Saturday, 26 May 2012

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 ....

Sunday, 16 October 2011

The art and science of it all

Had started this blog 3 and half years ago - so that i could share my paintings with friend and family.however life got busy.finding time for painting became a dream. my love for painting obviously didn't reduce.so here i am -hoping to update this blog more often with my paintings and related stories.
one of my favorite pastimes is to trawl for good reading material related to techniques and material related to the drawing and painting.I will be sharing the interesting tidbits related to this craft on this blog.you would wonder why am i refering to art as craft -watch out for another blog on that one.
JMW Turner is one of English painters i admire-especially for the kind of depth and distance he manages to convey in his water scapes.was adequately intimidated when i discovered that he was a professor of perspective at one of the London universities!!
If you start figuring out the chemical composition of colors/pigments -you would realise how well you need to know chemistry in order to be able to paint well.don't believe me -try googling-"what is the right proportion of linseed and turpentine to be used in oil painting" -you will get the answer.
Pigments incidentally have played a very significant role in the economics and history of art.Artists would often pledge their finished paintings to color pigment merchants - as they could not afford to pay for them. Even today -if you are buying artist quality color box - and you get it cheap , then you can be sure that the box does not contain alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue-the most expensive of color pigment.
Seurat -one of the french post impressionist painter -believed that knowledge of perception and optical laws could be used to create a new language of art .He set out to define this language using lines ,color intensity and color scheme -he called it chromoluminarism.he is the one who devised the technique of pointillism -which served as the trigger for neo impressionism -the art movement after impressionism which was clearly defined by artists searching for new methods of painting.
working on a few paintings right now -will be uploading in a week or two

Sunday, 4 May 2008