My Pet Project!

One day I put my grandniece's photo as desktop background image and since then whenever I was in front of the computer, I couldn't resist the temptation to paint her portrait! I was very unsure as portrait is not my forte as I had learnt when I painted my wife a few years ago which she described as a 'witch'. I had to plead 'not guilty' at that time-putting the blame on my lack of skills! We visited the National Portrait Gallery in London last weekend and may be I was inspired to do a portrait and what more appropriate subject there can be than this cute little grandniece of mine! 


I had spent a lot of time playing with her around Christmas and the perplexed look on her face looking at the flashing camera was the moment I tried to capture in this painting. Alas, I lost that moment somewhere along the painting, but I am well satisfied at the end product. Here are the reference photo and the painting, measuring 37x28cm on Montval watercolour paper 300 gsm (NOT).

Comments will be much appreciated!

One more street scene!

This is  a sleeping street in Swamimalai town, very close to Kumbakonam, in Tamil Nadu (India) where we spent three days recently. We had parked on this street when we went to collect the Chola Statue(in  bronze) we had ordered. The art of making bronze statues is a tradition preserved from the 10th Century in these parts and we had a demonstration of it which inspired us to buy one. This street houses a few of the sculptors and their showrooms, the one we bought was from a cooperative of sculptors just down the road.

I tried to capture the sunlight in this street apart from conveying the general mood of this sleepy town in an afternoon. One lone scooter is speeding with a pillion rider, just enough life to indicate some activity. I did not make much compositional changes to the reference photograph I took except to crop off some portion of the left which is also here for you to see.

And here is the painting measuring 38x27 cm on Montval watercolour paper(140lb).

Comments are welcome, as always!

Happy new year!

Hi, folks, wishing all of you a very very happy, prosperous and healthy new year! It is quite sometime since I blogged! We had a wonderful visit to India (Chennai, Chidambaram, Mayiladuthurai, Thirukadaiyur, Swamimalai, Kumbakonam, Coimbatore, Udumalpet, Tirupur and finally New Delhi). The magic of India is still fresh with me, please have a glimpse of some of the places we visited by clicking this album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/murugesan18/IndiaVisit2009#


Though I went with my travel painting kit, never had a chance to paint, but did some sketches during the last leg of the visit. Some of them are here!

 

My first painting of this year, a village scene from Tamilnadu, India, using a photo I took near Thirukkadaiyur. I especially enjoyed working (for the first time) on the handmade paper I brought from India, which is very versatile and very forgiving! 49cm x 33 cm.

Comments welcome, as usual!