Setup and Work in Progress pics for 30 in 30 challenge

This time around for 30 in 30 challenge, I did the painting the night before for the following day. It gave me a feeling that I am ahead of the game and I posted the painting on my blog around midnight! I had planned for the set up early enough in December and that way my stage was ready for the performance by fruits and vegetables. The set up was rather crude, but worked really well. I took a cardboard box and cut out couple of circles for the light to show. See it below, the cutout for light is on left side top. There was another cut out on right side that I used to secure the inside fabric. See how I have arranged the background fabric. Sometimes I used different colored fabrics, in that case I simply placed the second colored fabric at the bottom surface and then placed my subject on top.

This is the simplest setup anyone can do at home. For the light, I used the clamp light from Home Depot, that way if I needed the light from front, then I clipped it onto my easel (which was in front). In all of my paintings except a couple, I used the light source on the top left as shown in above picture. So I got a lot of practice of painting backlit objects. Next time around though, I am going to construct my stage using the pipes from home depot, which will be sturdy.
However, you might think looking at the setup - this is not exciting at all!! How the heck this could have turned into a beautiful painting and how any artist can get inspired by such a thing..!!!??? Let me reveal the secret....
See first 2 pictures below: Shadowbox Setup (more zoomed in than the earlier one) and Setup Closeup (further zoomed into looking just at the fruits). Another thing I must add here - this is cell phone picture - so not great quality, but its handy to get the idea. Believe me - the fruits and vegetables look gorgeous with reflections of fabric on it and the shadow of fruits reflecting the orange color in this case. So once I focus my attention to the layout of fruit and veges, I sketched it on 6 x 6 canvas board. The Stage 1 as I am showing in collage are the first color notes - where I note the light and dark colors - irrespective of the actual color of the object. My next layer is Stage 2, where I painted actual color of the objects - orange for the objects here and blue-green for the background ...etc. Stage 2 is really the most important stage in the painting, this determines if a painting is going to be successful or not. Further Stage 3 is developing more color variations lighter / darker etc within the area painted in Stage 2. Stage 4 is the final painting with highlights - lightest light and darkest area etc.. At this point, the objects have come alive on the canvas and it is the most fulfilling aspect of painting for me.

Laurel Pumpkin - Work in Progress

Laurel Pumpkin Stages are below.
Upper left - Stage 1
Upper right - Stage 2
Lower left - Stage 3
Lower right - Stage 4 - Also the final painting

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Laurel Pumpkin - Work in Progress - 8 x 10 inches Oil on Canvas Panel

Hardy Pumpkin - Work in Progress

Hardy Pumpkin Stages are below.
Upper left - Stage 1
Upper right - Stage 2
Lower left - Stage 3
Lower right - Stage 4 - Also the final painting

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Hardy Pumpkin Work in Progress - 8x10 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Day 30 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - M & M Peanuts - SOLD

Today is the final day of this 30 painting in 30 days challenge. I am calling this last painting as my day 30 although I finished it over a period of 4 days - little by little as time permitted. I am so glad that today is the last day and tomorrow I get to showcase all the paintings done in this month! Now I will be starting some bigger paintings and although I will be painting everyday, I will not be able to complete each one in week or 10 days! I will try to post the stages for the next ones so that I can review my own progress later on...
HURRAY!! here is the last one -

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M & M Peanuts, 6 x 6 inches, Oil on Canvas, using palette knife

 SOLD

As I was painting the M & M peanuts, I remembered the exercise I had done couple months ago in my basic shapes sketching class. This was an exercise in rendering spherical objects that appear as 3 Dimensional. There are 5 elements that make a sphere look as 3D - Core Shadow, Cast Shadow, Midtone, Reflected light and Highlight. Take a look in in the picture below to see them labeled - you will have to click on image to view larger. You an take a look at any object sphere or not, under light, and observe these 5 elements. When you color or sketch with this observation in mind, you will be able to get excellent results in your paintings.

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M & M Peanuts, detail - click on image to view the writing...

Day 18 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - Egg Shells

I see lot of artists painting eggs and eggshells etc. I got tempted and I thought I should try it too. So I saved these egg shells after I made omelette for kids and set it up under light for painting. Don't know if my thoughts were colorful or what.. but my eggshells turned out to be really COLORFUL!!

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Egg Shells - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

I first blocked in colors as follows:

Egg Shells - Stage 1 

Next trying to get the "real" colors, I got following:

Egg Shells - Stage 2

 Now adding more variations in each color area:

Egg Shells - Stage 3

Finally adding finishing touches, I got the final painting as shown in the very first picture.

Day 9 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - Carrots with Ranch

It was early in the morning, time to start another painting for the challenge. Previous night, it was tiring, so I had not thought about what to paint... After contemplating in bed for sometime, I got up and decided to do the chores anyways... I went to the refrigerator to grab my palette. There was the bottle of Ranch right in front, and got an idea of what to paint... yes!!.. Baby Carrots with Ranch, then looked around, found a green plate. Good enough! new subject and different texture!
Also the New Year is about eating healthy... Here it is:

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Carrots with Ranch - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

 As I painted, I took couple pictures of my work in progress. Below is how the painting started - the very first color notes and the bottom most layer of paints.

Carrots with Ranch, first color notes

 Next I tried to put in actual color of the carrots and ranch and plate itself, see below:

Carrots with Ranch - local color of Carrots and Ranch

Eventually each color area seen above needs to be further elaborated by observing and painting variations in it. Eg: in the dark green shadow area, it is darker towards the carrot and gradually becomes lighter towards the outer area. Sometimes, reflections and light bouncing at different angles give a nice twist to shading!! You can see now how the the final painting develops..

Day 19 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Feeling Abundant Seashell

Feels like this shell is sitting there with wide open arms, as if it is open and receptive to all the good and abundance in the Universe!

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Feeling Abundant Seashell - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

 STAGE 1: Putting down the first color notes. Usually I tend to use Purple for the darkest dark, but here I used Green instead to try out how it works.

Feeling Abundant Seashell - STAGE 1

 STAGE 2: Working with actual color of the object

Feeling Abundant Seashell - STAGE 2

STAGE 3: is about developing color variation within each area. But I forgot to take picture of this.

Day 17 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Feeling Happy Seashell

I am posting for 17th day, but missing one painting from yesterday - I had a glitch :)) I will squeeze in one painting for 16th day before this challenge ends to make up for it!
But today I could not resist picking up this happy looking sea shell for my set up. Just look at it, doesn't it appear smiling !? (the photo came out blurry, I will replace with a better one later)

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Feeling Happy Seashell - 6 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

 Below is my setup picture and how I got started with this painting:

Feeling Happy Seashell Stage 1

Feeling Happy Seashell - my setup

Day 7 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Holiday Radiance

Holiday candles brings about radiance and happiness! I lighted a candle inside this decorative Christmas vase and kept it in dark. It looked so very cheerful, take a look at the final painting as well as work in progress pictures below:

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Holiday Radiance, 5 x 7 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

 Stage 1:

Holiday Radiance, 5 x 7 inches, STAGE 1

 Stage 2:

Holiday Radiance, 5 x 7 inches, STAGE 2

 Stage 3:

Holiday Radiance, 5 x 7 inches, STAGE 3

Portrait of Anushka

I wanted to paint a portrait for this year and feel very accomplished. I probably will tweek a little here and there on this painting still, but this is 99.9% finished. Hope you like it and do send me your comments:

Portrait of Anushka - 11x14 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Here is how the painting progressed:

Anushka - Stage1

Anushka - Two



Anushka - Three



Anushka - Final

Dew Drops Dream - SOLD

I am dreaming... Early morning as I stepped out in the garden, I felt a refreshing breath. The air was filled with a combination of fragrance from roses and morning mist. I wondered where all the roses are, couldn't see a thing in the mist! As I walked in the direction of the fragrance, suddenly SURPRISE SURPRISE !!.... I was greeted by this beautiful Red Rose bud on my path. I admired the dew drops on it. Extended my arms to bring the Rose bud near me to see the dew drops closely. OH NO!.. a thorn pricked me on my finger and I was AWAKE. The garden quickly vanished from my thoughts and I hurried to get ready for a full working day.

But here is the Rose bud of my dream! Isn’t it beautiful?
 

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Dew Drops Dream - 5x7 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

SOLD

This time I made sure to take pictures of my process:
Below is Stage 1 - the underpainting...

Dew Drops Dream - 5x7 inches, STAGE 1

 Next is Stage 2 - adding local colors

Dew Drops Dream - 5x7 inches, STAGE 2

 Stage 3 - Refining and adding variations to stage 2.

Dew Drops Dream - 5x7 inches, STAGE 3

Stage 4 is the final stage - adding more variations, highlights, I added the dew drops in this stage. See the very first picture of the final painting.

Feeling Pink - Work in Progress

I made this a separate blogpost, just because I want to celebrate this progress in my painting journey!
This is the first time I have painted without critically sketching with pencil on the canvas. It feels like I have been able to express myself freely, fully and easily!
So here I am posting how I progressed through the different stages in painting this beautiful waterlily:
Final Painting:

Below is Stage 1. Stage 1 is just the first impression and marking the light and dark shapes in the flower.



 Stage 2: In Stage 2, I actually put in the shapes of the petals, specially the inside petals. I forgot to take a picture just when I stopped painting Stage 2. So below is the result of progressing a bit more into Stage 3 - specially the center part of the flower.

Stage 3: Don't have a picture of Stage 3 either. But stage 3 is about creating more variations in each of petal shapes and the background.

Stage 4: This is the completed painting with final touches and highlights.

The inspirational photograph is below. Thanks to Wetcanvas community for posting these wonderful pictures and hosting monthly challenges.

On My Easel - Work in Progress Painting...

I am coming back to painting after a couple months break! Here's what I have on my easel right now. This is part 1 of a "diptych" i.e A painting done in two, individual panels with each part being complete in itself but when presented together forming a larger, fully integrated work. Part 1 is almost complete: 

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8 x 10 inches oil on canvas

Part 2 still needs some work but I will post it here for preview:

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each canvas panel is 8 x 10 inches

From the Color Intensive Workshop in January 2011

Here I am happy to post my studies from the Susan Sarback's Color Intensive Workshop in Jan 21st to 27th. These were some exercises I completed in "full color seeing".

First - Study of a Red block placed under light:

Stage 2 - Red Block Study

Second - This is a Study of an Orange


Orange Set up




Orange Stage 1

 

Orange Stage 4



Third - Study of an Apple


Apple - Stage 2



Apple - Stage 4

Here are my finished Orange and Apple:

Finished Orange and Apple

Fourth - Study of Bottles and a Pear:

Bottles and a Pear Set up

Bottles and a Pear Stage 1

Bottles and a Pear - Stage 4 - Finished Painting

Fifth - Study of Flower in a Vase:

Flower in a Vase - Stage 2