prabha, Murali and his wife... Here are my sketches...

view of the coffee house from outside...
mr.bean invites for a cup of coffee and more...
one of the couches... I generally do more of line drawings and avoid getting into details of shading/depth... but this one was after a little inspired by Murali's sketches...
We also chalked out a rough plan for the next sketchcrawl... It will be at Banerghatta National Park... More details once things get finalised...

3 of 100 "starts"

2010-04-16T08:55:00.003+05:30

This is the 3rd of "100 starts"... the reference is from one of the WDEs... I quite like the way this one turned out... The colour notes were not perfect but I did stay away from overdoing the study OR so I think...

2 of 100 "starts"

2010-04-16T08:54:00.002+05:30

As the title suggests, this is 2nd of the 100 starts that I have committed to make... The reference image was from WDE hosted by Wendy... I quite like the fact that I was able to manage these shades of green even though only the darkest one had the right colour note... I have noticed that I tend to spend a lot of time getting the colour and still do not get the right colour since I am using a limited palette... Prussian Blue, Cadmium Red and Pale Yellow Cadmium... Seems its a good idea to widen the palette a bit in the beginning... Since these excercises are atleast helping me get on with painting something and I do not wish to loose the momentum...

I have also made a good mini-studio sorts that I will share in one of the upcoming posts...

1 of 100 "starts"

2010-04-16T08:34:00.004+05:30

I am reading a book "Fill Your Oil Painting with Light and Colour" by Kevin MacPherson. Its the first time I am reading a book on painting and applying the lessons to use. One of the things suggested in the book is that you do 100 starts - which means you block the major colours of the subject without getting into any detail. Basic idea here is too build ones judgement of colour of objects and the relation they share with things around. As well as building the speed factor. So here is my first of this series...
I left my camera at my mama's place during a recent visit... so image was taken with mobile camera and quality is not great...
It is a very good book and available for less than inr1000 on flipkart.com!

sketches in Mar10 [2]

2010-04-02T06:38:00.004+05:30

Cricket is the most popular sports in India. There is a new shorter duration format of this game - T20. After this format became popular, the BCCI launched the India Premier League or IPL as it is better know. 2010 is the 3rd season. The entire team of Rajasthan Royals were on the Indigo flight that I took on my way back from Ahmedabad. One can only imagine the excitement that the 80 odd passengers had travelling in that small space with their heros... I am not a very big follower of cricket. And so it didn't strike me that I take an autograph even though I passed a couple of pages from back seats to Yusuf Pathan and Shane Warne for autographs... I however made this sketch :)

sketches in Mar10 [1]

2010-03-30T07:44:00.010+05:30

I did some sketches during a recent official tour... These were done on handmade paper with felt-tip pen and so the lines are very hazy... Next time on, I plan to use a ball point pen instead...

First up is a sketch done while we were being taken to the place where the aircraft was parked...
Second is a view from my seat... This was a ATR aircraft... which I find a bit scary as they fly on a lower height and wobble badly in case of turbulence... But otherwise the take-offs and landings are smooth...

sketches from Feb10

2010-03-29T23:19:00.008+05:30

We attended a leadership learning program at Pegasus. Here the learnings were built up through the activities/team tasks. Had a very good time there. The institute is located in a remote village and surrounded by nice hills/farms. The classrooms didn't have any walls and there were times when my thoughts would wander out to find interesting subjects from an artists perspective. The sketch below is one of those... I could not capture the up and down movement of the landscape here...
Next sketch was done while waiting for a friend who was trying out a lot of garments during a recent sale...

sketches at the Fireflies concert

2010-03-10T01:03:00.006+05:30

I went to the Fireflies concert with some friends... Its a very cool concept and you can read more about it here... We reached there a little late and had to queue for about 30mins before getting in... Sadly, we didnt find a good spot to sit and so it was a little difficult to enjoy the music...

There was a dance show where the participants had there bodies painted like tigers and the did some awesome things like breaking a coconut with bare hear etc, in addition to some super dance steps... the steps with so fast that I could hardly make a direct sketch; instead did some patterns... one of the viewers was shocked with disbelief and kept his pose for a while so I was able to sketch him as well...

We stayed on for two more performances before heading back... Next year will plan such that we reach early and get proper place to sit and enjoy!

waiting in the queue... what I was seeing then is actually opposite of the sketch... it was a pitch dark background and only the wires and pole was lite-up...
sketch during the tiger-dance...

awestruck audience...

pondicherry trip - I

2010-03-06T12:06:00.010+05:30

I went to a trip to Pondicherry with some friends in Feb10... It was a absolutely relaxing trip... Its very difficult to explain in words the calm and timelessness of this place... It doesnt seem anyone is in any hurry/or has any agenda... things seems to be falling in place on their own... I am sure this is what a tourist feels in any city... but Pondicherry was awesome...
The cafe, sea-food, breeze was too tough to let go... Whenever, I plan for a next visit, it will definitely be 4-5 days as 2.1/2 days we spent this time was too less...
I did 2 sketches in the trip... One was a rough sketch of some hills on the way from Bangalore...
second was in Auroville... Its a view of the Matrimandir... Its a very intriguing structure... I will put some colour to it soon...

Bangalore edition of 25th Worldwide Sketchcrawl

2010-02-28T13:51:00.016+05:30

"Au Bon Pain" a cafe on MG Road was the start point for the Bangalore Edition of the 25th Worldwide Sketchcrawl... We were six participants - myself, Prabha, Arun, Nishita, Murali and Jyotirmoy...
It was a hot day so we stayed at the cafe most of the time before moving to a buliding behind Mayo Hall where we did one or two sketches more... It was time for some lunch after which we went to UB City which is hosting a exhibit of Contemporary Art in India...

Some rough sketches...

raring to go...

2010-01-26T17:38:00.007+05:30

I do not remember exactly but the reference photo was from one of the wde on wetcanvas-dot-com... I ventured out to paint it finally today morning... Got some inspiration to paint with these words of Van Gogh -
If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint", then by all means paint, and that voice would be silenced.
This is acrylic on canvasboard, size of canvasboard is 20cms x 15cms... but I wanted a square composition and so painted part of the canvas and final painting is just 15cms x 15cms...
This will be the first time that I will put my painting on sale :)
It will be available at ChitraSanthe on 31st Jan
This is how the entire canvasboard looks...

And this is the portion painted...

sold

sketches

2010-01-22T00:40:00.002+05:30

This is a rough sketch of a chair at my place... I quite like it and will try to make this into a painting soon...

buses and bus stand...

2010-01-19T22:59:00.006+05:30

"buses and bus stands" was the theme for this weeks urbansketching... the first one is at the murugeshpalaya bus stop on old airport road... the women in the foreground were an interesting subject in terms of the colours, drape of their sari... good that their bus came late and I got to sketch them down... auto rickshaws are an integral part of the bus stands here... waiting to snatch as prospective commuters from the bmtc(Bangalore Metro Transport Corporation)!
I like the second better... this is of the front portion of a vayu vajra which is the a/c volvo bus service between bangalore city and the BIAL(Banguluru International Airport Limited) airport... they are a very convinient means of transport as the BIAL is very far from the city...
these volvo buses also run within the city are by far the best public transport I have found in India...

colours to sketchcrawl sketches

2010-01-19T22:44:00.002+05:30

As I mentioned earlier, I tried to put some colours to the sketch I made for the 25th sketchcrawl... The result on this one was not that good as the paper in my moleskine is too absorbent and it took a while to control the colour...
Next time onwards, I will be a little more efficient with colouring(I hope)...

sketch at cricket venue

2009-12-22T23:39:00.001+05:30

Winter season is a time when a lot of sporting activities happen here in India... in the sense that one can think of playing out for a longer span of time... other seasons are either too hot or too wet... most of the schools would have their sports days in dec-jan... we also have our office cricket tournament LPL... I got an opportunity to represent the Max Red team... after the first innings, we were chasing a score of some 80runs and the top order was so strong that we didnt get a chance to bat :)... so grabbed this time to make a quick sketch... the perspective went a little crazy and looks as though I sketched from an elevated ground... quite contrary I was at the ground level...

urban sketches 1

2009-12-19T01:13:00.001+05:30

These sketches are from Java City which is a coffee house on Church Street in Bangalore... They have some more branches... It is a cool place to hangout... Esp on sunday evenings when there is a live band playing blues...

There were a lot of colours happening here... the women on the far left had a nice blue chunni(stole)... Thank god she was wearing an ear-ring else would have been difficult to make out she was a "she" in my sketch... the guy had a reddish turban... I also hope you can hear some music :)...

sketch at railway station in Ludhiana

2009-12-10T23:41:00.000+05:30

I had gone to Ludhiana for an official visit in end Nov... Below is a sketch I made while waiting for the Swarn-shatabdi on the evening of 27-Nov...

Bangalore Edition of 25th Sketchcrawl and 5th Anniversary of Worldwide Sketchcrawl

2009-11-21T20:15:00.001+05:30

The Bangalore edition of the 25th Worldwide sketchcrawl took place around MG road. Myself, Prabha, Nishita, Vivek, Aparajita and Rosy attended this crawl... We started at the India Coffee House on Chruch Street Road... Then moved to Cafe Coffee Day on Brigade Road and finally at Airlines Hotel on St.Marks Road... It was nice weather and I managed to do more sketches than I anticipated... Below are my sketches... Sorry about the poor image quality as I dont have a digital camera as of now and have to make good of my mobilephone's camera... Will paint these sketches and upload better quality images later... Untill then...

P.S. I have got my camera from service centre today(09-Dec) and am posting better resolution images of the sketches... And the plans to paint these sketches is still on...

24th Bangalore Sketchcrawl, 19-Sept

2009-10-18T14:54:00.006+05:30

The Bangalore edition of the 24th Worldwide Sketchcrawl was held at the NGMA, Bangalore... There were seven participants and it was fun sketching at the gallery and also to be able to see the exhibits in the gallery...

Below are the sketches I made... I might put some colours to these and upload some time later....

23rd Worldwide Sketchcrawl : Bangalore edition

2009-07-11T19:28:00.005+05:30

We had planned Bangalore Palace for this sketchcrawl... When we had inquired on the phone, we were informed that it is open to public and sketching should not be a problem... But when we reached there, we came to know that its not possible to sketch without a written permission from the authority... So we had to move to Cubbon park...

It was 11 of us this time and it was good fun... Here are my sketches...

21st sketch crawl

2009-01-25T16:44:00.006+05:30

The 21st sketchcrawl was on 10-Jan '09... We went to UB City mall for sketching... Everyone had some commitment for the second half of the day so we only sketched for an hour or so... to add to this, the security guards at the mall found our sketching the buildings a thread and we were asked not to sketch the architecutre... here are a couple of sketches I made...

sketches for wde

2008-12-06T19:18:00.003+05:30

These were a couple of quick sketches for the wde...

Fort Rampart : wde 31-Oct

2008-11-08T20:55:00.005+05:30

For the wde hosted by Mithila, I decided to go ahead with the reference image of fort ramparts... and make these blocks on a 40cms*30cms canvas with different portions of the ref image... this is in acrylics and had fun doing it...

WIP...

finished painting...

wde 15-Sept Cafe at Arles

2008-09-20T08:30:00.002+05:30

Tres had hosted the wde and had posted a few images from places that Van Gogh had visited/painted...
By some vague coincidence, earlier that week, I was flipping through a book "Van Gogh - The Complete Paintings" by a publisher named Taschen... It has all the paintings by Van Gogh...
And it was wonderful that some images for that weeks wde were from places linked to him...
I decided to do the Cafe at Arles... its kind of more leaning towards the original since I painted the top half in blue... kind of ignoring the light coming from the street lights(of modern era)...
This is 12.5cms*18cms, acrylic on sketchpaper...

4th Bangalore Sketchcrawl 24-Aug

2008-08-25T06:30:00.001+05:30

The 4th Bangalore sketchcrawl was held on 24th Aug... It was the first time that we were a big group... We were me, Anand, Tejal, Shobha, Smriti, Fredric, Vincent, Arun, Preeti, P's cousin and one more guy whose name I have forgotten... We started at the Bull Temple and then moved to Cubbon Park... It was fun as usual and more so since we were a bigger number and more sketches to share...

The dog in the next sketch was a favourite with everyone... He was lazing around for a long time that gave us all ample time to sketch...

lilies wde 04-jul

2008-07-11T23:11:00.001+05:30

I made these lilies for the wde of 04-Jul... It was a quick piece and got over in about 10minutes... sizes is approx 10cms*8cms... acrylics on thick drawing paper...

article in Deccan Herald 06-Jul

2008-07-11T20:05:00.005+05:30

Deccan Herald published an article on sketchcrawl in Bangalore... 2 of my sketches featured in the article... It was written very nicely by Yamini... she had done the interview during the 2nd Bangalore sketchcrawl... You can read the article here...

I am hopeful that we will have a big group for the next sketchcrawl...

3rd Bangalore Sketchcrawl : 28-Jun

2008-06-30T01:37:00.002+05:30

We took a sketchcrawl on 28-Jun... It was four of us - Prashanth Acharya, Tejal Govitrikar, Shalini Nair and me(ofcourse)... We started from the Lifestyle store... Then moved on to Vidhan Soudha after a quick coffee at the Polynation... It was fun sketching at Vidhan Soudha... We were a centre of attraction there... lots of people stopping by to check what was happening... Next stop was Cubbon Park... We moved to Sunnys post couple of more sketches... After a nice lunch, we called it a day... We plan to take the sketchcrawl more frequently... If anyone wants to join us, please drop an email to bangaloresketchcrawl@gmail.com and I will inform you of the next sketchcrawl...
Here are the sketches I made...

My sketches,

This is a picture of all of us sketching in front of the Vidhan Soudha...

and at Sunnys...

wde 20-Jun

2008-06-22T20:15:00.005+05:30

We all will be missing the wde this week since there is some technical error and the website is being pulled off the web... all content is being moved to a new/safer location... All members of Wetcanvas are waiting eagerly for the website to be back in action...

2nd bangalore sketchcrawl 21-Jun

2008-06-22T18:27:00.021+05:30

Saturday 21st jun was another day of fun and sketches... and must say colours as well... Imade sure I took my photocolours along to add colours that I missed on the last sketchcrawl... We were 3 guys - myself, Anand Bora and Prashanth Acharya... Harsha joined us but was a silent spectator of the event... We started at the MG road and then moved on to Chitrakala Parishat... the idea to sketch more at Majestic bus-stand was spoiled by rain but I guess we had had enough by then :)...

So here are my sketches for the day...

3 warm-up sketches...

then is the garbage truck... glad that it was stationed for a while and I could complete the sketch... coloured it much later though...

then we moved to brigade road... first up is a guy at a tailor shop mending some clothes... then some random sketches from the street...

this guy was waiting for someone outside KFC while we were waiting for Yamini... She reports for the Deccan Herald and wanted to understand what sketchcrawl was all about... lots of questions and hope she got her answers...

After this we went to Chitrakala Parishat which is an art school... we had a look at photography exhibition by M N Jayakumar... then it was back to some more sketches...




We moved to Majestic bus-stand but it started raining and so we had to call it a day...

I plan to host the next sketchcrawl in July... if you want to join, please email at bangaloresketchcrawl@gmail.com

sketch for lady at the bus stop

2008-06-17T20:10:00.003+05:30

I had taken the reference picture of this women while travelling in an auto... she was at at the bus stop and looked like she was waiting for nothing... a very stoic expression on her face... Its been 2 months that I keep going back to the photograph and thinking of how to approach the subject... Last night I just felt that it would be good to atleast do a rough sketch... and so pulled out a sketch book and oil colours and made this...

no where close to what my plans are but I have atleast started...

wde 14-06

2008-06-15T18:07:00.007+05:30

This weeks wde was special... We had lost one of our freinds Connie Wynn and it was decided that as a tribute, we do a subject in atleast 3 mediums... This was Connie's trademark for the wdes... I selected to do the rocking horse...

First of all... a plain sketch with a marker my sister got me... its a very special one... the tip can give a fine line of 2mm and sideways one can have a bold one of about 10mm... made it on a newspaper and turned out to be nice...

second up... didnt work out that good... acrylics on paper... taking it up from last weeks "negative sketch", i wanted to keep the horse plain and work on the background in detail... but went adding more strokes in the horse and had to scrap the idea...

then started with the collage only to realise after cutting a few piece of paper, that i dont have a glue stick at home... so wrapped up this one with just the head done...

coffee maker - wde 08-jun

2008-06-08T21:05:00.005+05:30

For the wde hosted by Dewi, I decided to go ahead with the coffee-maker... this is used to make the kopi luwak which is the most expensive coffee in the world...
this is acrylics on 500gms strathmore water colour paper... took less than an hour... size is 22cms*28cms... it was nice to put colour to paper after a long time... this was my first shot at peboe acrylics... not sure if it was these colours or bangalore weather but the colours stayed wet for longer on palette than the camlin acrylics I use otherwise...
I started directly with brush and colour and did the negative first... like this better than the finished one...

finished painting :)

bangalore sketchcrawl 30-Mar

2008-03-31T10:56:00.000+05:30

This was my 3rd sketchcrawl but the 1st in Bangalore. The earlier 2 were in Delhi.

Three people went for the sketchcrawl - myself, Nithya Swaminathan and Anand Bora. We took it on 30-Mar since sunday was most convenient for all.
I did two quick sketches when waiting for Nithya at the bus-stop.

We went to Samkrut which is an art school in Jayanagar. Shobha Nagendran who runs this school was interested in joining us but a recent heel surgery kept her from doing that. So we dropped down to say hullo and she has promised to join us next time. Anand also joined us here. No sketches were done at the first place

We moved to Lal Bagh and did a couple of sketches there. You can also find a picture of me(in the left) and Anand.

sketches from lal bagh...

from here we moved to gandhi bagh market... there was a lot to sketch here but too crowded to be at ease. i managed to do 2 sketches though

We moved to MG road and had a cup of coffee and some sandwiches. I made a quick sketch of the view of the book store from the coffee shop.

We called it a day after this....

It was fun and I look forward to the next sketchcrawl and will definitely make it colourful next time

cows head

2008-02-02T12:48:00.000+05:30

I made this small approx 8.5cms*8.5cms oil on paper for wde hosted by Dominic. This was very quick, took about 25minutes start to finish.... guess it was the old man that helped it get over so fast...

I like the impressionistic style of this work.

harbour sign : wde 18-jan

2008-01-20T23:49:00.000+05:30

For the wde hosted by Maritjil, I decided to paint the harbour sign since I was instantly attracted by its composition and bright colours.
The lines are a little beserk, in the sense that the sketch doesnt follow the original so much. But looks nice after the paint went on.
This is 15cms*11.25cms in size, photocolours on sketch paper with outlines in fine tip marker pen.

Just to keep an update, the new years resolution sketches are on but its tough to take pictures and post. I need to find out an easier way of uploading this. Will work on something...!

wk 01 sketches 01-06 jan

2008-01-12T11:27:00.000+05:30

Resolutions are not that easy to keep as they are to make. It was good to push oneself but also a bit troublesome since it kept me away from some ease and cosy bed in this winters. This is a 2b pencil on white sketch paper. Some of the pictures look as on blue paper, thanks to my camera skills :)
Here they go....

men at work - wde 04-jan

2008-01-06T13:20:00.000+05:30

This is oil on oil paper, size approx 9cms*6cms... very small.

I made this for the wde hosted by Li. It must have taken an hour in total.

new years resolution...!

2008-01-01T15:50:00.000+05:30

This year I have made a resolution that will push me take more rapid steps in my journey of art.... I call this the 35 sketches a week challenge. I think good sketching is fundamental to good work may it be a painting, graphic, sculptor etc and its important to have the flow, which I need to develop. No rules as such but the sketches have to be quick and not detailed ones. Quick is a key word, confident lines one of the goals. I will be posting the sketches for respective week during every weekend.

If possible, I will also try to incorporte the lessons from "How to draw what you see" by Rudy De Reyna in this challenge.

Bon Voyage!

baby and flower

2007-12-15T15:14:00.000+05:30

This was for WDE hosted by Beth. Its charcoal on paper.

wde 01-dec : butterfly in the blue box

2007-12-03T23:34:00.000+05:30

This is acrylic on canvas and size 6"*8". Took about 1 1/2 hour to complete.

wde 14-Sept

2007-09-20T00:12:00.000+05:30

I made these two for the wde of 14th Sept hosted by Lori.

Grain elevator - felt pen on sketch paper 20cms*27cms

Blacksmith - pencil on sketch paper 20cms*27cms

wde 07-Sept

2007-09-11T23:14:00.000+05:30

starbucks mint box

2007-09-04T19:38:00.000+05:30

wde 10-08

2007-08-15T21:00:00.000+05:30

cherry blossom and 2 colour challenge

2007-07-16T21:44:00.000+05:30

WDE for 14-07 was hosted by Chloe and she had some very nice images and a very interesting challenge... to paint using only 2 colours.

I decided to do the cherry blossom. Going back to the new transparent photo colour was not fun to begin with as can be seen in the first attempt. The petals came up ok but then the colour of the anthers came up too dark. Size approx 14cms*14cms.

I was going to say done but decided to give it another shot. This time the colours were right and I like it as well. Size approx 19cms*14cms.

Then came the challenge. We were to select one of the images and paint it using only two colours. I selected the musician son for this. Two colours used are ivory grey and skin hue. I feel sorry for this guy... I really made a bad work on the face. This is approx 13cms*24cms.

sketches for scavenger hunt 46

2007-07-10T00:24:00.000+05:30

I did these sketches for scavenger hunt 46. I dont know now if I will put any colours to these though.

dragonfly wde 06-07

2007-07-10T00:18:00.001+05:30

I did this in "transparent photo colours" from camlin on sketch pad. Approx size is 15cms*20cms. Took approx 1 1/2 hours in total.

thorns in my mind

2007-06-23T17:35:00.000+05:30

The photograph was taken by a fellow wder Li. I think she did a great job with the composition and colours. I knew I had to paint this the moment I saw it. After about 25mintues of sketching and another 15 minutes of initial paint layer, the painting as seen in WIP1 and looked promising. But after spending another hour and a half and with the WIP2, I concluded that this is not something I can pursue right now. And I decided to put some creativity in and finished it at what can be seen in the final one. Its acrylics on paper approx 17.5cms*17.5cms and took a total of 3 hours.

WIP1

WIP2

Finished painting

Original

ice tea

2007-06-16T23:56:00.000+05:30

Ice Tea was done after a long break. I made it for the wde of 01-jun. Thould I made a sketch the same weekend, I didnt start painting untill today. The last two weeks have been terribly hot and unbearable. So I was just surviving and couldnt even think of any work apart from "work" at office.

The monsoon god(megh raj) finally graced Delhi on friday and life is much better. The greens are greener, temperature nice, not much dust and on a whole more potent atmosphere for some work. I woke up at 5.40 in the morning and felt like painting. And picked up this one to work on. It is acrylics on strathamore watercolour paper. Approx size is 15cms*25cms. After completion, it found place on my closet : )

WIP
Final work

tipsy boat wde 26-05

2007-05-30T19:49:00.000+05:30

This was a rough painting that I made for the wde on 26-May. The cabin portion makes the boat a bit tipsy... : )

back home apr-may 07

2007-05-13T10:56:00.000+05:30

I am back from a good nine days at my home town, Pune. My parents have moved into a new nice apartment. I have decided to paint something for the new apartment : )
Here are some pictures that I took with my new sony camera.

autorickshaw at the corner

2007-04-25T22:29:00.000+05:30

This is acrylics on canvas of size 20.5cms*25cms. In the first coat, I tried using the acrylic matt medium but discontinued it later since it made the painting look too dry... I am happy with the way its turned out and will be framing it....:)

quick sketches....

2007-04-10T22:10:00.000+05:30

I did these quick sketches for wde hosted by Valri...

daisies wde 30-03

2007-04-05T10:27:00.000+05:30

I made this for the wde hosted by Diahn on 30-mar. The colours are from Fuji transparent waster colour papers. They are fun to do and have the nicest/brightest hues...

lady leaving the house - wde

2007-03-20T22:27:00.000+05:30

These days I am running a bit late on schedules and it took me a while to finish this painting.
It is difficult to remember how long it took, but in total must have been 4-5 hours in total. this is acrylics on canvas of size 20cms*25cms.
It was a good to finish it finally. There was no umbrella in the reference photo. But I just felt that she needed an umbrella when going out….!
I think the greens just got dark and darker and daker and have taken focus off the lady. But as I said these days I am happy with just completing the projects… Improvement will hapen along….Also the head portion looks bad. The hat is placed much above the head.... need to get back to bascis of drawing for a while I guess.....

lucky oak leaf - wde

2007-03-18T22:21:00.000+05:30

For the wde of 17-Mar, I wanted to do the sailboats in the below photograph. But chickened out as I didnt want to take up something that would not get completed quick. But have saved that image to paint some time later.I did the leaf. Quick sketch with pen on drawing paper, must have taken 20 minutes. Size is approx 15cms*12cms

cars on the street - wde

2007-03-15T22:09:00.000+05:30

I did this quick sketch. approx 10cms*14cms. It was very challenging in terms of the perspective and am pretty happy with the outcome. I have saved the reference picture to paint sometime in the future.

bearded domnic and the challenge - wde

2007-02-25T22:15:00.000+05:30

I decided to paint Dominic, a fellow artist on the wde forum. All went well untill I started the face. It was too difficult and the more I worked on it, the more it got complicated. So I chose to put a beard onto him. He isnt looking bad I guess.

This is acrylic on drawing paper. Approx 15cms*10cms.

The host has also given a challenge... she had posted one of her poems and wanted us to paint on that theme... I painted the sunset for this challenge... it is very tiny... 2.5cms83cms.

sketches - wde

2007-02-17T22:02:00.000+05:30

These were two quick sketches for wdes...

haybales - wde

2007-01-14T22:00:00.000+05:30

I made this acrylics on a canvas sized 20cms*25cms for the wde 12-01. I love the way there is a play of light and shadows in this painting. The haybales were much difficult to do than they looked. I didnt go into much detail and left them just where they looked like haybales….

apples - wde

2007-01-05T21:56:00.000+05:30

I painted these for the last wde of 2006. It took me a little more than 2 hours to do this oil on canvas sized 25.5cms*30.5cms. I am happy with the outcome. Now waiting for the paint to dry so that I can run my hand over the painting to feel the texture.

foggy harbour... where's the fog - wde

2006-12-17T21:52:00.001+05:30

Foggy Harbour was painted on 16th dec for wde hosted by JamieWG. This is 15cms*20.5cms, oil on canvas. I was very happy to be able to complete this painting in less than 2hours and am looking forward to take up oils a little seriously now. I now wonder if I should add some clouds since something is amiss in the sky…!

sold

mysterious friend - wde

2006-12-16T21:39:00.000+05:30

This was one of the images that I had provided for the wde I hosted on 01-Dec. The image is of a friend of mine and was ready to go to another friends marriage when the picture was taken. Everyone at the wde found his look mysterious so I named this painting so....
This is acrylic on canvas board of size 30.5cms*25cms.
I also used the acrylic retardent that I bought in Bangalore. Though it didnt help keep the paint wet on the canvas, it did keep the paint on the palette wet for a while.
This was my first portrait and I am happy with the result in terms that there is some appreciable continuity in the skin tones. Also the eyes look good. There is though a huge scope for improvement…lol
Once the face was done, I painted the tunic and headgear really quick in a loose style.

eggs or amoeba - wde

2006-12-10T21:37:00.000+05:30

I have come to bangalore for work. I had not carried any of my paints/brushes. But when I found that there was net connection at the flat I couldnt resist joining the wde…. and with some difficuty found a store and picked up a canvas 15cms*20cms, burnt sienna acrylic colour and a brush…. the result….
This weeks wde was hosted by Al and he had posted black and white colour pics and had aksed to add colours as one wished. But I couldnt put colours since the store had small tubes of burnt sienna only… all other colours were either 120ml tubes or only in sets of 12….

A good thing I found in that store was drying retardents for acrylics. I will try it when I’m back home the coming weekend.

Rest is good… the weather is wonderful in Bangalore and nice. Love the greenery here…. But also that the place where I’m staying is upmarket….! Wish Delhi was equally greener and had fresher air….

Rooster - wde

2006-11-25T21:30:00.000+05:30

For the wde of 25-11, I selected to paint the rooster since I wanted to move away from my favourite colourway green/blue.

Its acrylics on a canvas board of size 20cms*25cms.

Took about 3 hours in total. Surprisingly, I started with painting the background in blue…. but then stuck on to a grey… As always, acrylics posed a little trouble. It started drying and I was struggling to get the colours right. The final painting looks nice, since from a distance a few flaws of the brush-strokes is not evident. Overall a good experience with colour mixing.

Wonder if I will be able to work further on two paintings that I started earlier....

hisbiscus on hat - wde

2006-11-19T21:12:00.000+05:30

This was a 45 minutes adventure trip with dry crayons, terrain was sketch paper and i only covered an area of 16cms*12cms. realised that my skills with crayons was the same where i last used them....1st grade

But it was fun and in the spirit of wde published it....

Vancouver city skyline - wde

2006-10-28T21:23:00.000+05:30

I am working on another image from last weeks wde. It is a harbour scene. I started working with oils. But after the first coat I realised that it is not going to work since it was taking a lot of time[still wet after 5 days] to dry and would get spoiled with the huge amount of dust that keeps coming into our house from god knows where. So I moved to acrylics and below is the canvas after the first coat.

Also posting the reference image…
Just realised that the colours look quite different…. hmmmm…. not my mistake, I was painting from a printout which has taken different tones of the original. This point on, I will keep coming back to the computer to have colours close to original.

up there - wde

2006-10-28T07:01:00.000+05:30

This is painting I did today for the weekend drawing event on wetcanvas.com . This is acrylic on sketch paper, size 13.5cms by 24.5cms. It took me about an hour and 15 minutes to do inclusive of the mess created by a tube of white oil paint that was lying with the acrylics. So the white on the boat is in oils and will take atleast 2 days to dry but I call this done…..

I had planned the composition of the painting to be this….

but the uncropped version is also not bad….

snow-wip

2006-08-20T15:11:00.000+05:30

This is a rough sketch I did for a wde. But I doubt if I will ever put colour on to it.... : (

Carmel Cottage - wde

2006-07-28T00:37:00.000+05:30

I made this sketch of the Carmel cottage... must be a nice place.

Initial sketch by pencil and then a 0.3 black liner on sketch paper of A4 size but doesnt really cover the whole page.

july scavenger hunt

2006-07-23T23:32:00.000+05:30

The scavenger hunt was a lot of fun. We were to sketch all items on a list provided by one of the members. The sketches were to be made from life, not photos/imagination. Here they go....
fish (toy, real, food) - I did this item the last and since I could not find any item in for this, I went and bought a fish from the market to cook...
sandwichpiece of jewelry - this was my pierced ear... sadly I removed the ring a month or so later since it wouldnt dry... nut beverage3 items from your kitchentrash container wooden item
bowlYour hand item you use for/with/on your hair toothbrushSomething with numbers on it
Your keysWater pillow -this was my favourite.. came out really nice..Something greenCheese set of salt and pepper shakers window furry itemYour noseButtons sports itemA favorite snack item - This is maggi masala noodles...hmmmm yummy.... mouths started watering....item that starts with the letter "E" - extension box

Before Darien changed for ever - wde

2006-07-21T15:18:00.000+05:30

This is in watercolour on sketch paper. Size is approx 18cms*15cms. Its a very small painting and was fun to work on. Think the perspective is a little wonky... : )

mike mike mike mike....! - wde

2006-07-16T22:03:00.000+05:30

This is acrylics on drawing paper, size is 26cms*18cms. I named it after the seagulls in the movie Finding Nemo. Its one of my favourite movies....
This was my first shot at impressionist style and it was fun. Only that if the brush strokes were a little softer, the calmness of the sea would have been better. But am happy with it as it is.
Since there was a challenge for the week, I also did two quick sketches. Will attach them later.

baby maureen sketch - wde

2006-07-05T22:10:00.000+05:30

This was a quick sketch for wde hosted by Maureen. The image is very blurred... but I like the softness of the lines due to this : )

july sketchcrawl

2006-07-02T20:30:00.000+05:30

I had planned out a sketchcrawl for a group but unfortunately others could not join me for one reason or the other. The most common being that in India we have 6 days a week work schedule and no one wanted to take a day off for the sketchcrawl. So enrico next time we have the sketchcrawl, request you to keep it on a sunday.
I started at 9.00 in a orissa temple, hauz khas village which is in south delhi. ere's a painting of the temple,This is the offering for the gods in the temple,

By the time I finished my prayers and the two paintings, it was about 11.45 and the sun had come overhead. I could barely walk on the marble floor of the temple due to the heat.
I moved to barista[a cafe] from here. The next sketch was made before I had my brunch and the perspective looks terrible as I was really hungry. The painting is better as it was done after I had the sandwich and coffee :lol:
From here I moved to a park and sketched this bench. There was a guy sleeping on the bench but he woke up before i could even start sketching him :cry: . Need to be quicker next time. And please do not miss that little squirrel near the right leg of the bench. The squirrel was fast..less than 2 minutes :)

That was the end of my day. Will try to be quicker next time and do more sketches.

There is a link below for suggestions/comments that are most welcome.

Rgds,
Rohit

p.s. As some of you will be new to the concept of sketchcrawl, thought it would be good to leave these links explaining what sketchcrawl is...

This is the explanation of how the concept of the Sketchcrawl was born and what it has developed into - by Enrico Casarosa, the bloke who dreamt it up.

http://www.sketchcrawl.com/blog/?page_id=3

These are the suggested art materials

http://www.sketchcrawl.com/blog/?page_id=4

You can see the sketches Enrico did on his very first experimental sketchcrawl here

http://enricocasarosa.com/sketchcrawl.html

If you want to join the next sketchcrawl leave your mail id and i will keep you posted.

doorway - wde

2006-06-23T23:03:00.000+05:30

This is one of the paintings that is still wip. But I plan to finish it before its a year from the day I started...
I first started with an idea to paint this in acrylics on paper.

After doing the initial drawing as above, the subject looed promising and so decided to move to canvas.
This is how the final pencil drawing looked on canvas....

I started with acrylics and after doing the ground paint, felt that the details could be handled better with oils... omg! then moved to oils.. and am still trying to move it forward....lol

I will now post the wips in oil with the final one after completing it.

pouch cove - wde

2006-06-16T22:42:00.000+05:30

This is acrylics on drawing paper approx size 28cms*19cms.

This is how the work-in-progress looked for the pouch cove. I had a tough time handling the acrylic colour since it was drying so fast....

And this is how it looked after finishing. I love the movement on the wave and the nice turquoisy highlights in the water.....

starfish - wde

2006-05-28T22:37:00.000+05:30

snow and fence - wde

2006-04-10T22:27:00.000+05:30