Dancing feet #19
Acrylics on board, 5 by 7 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
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This one was the toughest of the belly dancers, without a doubt! I had such a tough time painting the woman's body that I felt for a couple of times that I should gesso it and start all over. I am not so convinced with it now either, but I think the proportions are at least fine now. The angle of her head and that stretched neck was quite the challenge. When I first sketched it, it was like the neck was too long. And then it seems short. The head looked minuscule for the body when I later realized it was the body that was too big and not the head that was too small. And that hand, don't even get me started on that one. It was so unbelievably tricky and just not convincing enough. Neither is it now. Too many mistakes that had to be fixed one by one! Phew! I painted this over three days and it is currently in a position where I am relatively satisfied though not thrilled with it.
Let Loose
Acrylics on Canvas, 16 by 20 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
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I have kept the palette very close to Show Stopper. I just thought they would be good hung together. This painting too is heavily textured, I had a great time doing her dress highlighting each fold with the knife. These kind of patterns are just tailor-made for the palette knife. There is infact texture everywhere excepting the hair and the face.
Let me know what you think.
Dancing feet #18
Acrylics on board, 5 by 7 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
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The Flamenco fever I mean. Whenever I take a look at a collection of my work, what strikes me and I think what will most obviously strike anyone is the amount of red in it. While my palette is predominantly warm most of the time, red seems to be the most common hue that I use. I am I love cadmium red and cadmium deep red. And cannot live without burnt sienna. Reds and browns give me an unparalleled high. So it isn't any rocket science that I chose to paint Flamenco now, as an extension to my dancer series.
This painting is very heavy in texture, much more than all my other work. Almost as much as "The world ahead" I could say. And this, is partly by design and partly by accident. After I did "Treasure Hunt" last year, I began another abstract and brought about a lot of texture on this canvas. It did not turn out true to what I had in mind, that I scraped the idea and just left it. Now I picked up the same canvas and started from scratch by applying black gesso over it. Something liberating about scraping a piece of art that has reached a dead end. The texture still stayed and has formed a nice backdrop to this painting.
Flamenco #1
Acrylics on Canvas, 16 by 20 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
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I did not want to do the kind of background that I did for all my belly dancers. There, I always did the background as a hazy mix of warm colors, to suggest movement. In this painting though, I was looking for something that would accentuate the texture and create more drama. I have thus used a combination of copper and black in the background, suggesting some metallic hues. It was terrific doing the background, more fun than the actual painting itself.
The dancer too is entirely done with the palette knife. The gorgeous frills in her dress were a real treat to work with the knife. This is one dancer painting where the background actually has more texture, though the entire painting is quite three dimensional in nature. I stopped short of adding details to her hands and face as I wanted it to remain a little hazy, a bit in movement. In the flow of the dance.
Let me know what you think of this one. Of course, there are more flamenco pieces to follow, while the belly dancers too will continue on one end. And the Tango too! :-) So which dancers do you like the most? In my paintings I mean. Let me know.:)
I would request you to share my links, blog posts, artworks with anyone who might be interested. I am looking to grow my subscriber and client base and would greatly appreciate any sharing of links from your side. Thank you so much.
Some more Tango. While I am working on the Belly dancers, I have also started a piece with a Flamenco dancer. Their red dresses scream of passion and I find red in any form simply irresistible. So I guess the next few pieces are going to be Flamenco. And while I am at it, I plan to start working on the Indian dance forms quite soon.
Dancing Feet #17
Acrylics on board, 5 by 7 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
$35 + shipping, Click here to Buy
Just as is the case with everything Indian, the dance forms are also innumerable in their diversity and each one is beautiful in it's own way. A friend gave me an idea/suggestion in my facebook fan page last week and that has got me seriously thinking about the Indian classical dances. I am right now researching, going through images and doing some preliminary work. As I have zero knowledge of dance of any kind whatsoever, it is quite challenging. So yeah, you could expect something Indian from me sooner than later.
For now, just enjoy the sizzling Tango :-) Let me know what you think.
I am so thrilled to let you know that one of my tulip paintings sold earlier in the day today. This also happened to be my first client outside the US. That was no doubt the best way to start my New Year. And I hope this is a sign of things to come this year. :)
Dutch Damsels #11
Acrylics on board, 5 by 7 inches
SOLD
It was only yesterday that I was talking about the Tango series all being non-textured. Though I like the outcome of these pieces, I am not very happy that they were not done with the knife. When I am trying to bring in a coherent style across pieces and subjects, I want to lessen the use of the brush as much as possible. So this was something bothering me. Well, not any more. Am I thrilled or what?!
Dancing feet #16
Acrylics on board, 5 by 7 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
$35 + shipping, Click here to Buy
This tango painting is done with the knife entirely, including the woman's legs, skin and all. What I love about the Tango pieces is that they hardly take any time at all. They are all done in an hour or less. Since I hardly do any work on the background, it is very less time consuming but quite effective. Let me know what you think!
You can find my Make-an-offer painting for January right here in my sidebar. Check it out and mail me if you are interested. Please do share with anyone who would be interested. Thank you!
First of all, my heartfelt thanks to all those who shared a link to my painting giveaway on various networking websites. My blog received a lot more page views and my facebook fan count grew by about 10 people over the last week. Thank you to each one of you.
I did draw out three names using a random number generator and the winners are:
Congratulations to the three of you. I hope you like the little paintings that you receive. There is a minor glitch though. Both Juhi Jairath Chawla and Sasmita Maurya had wanted the Bird of Paradise. But since Juhi's name was drawn first, she gets to receive the Bird of Paradise. I would request Sasmita to let me know of another painting that she would like to receive.
Thank you so much once again for playing along. This was great fun and I would like to run another giveaway around my birthday. Let's see. And giveaway or not, I would request you to share links to my blog/website/work with your friends. I deeply appreciate it.
I thought I was done with the dancing feet series as I could not find any new references for a while. I wasn't looking actually. And then I remembered that I had gotten permission from quite a few photographers on flickr to paint with their images as refs. This is from one such photographer who was generous enough to give me permission. You can see the original photo here.
Tango #15
Acrylics on board, 5 by 7 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
$35 + shipping, Click here to Buy
I have gone back to using the brush for the dancing feet, as I was not very happy with the knife results for these paintings. I might try them again with a knife later, with a little more patience perhaps. For now, this one has no texture though.:) Let me know how you like this one.
A very Happy New Year to all of you. May the year be filled with everything that you could wish for.
I was thinking for a while about what new to venture into this year, and this was one of the first ideas to strike me. This year, I am going to be offering a painting every month as a "Make an offer" painting. I will put this up on the first of every month and you can bid on the painting for the whole month. What is interesting is that the starting bid value is discounted than the actual value of the painting. So you do have the chance to buy art at an extremely affordable price from me.
If you are interested in this painting that is on offer, send me a mail or message me on Facebook or whatever, with your offer price. I will update my website and blog with the current highest offer every time I receive a new offer. So all you have to do is drop by my site and check out the current highest bid and place your bid higher. Simple! By the month end if it is not yet sold because there has been no bidder, then I will list it in my store at the actual price. Which means, during the time when bidding is on, I will NOT be listing it in my store and it will be available only directly from me.
A new painting will be on offer in the following month, no matter whether or not the previous month's is sold. And so on. I am quite excited about this initiative and I hope you are too. I would request you to share this with your friends and anyone else who would be interested.
An afternoon in Venice
Oil on Canvas, 8 by 8 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
Bidding starts at $60, Mail me to place a bid
With this painting, once again I have ventured into oils with the palette knife. My comfort levels are just getting better. This one was good fun. I spent more time in deciding between oils and acrylics, than the actual painting time itself. Phew! This painting is done on gallery wrapped canvas and the sides are painted. You can therefore hang it even without a frame, though I must say it looks awesome with a good frame.
I hope you like it. Let me know your comments.
