Pen and Ink?

I have been wanting to use a little bit of Pen and Ink in my paintings for some time. I have never seen how a pen of the pen and ink drawing looks like. I went to some nearby art stores, but they did not have it. So I bought a black gel pen and used it in this.

This sketch is that of Mansi Ghat in Benaras. I wanted to do a quick sketch here and wanted to give finishing touches with ink, which was achieved with the black gel pen. :) Can anybody suggest some resources on the internet about Pen and Ink?

Himachal Village - Solved

This is the 'answer' to the 'puzzle' posted by me in the previous post. In the above photo the picture on the left is the original painting. The picture on the right has been digitally modified. When I looked at the original painting my eye would enter the painting from top, flow down and would abruptly stop at the absolutely unnecessary house in the path. So I removed the house digitally to see what happens and then I could feel my eye moving down and out of the painting smoothly.

So I decided to remove the house. For that I lifted the colors first. But still it could be seen. Then I glazed using white. Yes, believe it or not, but I did that. And then added the cart and other smart details to remove any other trace of what previously was there.

The original painting may look better to many people. But I could not stop without giving it a try.

Himachal Village

I was doing a Google search on Himachal Pradesh and Manali when I came across a photograph, that caught my eye and I wanted to paint it. But there was something about the picture that I thought was quiet not right. I did a value sketch before painting it to find out what was troubling me. But I just could not make out.

Anyhow I went forward and did the painting. When the painting was complete I understood what was it that was troubling me. And then I did that, 'what should not be done' :). I 'corrected' that part of the painting. I know watercolors should not be corrected and I kind of murdered the painting by correcting it, but for me if I had left it like that it was dead anyway.

What I want to know now is can you guess where the correction was made? :). I'll post the uncorrected version in the next post.

Harmony

After a long gap PC and I were painting together again. This was done from one of the pictures that PC had taken while on his way to (or back from) his native. I decided to change the color of the thatched roof to a warm color. It was a dull gray in the picture and hence boring.

The harmonious existence of the concrete house and the thatched roof facade for the same made the picture quite interesting for me.

At Barabati Fort

Barabati fort at Cuttack in Orissa is one of the last standing forts. I tried to capture a winter morning scene there. It was done from a photo. But at the end of it I was not very happy with it. It looked to me as if something was missing.

What is your first impression when you see it? What is that you find that is just not right? Well, I am not going to do anything to this painting, but I would like to find some answers to the questions in my mind.

In ruins WIP

I had taken this photo on a short trek to Nijagal betta near Bangalore. Typically almost all hills which happen to be near a village in Karnataka do have a temple built on them. As they are built in Dravidian architecture they are very similar in appearance. And as they are quiet old (typicaly 400-500 years but some temples are more than 1000 years old) and there is no ownership to look after them the condition of all of them are also very similar.

I thought of posting the WIP for this as somehow I ended up doing a negative space painting for this, going dark to light.

Happy Deepavali

Its Diwali (Deepavali) time, which means its also the time for Rangoli. To celebrate we had a small Rangoli competition at my work place. Rangoli is a dry and colored sand art that is generally done in festivities across India. Making a Rangoli requires certain skills which none of my team mates possessed (4 of us were in the team). Hence we decided do something 'different' read 'something that we could do'. :)

We did a Warhol using masks cut out of paper. First we dropped the off white sand on the floor and then masked them and dropped the colored sand and then lifted the mask out.

In Rangoli you have to be right the first time, else you have to start all over again from scratch. This is a picture of the masks placed on the floor. George Harrison's mask could not get placed properly (The mask for the left cheek got placed at the eye level) while dropping the colored sand and hence that was a bit of disaster in the final Rangoli. But it was a very enjoyable experience nevertheless. A great start to Deepavali weekend.

**** Wish you a very happy and enjoyable Diwali ****

More sketches

Still continuing with my quick sketching exercises. All these paintings are done on 1/8th imperial size paper. The first two are on Montval and the last on Guarro. I am finding that Montval gives a good fluidity to the paintings if you just get things right in the first wash.

The alley

This is a sketch done from a picture from the Internet.

Morning chat

This was done at Cubbon park in Bangalore. This was my second plein air outing. I took about 20-30 mins to do this. And the group of friends who are seen here were chatting there almost till the completion of this sketch. Must thank them for their involuntary cooperation. :)

Karnataka High Court

This too was done in Cubbon park. This is more of a painting than a sketch. This place is bang opposite to the place shown in the second sketch.

Three Colors

Sometime back there was this post by Mr Milind Mulick, where he had used three primaries to do a painting and I copied the same idea to do this painting.

I had used a reference photo for this, but took liberty to change it a bit here and there. The painting is called 'the complete bazaar'. Any guesses why??

Some sketches

I was trying do a lot of things here. Some of them were

a. painting quickly
b. painting expressively
c. using darks
d. Painting without being judgemental

The first 3 are on small size paper (about 6" x 7") and the last one is on quarter imperial.

Random Scape

Waiting

Welcome home

Outside the church

The first sketch 'Random scape' was done completely without any thoughts going into it. Finally it became heavy on one side. But I preferred to leave it like that. After all it was a random sketch.

The Window

One thing that gives me a lot of trouble is using darks in a painting. In this painting I was trying to use really dark darks (straight out of the tube). I am now planning to keep experimenting for sometime with darks.

PC also did the same painting. He changed the original photo quiet a bit to get good depth. I changed the wall color from blue to a warm sienna to get a color contrast between the window and the wall.