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.
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 .
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| @versatility |
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| @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.
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.
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| @vividness |
