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

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 )

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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.

A Bowl and Two Vases

A very Happy New Year to all - my first post of the year 2011!

This is a study that I followed from the book - "Capturing Radiant Light & Color in Oils and Pastels" - by artist Susan Sarback.

Here are few things that I learnt from this study:

1) First time used the Palette Knife to paint - it felt so awkward at first to paint... getting used to it slowly.

2) How to paint the effects of light on shadows of different objects - bowl here is an opaque object, the blue Vase is transparent object and the orange Vase is translucent object.

Notice that the green bowl being an opaque object, its shadow is darker towards its base and becomes lighter at the other end. The orange Vase is translucent, so typically shadows of such objects are light towards the base and grow darker towards the ends. The blue Vase is transparent, see how its shadow dithers in no specific pattern as seen below.

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8 x 10 inches, Oil on Canves Panel

I hope to do couple more studies from this book. The next in turn is a simple landscape study... stay tuned!

As always, Critiques and Comments are always welcome.

Time to celebrate - Happy Holidays - SOLD

Wish you all Happy Holidays!!
The photo reference for this painting is from my friend's garden. Although I don't like red wine I liked the setting in her garden and with this glass of wine - the color is heavenly! This is the first time I have tried painting glass objects. I am happy and feel accomplished to get this done.

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11x14 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

SOLD

I am a little Teapot...

This teapot reminds me of the nursery rhyme my daughter used to sing...
I am a little teapot. Short and stout.
Here is my handle. Here is my spout.
When I get all steamed up, hear me shout.
Just tip me over and pour it out....

Fun times !!
I love the shape of the teapot, it is really unique. Besides..., this painting fits perfectly in the fall color scheme.
I got this picture from Wetcanvas forum, one of the October events.

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11x14 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Pigeon Friends resting on a cool spot...

This picture of pigeon friends is from Wetcanvas forum, its my first attempt to try out picture from this forum. I liked these pigeons because it reminds me of home in New Delhi. There is a room with a window Air Conditioning (AC) box. The AC box is outside of the window.... I am in deep sleep in the early morning hours. Suddenly loud noise...TAK..TAK..TAK..TAK...THUD...TAK..TAK...THUD...then... guturrr... goon... guturrr... goon...(sound continues for a little while)... My heart pounds initially with this loud noise. But now I am wide awake and realize that its the Pigeon friends doing their morning conference. They have landed outside on our AC box. The TAK..TAK sound was their wings flapping as they land on the AC box. Then guturrr... goon... guturrr... goon... is when they start talking to each other :)  This used to be my morning wake up routine for long time and that time these pigeons were so irritating. But now it as been many years since and I really enjoyed these two pigeon friends resting on a cool spot.    

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11x14 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Summer Painting Lessons - August 13 to 23, 2010

This summer vacation I had decided to take painting lessons in India. I had already decided the teacher ahead of time - Mr R. D. Dixit. But the real excitement started only after I reached Pune and met him the first time. There was very little time on hand - just 10 days! and the agenda was Landscape, Still Lfe and Portrait. We decided to start with landscape.
My teacher got me a book of landscape paintings by a German Artist to learn the techniques. The first landscape painting was about 70% demo by my teacher and the rest was done by me following the instructions.
The second Landscape was done as my homework and completly done by me (except the few final highlights advised by my teacher). Due to time constraints I we could not follow the same model i.e one painting as demo and the second as homework.
The third painting was chosen as still life (the one with sunflowers). It was done together - teacher demo, instruction and homework :)
The fourth one, a portrait of a tribal woman is double the size of rest of the paintings. The sketching was my homework - learnt a lot! Painting the picture was again teacher demo, instruction and homework. Most of the face was demo-ed and the rest completed by me. Final pass and touches were back seat instructions from the teacher.
The fifth one I chose as a face, since I wanted to learn it. Could not complete it but it was a result of the last days session. After which I had to travel back!
Following was the outcome of the 10 day session - I throughly enjoyed and learnt a lot. Now the challenge is to keep practicing and improve to keep up to the level I reached.

Click on slideshow to view enlarged in picasa....