A city soaked

Every time I visited Ajay's blog I would see this photograph taken by him which looked like a painting. It was irresistible not to paint this, but since I had not painted a rainy scene before it was intimidating too. However I just went ahead and painted it.

The composition of the photo was great. So made only some minor changes in the painting. The biggest change was to increase the size of the dome and make people wear colorful clothes :). I hope I was able to do justice to the photograph.

Misty Morning Walk

This weekend the plan was paint quick. I take 3-4 hours for completing a painting (quarter or half imperial size) in general. The idea was to paint quick, so that there will be some looseness in the final output, less of overdoing and then it will be a good preparation for going plein air. It was PC and I again and venue was PC's house.

It was done from a photo taken by PC while trekking at Kemmangundi. I took just below 2 hours to complete this painting (quarter imperial size). But I still ended up overworking some areas.

p.s. Thanks to PC and his wife for a lovely and really heavy breakfast.

Used and Forgotten

I somehow get attracted to things that people choose to ignore. Old buidings, abandoned cars houses, broken stuff etc etc. This is yet another painting like that. Its a painting of 'used and forgotten' corner. There is a place in everyone's house where people just dump their old things that they have used for years and forget about it. Usually some corner somewhere. And it is not very different when it comes to human beings I guess.

The picture I used was from the world wide web. There was something new that I tried in this painting and it seemed to work. I wanted to paint rust on the blue tin door. For that I glazed dark to light. Using some burnt amber I painted a random pattern and splattered it here and there. Then after it had dried completely I glazed using cobalt blue. The blue wash had to be done very quick and softly. The final outcome was good enough to look like rust for me.

p.s. The name for the painting I am going with in the last post is "Safe for now" suggested by Mineke.

Any suggestions

This Sunday it was down to just PC and me and we had decided to paint indoors at my place. I had taken a photo of this building sometime back and that became our subject.

I took liberty to change the composition quiet a bit. There were more houses in the background which I removed. The big tree got added from my memory and another tree which was there opposite to the structure was removed. And I also changed the proportion of the building. PC kind of stuck to the photo.

I do not have a name for it till now. All suggestions are welcome.

Bamboo zone..... Enter at your own risk.

While on a trip to Waynad (Kerala), I had taken this picture of a bamboo bush. The density of the bush and the random manner in which the leaves and the branches crowd the bush was very interesting to see. The play of light added that zing to the whole scene.

I wanted to capture that dense feeling of the bamboo bush in this painting. And of course the name 'Bamboo zone' is for exactly the same reason.

Flowers anyone???

This is the first flower painting I have done in watercolors. This was an exercise for an online group that I am part of. The idea was to paint loose. I tried two versions of the same painting.


The second one seems looser than the first one. But I guess I wanted both of them to be even looser in quality. Some day I'll be there.

p.s. Thanks to Roena and Wendy for their valuable inputs

Making mistakes is good

It was my first plein air experience this weekend. Plan was to go to a public park in the morning, but it was raining and hence we decided to go to the terrace of our office which was nearby. There were 3 of us (PC, Gopi and self) It was very cloudy and we did not have a single good view to paint. We settled down with the best option and started off. Painting outside was difficult as compared to painting inside with all comforts. We started at 8:30 and had to wrap up by 10:30.

The painting that I had made was one of the worst paintings that I have ever made (the painting at the top of this post). But I guess that’s how life is and it presented me with a good learning experience. Nevertheless if anyone can leave any tips regarding plein air painting it would be great.

Later I also made a quick painting of the same on a 5"x7" sheet just to redeem myself :). But that too was bad. Here is that one.

Ceramic Painting - Fired

Got the ceramic painting back after after it was glazed and fired. This is how it looks. Some of the colors have become darker, while some have become slightly lighter. Brush marks are now very clearly visible. Over all I think I liked it.

An Indian Summer

The world weather is changing. Here too the weather cycle seems to have shifted. Summer is hotter and is extended now. Monsoons have not hit India in time this year. Here is a painting of a scene of summer in India.

It is done from a photo. Almost undiluted colour was used to get the darks. This is the first painting where I have used the darks so dark. Going against the rules again I also used some ivory black with blue for the darks.

The debate on runbacks

I have read at many places that runbacks spoil a paintings. But sometimes runbacks do happen unintentionally. But do they really spoil a painting? For me its not every time. I think sometimes they give you a good effect too.


While painting the sea in this painting I gave a wash of blue and then wanted to lift some paint off using a damp brush. But the brush had some water in it. And hence when I ran my brush across the blue runback did happen. I left it to dry and when it did I thought the runbacks looked like waves. It gave a good suggestion of waves. Happy accident as they call it.

Any comments ??

Ceramic Painting

I had recently found this place called Claytopia in Bangalore, where you can go and buy a ceramic item (not fully fired), paint it and then get it fired. Recently I had been there and painted a plate, which later would turn into a wall plaque. I painted the face of lord Jagannath enclosed within lotus florets. I blatantly copied the face from a Pattachitra painting. You can see the painting here. I had to go for the lotus florets design because I just could not dare to paint the original.

At Claytopia I was given some water based colours to paint. The ceramic surface is a devil. It soaks up the water from the brush in no time. So there are bound to be many hard edges because of each stroke of the brush for a first time ceramic painter. I was no exception. The colours also become brighter when ther are fired. Here is what I painted. Now it has gone to the kiln and I'll get it back in 7-10 days. Can't wait to see how it looks then.

Another temple at Puri

This is another temple at Puri called the 'Gundicha' or 'Mausi maa' temple. This is the temple of the aunt of Lord Jagnnath at Puri. Every year a 10 day long grand festival called 'Ratha Jatra' (car festival) is held in Puri whereby lord Jagannath, his brother Balabhadra and sister Subhadra travel in 3 majestic chariots made up of wood to this temple. On the tenth day they return back to their temple.

Unlike the Jagannath temple (see my post on Jagannath temple), which is always bustling with people from all round the country, this temple has a very calm aura around it (except for the ten days of car festival of course). I tried to capture the serene, peaceful feeling of this temple. This is done from a reference photo with some changes.