Paintings from our trip to Hampi, Karnataka, India

We spent a wonderful few days last month in Hampi, a place of historical importance in Karnataka, India. The famous Vittala Temple is the most extravagant architectural showpiece of Hampi.The temple was originally built in the 15th century AD. Many successive kings have enhanced the temple campus during their regimes to the present form.

 I made two paintings from photographs I took which are also here to let you  have an idea of the place and to enhance the understanding of the paintings. When I take photos for using them as references for my paintings, I tend to follow some compositional basics so that I do not have to make much changes to them while painting, so much time saved in the composition and design stage! Here are my photos:


This is not the Vittala Temple but the view as you exit the temple from one of the right doors. The tree fascinated me a lot, 'golden arali' tree with an intricately designed trunk.

And here is my painting:

Here is the goddess temple on the northern corner of the temple:

And my rendition of this temple:

Both are done on Arches 300gms Cold Pressed Watercolour paper, 30x40 cm one in portrait and the other in landscape format just using 3 colours only!(Blues-Windsor and Ultramarine Blues, Red-Burnt Sienna and Yellow-Raw Sienna).

Thanks for viewing, comments welcome! Either post them here or email me! murugesan18@gmail.com