Collage 2013

Some of my works of 2013. Flowers, music and house facades were the major themes that I worked on during the year. Some of the work adorns the walls of someone else's. Some of them are with me. This year I hope to paint with a vengeance and I hope I do also sell with the same force!:) 

Canopy

 

8x6 inch (approx.)

Oil on canvas with palette knives

 

This was done at a time when I was recuperating.I crave for a French holiday where I can sip coffee with crepes in a restaurant with greens , flowers and picket fences..and of course it has to have a nice canopy! Not much to do on a sunday after an insomniac saturday,the cheapest thing next to reality is creating my holiday on canvas! I knew art always took one places!



Monet Magic

All my years of fascination with Monet's works are culminating in these copies or rather inspired works that am doing just to unwind and convalesce!Actually am quite thankful to my health for giving me this opportunity to enjoy and splatter paints to copy the great master's works. I have a small book of his paintings which I keep next to my heart and am freaking out on these now.This is the ultimate Wellness thingie!

One good thing about brushwork is that you use such less amount of paint!Hope to do a few more of these till am back on my feet. Also will give finishing touches once am perky.

Some Practice

What happens when the one who brandishes the knife goes under it? Well..he/she resorts to the brushes! Am having fun lazing at home with these brushes which I fished out from somewhere. The most amazing thing is the little amount of paint that you get around to using vis a vis the amounts you use while piling with the palette knife!

Brushing up

Oil on Canvas.

12 x 16 inch

 

This is a brushwork, inspired by a painting of Monet. Am recuperating at home and wanted to unwind with what else but art. However, am not yet fully charged to work on something original, so tried a little brush work to freshen my mind and Monet is always an inspiration for me!  

Quiet white

Oil on canvas with palette knives

12 x 16 inches

SOLD

This is done from a photograph clicked of a rural house in Maharashtra by a friend of mine.I took the whole afternoon to work on this and finally completed it. A lot of my precious titanium white has gone into this! 

House facades are so interesting! Who knows what lies behind the facade? What stories each member has to tell? Between the facade and the house is the home! I often wonder as I pass by huts and bungalows, ,about the people who inhabit the bungalows. Whatever be their stories, a facade always looks steadfast, serene and solid.Quiet!

This house looked particularly interesting as it boasts of a modern rural India. the dish antenna is a tell-tale!

Parsi Balcony

Oil On canvas

12x14 inches

Inspired from a photo on my friend Adi's blog about books:

http://wordsutteredinhaste.blogspot.in/2011/06/trees-of-dadar-parsi-colony.html

It was on a drive to Parsi Colony in Dadar , in Mumbai that I saw 5 gardens. The sheer beauty of the place and the lush greenery bowled me over. But what really took my attention were the lovely Parsi bungalows.I vowed to come back and paint. meanwhile my friend Adi did this article on Parsi Colony with these photographs(as shown on link) and I immediately sought his permission to paint one of the balconies.    

Addenda:: My friend Bipasha Bandopadhyay wrote this small poem after seeing this painting:

• PIROUETTING AUTUMN 

  My heart blushed to the rude blast of air, I was surprised as to how my saddened consciousness was so Unaware, 

  Full of great things the autumn Brings, I wish it was Autumn when we first met, because of the autumn leaves falling on us two brutalised souls would have been a nostalgia i would never Forget.

  I stood spellbound an ...onlooker, While you & Autumn romped Free .......

Woodlot

Oil on Canvas

25 x 35 cms

I tried a different style here. I used the knives more like brushes here and spread the colours so that they blended into each other..I did this painting alongside my daughter and saw that she already had an assortment of mixed colours on her palette. I just knifed out those pinks and some blues out of her lots and gleefully used them on my canvas!! Of course I pretended not to notice when she looked at her palette and darted accusing glances at me.:) 

Littoral

Oil on Canvas with palette knives A4 Size.

There is more to this than meets the eye.We set out on a Sunday morning to paint some grand Hiranandani buildings, in Powai ( Mumbai, India). Just as we were setting up our easels, came security guards, who demanded some permission. Having no time to waste, and the sun coming up steadily, we decided to move base to the already much explored Powai lake garden. Well, I'd already painted the reflections of Renaissance, IIT and the boats. Also the Hiranandani Silhouette and insides of the park. Only thing left for me to paint was this building which I think may be the Ramada. Well, I couldn't complete the entire painting on the spot and did a skeleton. I had to do it back home, from memory. For those who are new to Powai, It's worth a visit, this garden. The lake shores look pretty with the Gulmohur trees bleeding here and there, contrasting with the fresh green of the trees!

Anisotropy

Oil on canvas. A4 size.

Just when I'd declared the chemical series over ( Allotropy, Amorphy and Entropy), a friend of mine wanted something similar, but with the colours of fall. Well, there I was again... recreating the scene! I have exploited this scenery to the maximum possible extent. With this I declare this series officially closed. Sealed!

My camera is with my friend , who has gone on a trip. I waited for some days to upload this, but she's still travelling and  couldn't test my patience anymore! this is clicked with my cell phone and a better photo will follow later of course!:)

The Chemical Series, put together :

 Allotropy

 

 Amorphy

 Entropy

Anisotropy

The first two are with a friend and the second two are with another. Both wanted a couple to be hung together on the wall!Declared over. Case shut.!!!!

Morning Glory - Oil on Canvas

A4 with palette knives

A palette knife composition done on the spot from Powai Jogger's park, near the lake. I tried to capture an impressionist work of the reflections of IIT Powai, on the lake. These buildings look beautiful , casting long reflections on the pristine lake.

It was an early morning exercise. There were interesting things happening in the park.

There were kids learning some dance classes ( looked like some modern moves), in the garden house there. There were serious walkers and joggers there.
There was a group of chattering ladies, who seemed to have taken a sunday morning off from their husbands, kids and cooking. They looked excited.

Of course after a while, most people stopped whatever they were doing and started joining the group of curious watchers , interested in our painting progress. We painted near an open air ampitheatre today, so there was ample space for them to watch my work in progress.

For all those who came in late to Powai, this park is beautiful, clean, serene and very well maintained. It's worth a morning walk and worth taking some time off for one-self. There were interesting subjects to sketch. One guy was sitting with a bunch of papers and a bottle of water and struck a very sketching friendly pose. But, i stuck on to my oils and knives and finished this work Oil painting en plein air is messy, or I havent Iearnt the right tricks. because I was covered with oils and paints by the time I was done.

Some snaps of WIP:

Afloat

Acrylic on Canvas- A4 size

This is an output of a Sunday morning Plein Air session. However, the painting (verb) behind this painting wasn't as tranquil as this painting looks here on this post! I ventured out with some regular plein air water colourists this morning. As oils could be cumbersome for plein air if you didn't have the right equipment, I decided to carry my acrylics with my palette knives. I had carried two brushes for priming the canvas before starting the painting.

The staggering beauty of the lake hit us when we reached the spot from the back end of the lake from near Renaissance Hotel ( from Ambedkar garden). The lake always holds me in awe and I had been wanting to paint these boats with reflection for over a year and was over-excited that I was finally going to do it.

I was mentally brandishing my knives and feeling them sliding over the canvas. But, as I was to discover, the palette knives did not agree with acrylic paints at all. The paints wouldn't get mixed properly, the colours were different and they dried into lumps the minute I put them out on my palette. For the first half an hour, I struggled to find a hold over the paints and then finally decided to resort to the only two brushes I carried, of which I could use only one, as the other was too big for any kind of detailing. So I actually worked out this whole painting with a single brush and finally have this!

I cheated a bit on the colours of the hanging curtains on the sides , as well as the stuff on the boat and the wheels, to bring in colour harmony. This was also to bring in a painterly touch.

Well, I really missed my oils today and my knives of course. "Well", said I to my oils,."Oils, oils! Acrylic was just a practice session, just a short fling, which I used only to understand painting better, so that I can love you more!" I have only come back to my oils with more love, more longing and more gusto! It takes a bit of what is not regular, to understand what is regular!   

Learning:

Oil painters should stick to oil paints.

Acrylics do not have the versatility for plein air. If you want to work with palette knives, it is better to work on flowers or still life if using acrylics. 

Always carry substitute media ( pencils/sketchbooks) when you go on a paint- out.

Powai lake is beautiful, with the back-drop of the Gorgeous Hiranandani skyline!

Titian Trees

18 x 16 inches

Oil on canvas with palette knife

A palette knife composition started on a boring sunday and completed on a happening weekday. I felt dull that day and wanted to brighten my evening. Autumn was something I was dying to paint. Out came all the Titian colours- vermilions, ambers , lemon yellows and the burnt siennas.This is drawn from imagination and this is the result- a mess of  brights and bolds! Just for those who mayjust think Titian is a hair colour, the association originated from Italian Painter Titian, who was known for his paintings of red haired women.

I was first introduced to this word when I started reading Nancy Drew by Carolyn Keene, where the chief protagonist Nancy had Titian hair. Not until very late did I know the origin of the word and thought it to be a colour.

Entropy

Oil on Canvas- A4 size

This is the last of the chemical series ( Allotropy, Amorphy being the previous two). I had to specially make this for a friend of mine who was very taken up with Amorphy. This one looks like it has elements of energy and temperature  ( Entropy) as it has warmer colours than the previous ones.

I used a single palette knife for this work. I am finding the plastic knives really good for small works.

Commorancy- Oil on Canvas

A4 Size

I had to live up to my last post, written about an hour or so back. I fished out my paints and canvas and of course my palette knives and did this quick painting. I mean to do a few landscapes now. They have universal appeal and are good as gifts. I just gifted a small painting to a friend of mine who is going away. The look on her face was so motivating for me!

Habitats and dwellings always catch my fancy. Humans live in the real jungle as well the concrete jungle, and beautifully so, bringing a sense of regularity and timeliness to the setting! Looks like I am back, as my palette still has paints and I better use it tomorrow if I don't want to waste it!:)
A personal appeal:


Please take a look  at this video of my family friend Dr. Ashok Kembhavi who runs the Mumbai Marathon every year. His story is no ordinary story. He is an inspiration! This video is made by  Sushi Karnik.
http://youtu.be/C4qw-_niZ40

Amorphy- Oil on canvas A4 size

It's the characteristic of nature to present itself in different hues and shapes that unnerves us! It's a mystery that man hasn't been able to solve and will never be!

A pallete knife work , executed with a single knife.  

Pretty Facade - Oil on Canvas Board 14x 18''

A painting done entirely by palette knives. This one is a big sized one and took me more than a month, as I wasn't so much into painting for some time in between.
It is done from a snap of the facade of a house of a friend and I juxtaposed warm and cool colours, while trying to keep the essence of her house.
It was a difficult assignment, self imposed no doubt , but doing geometrical structures with knives was the challenge and it was a good change.
Meanwhile my brushes aren't too happy that i have simply abandoned them and lie in different stages of uncleaned state. Maybe I will pick them up and do something with brushes next. Knives are great but my paints are fast disappearing from my stock!

Riot-Oil on Stretched Canvas 18 x 34 inch

Riots of red and yellow! That's how the skyline of Guwahati( Assam, India) was looking a few days back when I was there! There were red Gulmohars and golden laburnums all over!

These two trees have been done from my imagination from two trees which I saw lined adjacent to each other, as if in competition to each other! One was bleeding red and the other was infusing gold hues! Wow! I itched to paint and upon reaching Mumbai , immediately started painting, even though I had an unfinished one still to complete!
Since its a big sized canvas, it took some time.
I used knife for the upper and lower portions to complement the unruly mess of colours presented by the trees.

Forest Clump- anywhere in the forest

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This is a water colour sketch on hand made paper.I tried to juxtapose warm and cool colours here and also tried blending of clours. Since I am still focused on shadows( Will do more focused work on this when I take out time), I also worked out some shadows on the house.
My photos are always crooked. I would like to blame my phone camera but the truth is I am a very bad photographer!   

Anywhere- In rural Maharashtra -Water Colour on paper

This is a water colour which "I treated" like an oil. I walked out on the painting and left it half done for more than a month, only to return back to it today and finish it. This happened merely due to other exigencies, after which I got into static painting inertia for somedays. I finally completed it. The main focus in this is the shadows. I am trying this kind of thing for the first time.I have been fascinated by water colour shadows of late and plan to try out few more , which I shall do with more focus and concentration. This painting is an inspiration from a reference snap clicked by a friend of mine, done after due consent from him.

I think am back in the mood. I have put my oil brushes to wash and clean. Want to do an oil soon.