Love to beat




Title of the series  that i did  about a year  ago. Must confess  - the title or the idea was not mine .Credit due to where it came from.  What was interesting was that  for the first time ever  - i thought through a theme and painted based on that. What was even more interesting was that  - i found myself   sketching and coloring for the first time after moving back to India.This is the story of evolution of  "Love to beat"-my first theme based  series of paintings . When i started looking around for inspiration for what would i love to beat  , after browsing through  very  cerebral and intellectual   stuff - i came back  to my comfort zone  for inspiration - natures with  all its beautiful  constituents-birds,flowers, butterflies!!! Someone  had rightly said - "If you have had river in your childhood,you always hear it". I had lovely blue  Shivaliks, Rispana (yes its a river , though  seasonal), fragrance  of Eucalyptus wafting in the air all  around ,star  lit sky in the night-thats the Doon valley  i remember from  my  childhood . Coming back  to "Love to beat " - for me  there couldn't be a greater inspiration than nature to bring it alive. "Love to beat"-is a series of four  miniature size painting -lets say double of  the conventional  miniature size. With  subjects as  exquisite in appearance as the ones i had chosen, the size of paper  felt  small- in light of the fact that  the priciple medium  for painting was soft  pastels (for those not familiar with the medium -they  are chalk sized sticks) . acrylics and water color came to  rescue  at different stages  to bring alive the series.  







@versatility

Water@versatility  -obvious -nothing to explain  here .Essential  for our  survival  in myriad forms. The fastest  painting  I have ever  done - Scribble  for 7-10  minutes  with  blue pastel  , no whites used .loved the fluidity  that i managed to  get in the first  go  therefore did not try  improvising on it .











@spreading light

Sun@spreadinglight   -What  was interesting and challenging about  the reference image was  conveying the sense of  water without using  the traditional  blue -apart  from the reflection  of the ducks -there was very little that  could convey  "water".Not very happy with the end result.

  

@vividness

Butterfly@vividness  -Could have used a more vivid palette of colors  to  convey the  vividness!Butterflies  are amongst  my  most  favorite subjects to  paint along with  birds .Flowers - i don't tend to  get  right  easily.will try harder next time.

Paintings in my head and heart

However they can't be seen unless   i free my hands from the daily grind and get down to painting on paper !  the week or two in my last blog has now stretched to about 7 months-haven't started on anything new  and thats killing me . i know if i take a very long   gap - i lose the rhythm -it takes a while to get back to  sketching and painting at the speed  that i like . i also realise somewhere procrastination and cribbing about procrastinating is turning out to be a good excuse for not painting. for example - instead of writing this crib note i could easily be planning something out. why can't i plan something at  a short notice - there are excuses for that as well - Oil colors - turpentine and linseed oils  not the best thing to have around  when you have young children at home  , acrylics - to static and stubborn for my liking  , water  colors - you live on the  edge when you paint - one stroke gone wrong - and the painting loses its radiance ,soft pastels-my most favorite -yes they are the one  i can start with  instantly.combination of soft pastels and water colors - works best for me -instinctive bias - closest to natural and organic colors to paint with. since this blog happens to be the only space where i  live  an "artist's life" -let me also tell you  what  my  next subject to paint will  be "sweet peas and sunshine"- i have been planning to paint this for  the  last 4 years.hoping that i will start and finish before the fifth year is out. hoping that i will  be able to keep my promise this time ....