The Londoner

I started off with a pretty rough lay-in and I was convinced that I had forgotten how to draw. I soon realized that a slight change in the shoulder placement is all it took to make it look right at the very least. It started to read better once I started building up the values and pushing the scale. It came together in the last few minutes! Well, you never really know what works until it just does! 

Garden chores

Its still in progress. I am just about done with filling the canvas with the overall colors in the painting. Yet to build it all up and finish it off. I'll be sure to post when its done.  

David

From an open studio costumed figure session at the Community School of Music and Arts. It was a good change to paint from a live model. I plan to do it more often. 

The Exhibit

The subject lends itself well to studies, good for drawing and exercising the value scale. I want to aim for more finesse and varied brushwork the next time around. 

Dressed Up

I started with painting the face and then moved on to the head wrap and the dress. A few tones of color and a hint of a shadow were just about enough to suggest the intricate neck piece. I had initially planned not to include the flower, but did so as an after thought. I think it works well to balance the composition. 

The reference picture is from the Watts Atelier program. 

Poised in Pose

I was a little too excited to render the Silk in the costume that I painted all of it first. I realized that the high value contrast is what makes it shine! I struggled quite a bit when I finally got around to painting the facial features. The scale was too small for comfort. I'll remember to go big the next time I am painting the full figure. This is meant as a gift though and I thought 5x7 would be a good size. 

Budapest

I spent a lot of time trying to complete this painting. Funnily enough, the most appealing part to me is the shadow of the main tower! Transparent red oxide is quickly growing to be my favorite color to have on the palette. The Chain Bridge is what I remember most from the trip to Budapest. We lived on the other side, across from the Parliament Building and we probably walked this bridge a million times before we discovered the convenience of using the metro. Duh! Budapest is beautiful during the day, breathtaking by night, historically significant and home to a great cuisine. Whats not to love? 

Setting limits

Why I haven't been using transparent red oxide is beyond me. It is going to be a constant fixture on my palette henceforth. The depth it adds to the shadows with it's transparency is truly unmatched. For the most part of this painting I used a limited palette consisting of burnt umber, transparent red oxide, terra rosa, yellow ochre and white of course. Color mixing turned out to be much less of a hassle and it was easier to maintain the color harmony.

White Dress

I hadn't thought about what I wanted to paint next; and so decided to rework an unfinished under-painting from earlier using the puddles of dried paints that I had left on the palette. This was an effort to reduce waste and an experiment with inventing color from a black and white reference. An exercise to get better at understanding values. I am happy with how it turned out and hence pretty pleased on many levels! :)

Spectacled

A simple sketch, just to get the paint juices flowing. This is a scene from union square on a bright sunny day and she had comfortably settled in with a book. I added the tree as an after thought and moved it around to add some balance. I am not sure if it was necessary for the composition! Hmm. Btw, can you tell that she is wearing glasses? 

 

 

Ms. Murphy

The one thing I have learnt from trying to paint portraits is to not give up! And it feels like a real achievement when at some point the sketch begins to look like the person you are trying to paint. Every small shape and every little curve is so important to achieve the likeness and to me, painting faces is the most difficult thing yet and that is why I love it so much too! I am also posting a desaturated version of the painting above; gives a good perspective of the value scale. I gave this sketch to E as a Christmas gift, and I am of course elated to know that she is happy with it ! :)

A peek at Queenstown

The other NZ sketch in acrylic, done from inside a cafe which had glass walls looking out to the Wakatipu Lake. It was a windy day and we were glad to be inside shielded from the elements while I painted and my friend settled in with a book and ordered multiple rounds of coffee and cacao to show our gratitude to the staff that let us laze inside. 

The sketch is now proudly owned (i'd like to think!) by a hitchhiker we had offered our help to earlier. He mentioned that he collected art as souvenirs and that he'd like to add this painting to his travel diary. I was more than happy to oblige! :) 

Nuggets by the Sea

Nugget Point at The Catlins, New Zealand

The blog has been very quiet and how time flies! Every time that happens, I wonder why I let time slip given how much I love to paint. This time on my vacation to NZ, I decided to paint and paint I did! This is one of the first nicer sketches en plein air using the acrylics kit that I had picked up in Auckland for the sake of convenience. I did struggle with the medium a few times and the surface used here is meant for water colors and hence the texture. I am back after two incredible weeks of flitting around in the mesmerizing world away from home, unwillingly so of course, and I plan to do some rigorous painting to beat the blues! Here's to the new year and a new beginning!