Full Bloom - Pink Rose - SOLD

I feel like I am going at a snails pace... but I am so happy that I am getting good results with my paintings. The first one was a hit! And this one too! I love love love it!!
This is painted from a picture taken of Roses in my backyard. There are hundreds of pictures from the same flower. This particular one was taken in morning light. I chose this picture because I wanted to paint the left over bud with just one petal. While I was clicking away, I held my breath hoping that this one petal wouldn't fall off... As the rose grows in age the color in its petals fades out and you can see the color completely faded out in the painting too. But it was lighted up so beautifully in the morning light.
The background is pretty much made up. This flower is in the backyard facing a greenbelt. So I thought green background would be appropriate. I love the blue light in the background and the petals, it brings a nice contrast and luminosity to the pink colored petals!!

BTW I wanted to finish this painting on Valentines day but I did the sketch itself a day after valentines :) So I am pretty much half a month or so behind in this painting!!

Pink is becoming my new favorite color!

click on image to view larger

Full Bloom - Pink Rose, 15x22 inches, Watercolor on 300lb Coldpress Archespaper

Code# PK_19_002
SOLD

Prints of this painting are available on my Etsy Website!!

30in30_Jan2017_Day18 Pristine White - Plumeria - SOLD

Now this was a challenging one I thought, white on white paper! I pushed the darks more darker and for the light, gave a thin wash of yellow. At some places I left the white of the paper to show through. The flower looked quite ugly in the beginning stages. But after I started doing the background, it all started to make sense.
White is the color that represents purity in many cultures. But did you know that white flowers have a much more stronger fragrance than the bright and colored flowers?

click on image to view larger

Pristine White - Plumeria, 6x6 inches, Watercolor on Arches Paper

Code# PK_17_005

SOLD
A fine art print can be made available on request - contact me - preranap@hotmail.com

Check out my etsy website for more paintings - https://www.etsy.com/shop/preranap

Down the Shady Path

I painted this from Susan Sarback's book titled - Capturing Radiant Light & Color. It had been long time I had not tried out any demo from this book, so it was fun doing it.
After finishing and signing the painting, I felt I should have painted the first tree on the right, a little more shady; Painted a man sleeping under that tree with a basket on his side; and a few monkeys on tree with caps on. It would be a perfect illustration of the story "Cap seller and the Monkeys". Do you know this story? Ok, see the painting first and I have the story below it for you to read.

click on the image to view larger

Down the Shady Path - 8x10 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Here's the story:  Cap seller and the Monkeys
Once a cap-seller was going to sell his caps in a village market. He was going through a forest. He was carrying a basket of caps on his head. It was very hot and he was tired, so he lay down under a tree to take rest. He put his basket on the ground. He fell asleep.
There were monkeys on that tree. They came down and took the caps. Then they climbed on the tree. When the cap-seller woke up, he was surprised to see that all the caps were gone from the basket. He looked up on the tree and saw monkeys were wearing his caps. He became sad. He thought of a plan. He threw his own cap on the ground. The monkeys also threw down their caps. He collected his caps and went away.
Moral: Wit works where strength fails.

Marsh at Sunset - Palette knife study

This is another simple landscape demo from Susan Sarback's book - "Capturing Radiant Light & Color in Oils and Pastels". It is all done using palette knife - new technique that I wanted to learn... I am enjoyong the experience using the palette knife because I don't have to worry about cleaning the brush while working with different colors during the painting session. Just wipe the knife with tissue and ... ready to go for the next color. In the demo, the painting is done is 4 stages and I decided to take pictures of each stage (except I somehow missed taking picture of my stage 3).
As the title suggests, this is a painting of Marsh at Sunset. The goal in this painting was to study the effect of light in the atmosphere using this simple composition. So here is stage 4 - which is the final painting.
( scroll down for stages 1 & 2 )

click to view larger

Marsh at Sunset - 8 x 10 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel


Stage 1 is about simplifying the landscape into different masses using cool and wam colors as is done below. Cool colors are used for shadows and warm colors for areas with sunlight. Also typically local is not used in this stage.

Marsh at Sunset - Stage 1

Stage 2 is about refining the color masses, example greens are added to the bushes in the right corner and in the central marsh area as required. Cool color is added to water etc.

Marsh at Sunset - Stage 2

Stage 3 - Forgot to take a picture, but this stage is used to add further color variatons to bring about depth in the painting. Stages 1 and 2 were relatively simple. But I found Stage 3 to be rather fuzzy... there is lot of trial and error in this stage and yet a feeling of incompleteness in the painting.

Stage 4 - Is the final painting - shown as the first picture. This is a real fuzzy stage. I kept changing the colors back and forth, eg: for water - kept expermenting with different shades of blues, purples and pinks and finally white for highlights. There is no set pattern to work with colors - I kept changing. (this is where I found knife very useful). I also messed around a lot in the central marsh area with yellows and oranges and greens. And finally, I called the painitng as finished after visually inspecting from far, near, with full light, with medium light etc..

Hope you all like it and yes, critiques and comments are always welcome.