What have I been doing for so long ????

It's been a long time since I even thought about writing a new blog post....There are a lot of reasons I can give for not been able to post anything....like here in India it is really hot and I have been involved in doing lot of other things...blah blah blah.....but the good news is that though I have not been making a lot of art...I have been doing something related to art.

Right now I am busy doing a course at IIM Bangalore on Entrepreneurship. And for one coursework all the fellow participants were divided into five groups to raise more money using Rs.500. And my group came up with this idea of doing an art workshop for I was a part of the group. Totally 18 people registered and there were 2 year old children were making art along with 40 year old fellow participants. We all enjoyed and had fun.

The duration was 3 hours...a basic introduction to Collage as a medium...The following poster was designed by my groupmate and journalist friend Vinutha Mallya...Thanks to her...I really liked it...


And here are some photos from the workshop:














All of them had a choice to select a Peacock or a Cardinal Bird or an Apple....And we used normal gum instead of gel medium and glaced papers, Newspapers and Magazine papers to make the collage....And at the end we did make some profit which was donated to an Orphanage.


Also I made a pair of Bamboo Panels few weeks back....I love making Bamboos...I made these really dense...they have been made specifically for bright orange wall...so I used some pastel violet in the background which is not seen very well in the picture:



I will be taking a better picture of these and post it as a separate post.....

And now I am working on my biggest collage piece.....Pink Manipuri Orchids... that will be my next post.....I will be back to my studio only by the end of June...So until then I may not be able to post regularly....

Here is my Chatterbox and there is more !!!

Medium: Collage on Birch Cradled Panel
Size: 16" X 20"
I completed this yesterday and wanted to post it immediately but found that my camera batteries had discharged completely...The only challenge I faced in this painting was to do the red dotted pattern on the face of the Chatterbox.

Here I covered most of the background with paper but for the black marker lines which I left uncovered to show through.

And I worked on the underpaintings of four Indian Birds on 8" X 8" Birch Cradled Panels...The Birds I chose were Sparrow, Oriole, Pitta and Common-pheasant....Before doing the underpainting I used some textured paste to create those swirls around for the background using stencils and then sketched the birds using normal HB Pencil.Then laid in the colors using Derwent Watercolor Pencils and Golden Fluid Acrylics.

Medium: Collage on 4 Birch Cradled Panels
Size: 8" X 8" (Each Bird)
The objective of doing the under-painting is to guide you through the right values and color while you start sticking the paper onto the painting. So it has to be very simple and not detailed. And over the months I have learned that I can achieve that by working fast on it. Also working fast gives the painting more energy and freshness...irrespective of the medium...else the painting looks over-worked.

So Chatterbox was my last collage that I completed before I leave for India....I will now be continuing the rest of my work from India where I will spend more than the next 3 months...really excited about my trip as this trip will be a lot about rediscovering India for Hand-made paper and other hand-made items....I will posting some pictures on the blog....so remain tuned and see you from India !

Finally I am done with Nutcracker...yaay !

Medium: Collage on Wooden Ply
Size: 12" X 12"

Finally my Nutcracker collage is done....I started working on this in January at Orlando and I completed it only today. It took time for us to settle here in Wisconsin....am really not used to the snowy gloomy weather here....It will take time to get used to this....

The most challenging part for me in this collage was the Nut....Initially I made it multicolored...but was not happy with it so changed it to browns....looks much better to me now.

But for the fence in front of the Barn...everything was done using handmade and hand-painted papers....And fence I did using a black accent liner used for glass-paintings...


I have 3 more to go now.....But the next in line to be collaged is Chatterbox...I named that Red-Macao Parrot as Chatterbox....because I read that these birds are very intelligent and make a lot of noise....

After Chatterbox I am going to work on the following collage....which I have not named as yet...


Collage Underpainting
Size: 18" X 24"

And the third one is Manipur Orchids...I am still working on the underpainting....as it is huge....30" X 36".....I am happy that am taking a step to move out of my comfort zone as I have never done realistic portraits like the one above before...And Manipur Orchids is going to be my biggest work of art....

So a long way to go....and lots to do.....

Distressed Triad

Medium:Watercolor (Paper: Cold Press, 140lb.)
Size: 14" X 21"

This was done again sometime back....experimenting the dry brush technique...I used cobalt blue, burnt sienna, Indigo and violet.....this was done very quickly and the background was deliberately kept abstract....keeping the focus on the wooden triad....And I also made sure I do not overdo anything....which I believe is the main key to a successful watercolor.

I also got to do a cat card....watercolor, Derwent watercolor pencils and sharpie marker....and the palette I used was...opera, permanent rose, cadmium yellow, ultramarine blue, cerulean blue and quinacridone gold. Loved the way eyes really pop out...again I left the background abstract....

Medium:Watercolor (Paper: Cold Press, 140lb.)
Size: 6" X 8"


I use Strathmore cold press , 140 lb. paper for most the experiment...Cold Press paper provides rough texture which works very well for techniques like dry brush....I really enjoyed doing these two...very loose !

So 5 more cards to go and looks like I am really slow....Will be posting pics of Nutcracker and Chatterbox soon :-).

Duality

Medium: Oil Pastels on Sandboard
Size: 11" X 9"

I am still working on Chatterbox and Nutcraker. So I just thought of writing this new post in between about this painting which I did few months back. This is abstract Radha and Krishna
with four cows.

Have named this painting Duality because Krishna depicts the Masculine form here and Radha depicts the Feminine form. Duality exists everywhere in every form....which is one of the basis of Hindu philosophy. And even when we talk about energy body...we talk about Ida(Feminine Energy) and Pingala(Masculine Energy). Radha and Krishna symbolize that duality which exists in the universe in a beautiful way.

I did add something recently to this painting...Lot of people who saw this painting before and some of them were not familiar with Krishna and Radha were not able to differentiate between the male and female. And Krishna in sanskrit means Dark blue...a particular blue which I have used here conveys completely the identity of Krishna...But it did not seem enough to people not familiar with krishna and therefore I added the nose ring to Radha. It also looks much better to me now...so posting it...

Chatterbox

So here I am back after a long silence with Chatterbox...I started working on him while I was at the Hotel. But I just completed the painting yesterday giving it a floral and rocky background.

The background took some time...first I had thought I will leave it plain...but suddenly got this idea...and it worked exactly in line with what I had envisioned....it is detailed...and that was done on purpose as I do not plan to stick a lot of paper in there....that is the plan as of now. I did this whole painting with Golden Fluid Acrylics and defined the sharper details with a Sharpie black permanent marker.

I have not been working on Nutcraker so I will be working on these two simultaneously. Also I will be working on some small sized watercolor cards which I planned to do for first 5 people who commented on my facebook profile...I will do these cards as a part of study for my upcoming work...And also I will be making a card for Cherie Stannard who met with a terrible accident last year. To know more about her you can visit her website http://www.nelsoncreative.com/cherie

Also did some little bit sketching but not something which I would like to show now :-)...Will be taking some more time to upload those here.

The upcoming studies which I spoke about...will be Bamboos, Tiger Portrait, some more Parrots , Horse and may be a Cat. So see you guys soon with all those study cards and Nutcracker and Chatterbox. So lots of fun coming up !

Nutcracker

Medium: Collage on Wooden Ply
Size: 12" X 12"
Started working on my fourth collage...my first painting for this year...yaaay...now the interesting thing which happened is...that I ended up again with a composition in which the background and the subject are similar in color.

I am hoping that this one will be less challenging because the values are quite distinct unlike the The Cockerel. And the face of the bird is much larger too. Initially I was keeping the background flat...but then a friend suggested that why don't I make it more interesting with some foliage and mountains etc in the background...I thought let me try and it gave such depth to the paintings. I am happy that for a change now I am working with cool colors. Still not sure if I am going to keep the house red and white. Probably I will try some other colors for the house when I start pasting the papers in there. Will have to do that when I reach Milwaukee.

We are relocating to Milwaukee by the end of this week so have been working on this bird in between packing and shopping.Will have to pack some of my painting stuff separately so that I can continue to paint staying at the Hotel for two weeks. Have packed the papers and filbert brush no. 6 and glue. Still wondering if I should take another panel and acrylic colors with me....Will I have time to finish this painting and start with the next one....But anyways even if I do not take this extra stuff I am taking this drawing book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards along with my sketchbook, pencils and charcoal. One of my goals for this year is to sketch a lot....a lot( means like 3 thick sketch books :P)....I had not been doing that last year.

So my upcoming posts will be regarding the progress of Nutcracker and sketching and reading...See you guys from Milwaukee !