Cap van San Diego, Hamburg

I took a picture of this vessel sometime in Dec/Jan, as soon as we reached Hamburg but never got down to paint it, till I was invited for a painters' session by fellow painter Beth when I visited Ithaca(NY) this month.

We were at Chris Zinder's place, going through her fabulous works (http://www.artspartner.org/artists/view/zinder-chris.html) before we sat down to do some painting. (It was very cold outside so we were forced to paint indoors only). For want of any ideas I started to do this painting. Here are some pictures of the day:

 Beth and Chris

Chris and me!

I could do only the sky and the water and finished it later at my son's place. The finished painting is here:

 After returning to Hamburg I did the same painting on a bigger paper, which is here:

I should thank Beth and Chris for the wonderful hospitality and looking forward to do more painting sessions in future. 

The place is Hamburg's St Pauli ferry landing area and the name of the ship is: Cap van San Diego. Enjoy the paintings, thanks for looking!

Poor man's MF Hussain

I heard that MF Hussain is going to paint actor Vidya Balan in nude. It is unknown if Vidya Balan is going to pose for this painting, but I had a go myself with a picture of her, just for the fun of it.

Happy Easter holidays! Thanks for viewing.

Springtime II

I had mixed lots of colours on my palette for the previous painting, juicy yellow and red, which are used in the follow up painting, Springtime II(don't like wasting paints). Just a design variation of the same theme, windmill and the tulip fields.

Enjoy the colours! Thanks for looking! Have a great weekend!

Springtime

It is holi festival in India, festival of colours welcoming the onset of spring! There was lots of sunshine in Hamburg too, today and all went to inspire me to put lots of colours on paper, presto, here comes a painting celebrating colours! (We had  spend more than 3 years in Holland and the memories of the windmills and the tulip fields are always  with me!)

Happy Holi! Thanks for looking!

St Pauli Quays, Hamburg

St Pauli quays serviced international navigators for centuries in Hamburg even though they service only passenger ferries touring Hamburg city these days. My second painting in Hamburg is inspired by this historic site. Done on a half sheet Bockingboard paper, you may find lots of loose energy in this painting.

Thanks for viewing, comments welcome!

Shaniwarwada, Pune

 Shaniwarwada was the stately mansion originally built as the residence of the Peshwas. Completed in 1732, it is a major tourist attraction in the old part of the city of Pune, Maharashtra in India. I visited this place in November last year and took this photo.

My painting measures 37x28cm on Arches 140 lb Cold Pressed paper. The foliage was the toughest part and I wanted to do it loosely. The afternoon shadows cast a spell when we were there spending a leisurely two hours in this historic place. Thanks for looking, comments welcome!

Break ke Baad!

Hi, happy new year greetings to all! It was a longer than usual break for me! Even after setting up the painting stuff in a new place(we are now in Hamburg, Germany), I was suffering from jitters I always get after a period of no painting! Million butterflies in the stomach! Since I have to start somewhere, I looked at a historic building not far from our place, Torhaus (Tor House) originally built in 1757 now housing a museum totally immersed in snow. A snow painting is the right place to start as snow is the easiest thing to paint, in fact you don't have to paint it at all! This painting in a way got me into the groove! No better way of breaking ice, than painting snow! Happy looking! Thanks!

Snow in Hamburg

I shall photo these trees in summer, hopefully in a different hairstyle!

Sketches that kept me going!

For a month now I was on the move continuously, crisscrossing India from Delhi to Coimbatore, Coimbatore to Chennai, Chennai to Hyderabad, Tirupati, Pune etc and I couldn't find that tranquil space for myself to put brush to paper. I had of course managed to put the pencil and the sketchbook to good use that helped me keep in touch with art all the while. Here are some serious ones and some playful ones, some might accidentally resemble some celebrity but I was just having fun. Thanks for viewing.

 Have a nice day!

River Dee and church, Llangollen

This is the view of the village Llangollen and its Church from the river Dee, (Wales, UK) one afternoon of this summer. A majestic view from the rocks inside the river. Here is my photo

and the painting done on Arches 640gms Not paper. Thanks for viewing, comments welcome! 

Lower Slaughter, Cotswold

We visited this beautiful Cotswold village, Lower Slaughter in September this year on our way from Burton on Water. It was a sleepy afternoon with clouds hanging over. A typical cotsworld village scene, I was attracted by the overpowering trees and their reflections in the waterway.  Focussed on the trees and the reflections I overlooked the clouds to make a simple sky. I think that helped to direct the attention to these two elements. Arches 300 gms rough surface took some punishment while I floated wahes over washes all over not excluding the sky, which saw 3 glazes of different colours.

Thanks for viewing! Comments welcome!

Woodbridge:Suffolk Coast

The Tide Mill at Woodbridge (Suffolk) is one of the most painted spots in the UK. The fishing boats against the shimmering tides always attract painters especially the maritime painters. This scene is just across the Tide Mill (I am planning to paint the Tide Mill separately soon) it was probably the last sunny day of this summer, we sat outside the Waterfront Cafe enjoying the hot sun and  a hot meal looking at this scene before us, which got imprinted in my imagination.

This is my painting of the scene, a rather simple interpretation with some wet in wet washes (timing was important though), but enjoyed doing this.

Hope you like this one. Comments welcome! Thanks for viewing.

Not far from the madding crowd

This is a quiet area very close to the very busy London West End, lower Regent Street! Picadilly is just a few yards and the shopping district of Oxford Street is not far away. This end of Regent street is of course  full of tourists at any time, the Crimean War memorial with Florence Nightingale statue making it an important landmark in London.  You certainly miss the huss and buz of the city despite being in the centre of it which attracted my in the first place to do some sketching. The busy cranes in the background are reminders of the state of Central London these days where a lot of construction activity takes place. I reduced the number of figures to four though there were more when I was sketching but compensated with some birds to add to the quiet atmosphere I was trying to portray. Lot of architectural complexities daunted me but tried to simplify them as much as possible. London always is an inspirtional city, even the quietest corner of it! Thanks for viewing. Comments welcome!

Father of the nation!

These sketches of Gandhiji were done on October 2, birthday of the father of the nation.The simplicity of the mahatma is his greatest quality and how he was able to inspire a whole nation behind him both the educated and the rural masses is in no small measure due to this quality. I thought a nice way to pay tribute to the great man that Gandhi is to capture his simplicity in these sketches! Thanks for viewing!