Make an offer - May 2011 - Original Landscape in Acrylics

Did you check out the latest changes in Blogger? I can't get over the new dashboard and the features. It seriously blew me away. So sleek and completely awesome. I am sure this itself is an incentive to the lazy blogger like me :)

Farmhouse
Acrylics on Canvas, 8 by 8 inches.
Bidding starts at $60
Mail me to place a bid.

This painting is from my plein session last weekend. A rather lonely house in my neighborhood. The bidding for this painting starts at $60, which is more than a 50% discount from the normal price. Plus, it ships free worldwide. So what are you waiting for?  You can place a bid by shooting me a mail with your offer price.  

Hope you like the painting, why not write to me with some feedback?

Springtime Sunshine - Bring on the yellow!

I found time for some more plein air over the long weekend and it was fabulous! Yet again I set up my easel amidst the stretches of yellow and the hills behind provided a great backdrop. This one was terrific fun to paint. This again is painted just with the primaries - crimson, ultramarine and cadmium yellow pale. 

Springtime Sunshine
Acrylics on Canvas, 12 by 6 inches
$150 and ships FREE worldwide.

The entire painting was completed with the brush and I finally added some intense yellow with the palette knife, to make the fields really "pop". And I quite liked it! It's actually been a while since I painted with the knife. Having some fun with brushes right now and hope to get back to the knife soon. 

Over the 4 day long weekend, I planned to paint outside at least on two days, but ended up going out only one day. Most of the time was spent with family, which was very welcome given our hectic schedules during the week. My daughter loved it too. I do hope to paint out this weekend again, to catch a bit more of the yellow fields before they disappear just like that!

Let me know what you think of this one. I will be sending out my monthly digest, my first ever newsletter this weekend. Do consider subscribing if you haven't already. :) It includes a draw for an original painting from me, exclusive only to my email subscribers.

Sign up to my newsletter.

Springtime Indulgence - And there's some more berries coming your way!

This is the last of my strawberry paintings in this set. As of now. Who knows, before the season ends, I might give them a go again. This one is only very slightly different in arrangement from Toppled. There is in fact no change in the arrangement, only in the angle in which it has been painted. This one has a bit more stronger light, which of course I love. 

Springtime Indulgence
Oil on Board, 6 by 6 inches
$100 including shipping
Click here to Buy

Here is how the painting would look framed, with a chunky black and gold frame.How do you like it?

Springtime Indulgence
Framing Suggestion

Very Berry - Some more strawberries in Oils

Those who know my still lifes, don't you also know that the top view is my favorite? Hell yeah, I am a complete sucker for the top view, of objects I mean. :-) So soon after I finished painting Toppled, from life, I captured a few images of the set up from different viewpoints, one of which is the quintessential top angle. 

Very Berry
Oil on Hardboard, 6 by 6 inches
$100 and ships free worldwide
Click here to Buy

There is one more strawberry still life coming, but this one is my favorite among the three. I especially like how the coffee mug turned out in this one, more than the fruit itself. Do you like it? Why not write to me with some comments? I love to hear from you!

Very Berry
Oil on Hardboard, 6 by 6 inches
Framing suggestion

Let me leave you with a framing suggestion. I love chunky frames as this one and love to see my art in them, even if it is only a collage :) Frames are not included in the price of the painting, this is only a suggestion. I would be very happy to guide you in choosing a frame though, just write in and let me know!

Made for each other! - A Complementary Colored arrangement!

This painting was done yesterday for this week's challenge at the Daily Paintworks is the Color Challenge. Carol Marine had asked the participants to choose a color scheme - triadic, complementary or split complementary and then come up with a painting with that color scheme. I opted in for a complementary scheme of Blue and Orange, which is one of my favorite schemes. 

I set up this still life at home and painted it from life. Last time I used the same vase and some oranges for my paintings Blue and Orange and Blue and Orange #2. Both of those were done with the limitation of using one color per stroke, completely out of my comfort zone. So I went it for a set up as simple as possible. This time however, I wanted to have orange as a dominant color, so brought in some orange fabric as well. Been a long time since I painted fabric and boy do I love it!

Made for Each Other
Oil on Deep Cradled Panel - 8 by 16 inches
$250 and ships FREE Worldwide
Click here to Buy

Instead of making it completely blue and orange, I thought I would bring in a wee bit of yellow-orange and red-orange, the split complements of Blue in the regular color wheel. Hence that little yellow flower in the middle and some reddish touches in the cloth. 

This painting is my first attempt with a deep cradled panel and I must say it is fantastic! There is no worry of warping of the wood and stuff, all I did was one coat of gesso and it could be painted! Awesome! And what more, it can be hung as it is with natural wood colored sides and without a frame. Easy peasy! I even managed a photo hanging it on my wall, though in this photo the colors are not so accurate I must warn you!

Made for Each Other
Oil on Deep cradled panel, 8 by 16 inches

Would you like to see my set up from which this was painted? I have had many people ask me to write more about the process, my tools and stuff. Well I would have never thought an artist's work behind the scenes would interest others, but now I know that it does interest people and indeed makes them curious. So here it is, a juxtaposed image of the set up and my painting in the same frame. :) Enjoy! I took a similar picture after my plein air last week, and then it struck me today, why not when the life session is at home!? So here!

Made for Each Other
The painting and the set up :)

How do you like this one? Write to me with all your feedback and anything else! I love to hear from you. 

Featured on the front page of Artfire!

I am THRILLED to let you know that I am featured on the front page of Artfire! I am their featured artist for today and tomorrow and my profile is right there on the front page with a link to my studio and a short interview. This interview was good fun I must tell you! Do check it out.

Here is a link to the interview - Featured Artist on Artfire - Nithya Swaminathan. 
My shop - Fine Art by Nithya Swaminathan on Artfire.


For those who do not know, you can buy art from Artfire even without signing up as a member. That to me is a huge plus and one that makes this site really stand out.

Toppled - Luscious, yummy strawberries!

Spring in Germany is synonymous with Strawberries and Asparagus. And as luck would have it, I eat neither. I do not like the strawberry flavor at all and do not consume it in any form. My little one on the other hand loves this fruit. With or without cream she gobbles them up. So we bought a bunch of them and both of us were happy. I set them up first, paint them and then she gets to eat them. The husband sure knows how to keep both women in good spirits. :D

I wanted a simple set up, as usual, and picked up my black coffee mug to contrast the luscious red pieces of fruit. The little reflection on the mug awas a bonus due to good sunlight. This one was painted alla prima from life. 

Toppled
Oil on Board, 6 by 6 inches
$100 and ships FREE. Click here to Buy.

And by the way, this spring I have ventured into some gardening and we have a little strawberry plant growing at home. So the next time I feel like painting some berries, I hopefully just have to pluck them and not have to go to buy them. Long time for that, but let's hope anyway.

Mirror mirror on the Wall - Some fun with figures!

Every once in a while, I make random searches for images in stock websites and in the reference image library in WetCanvas. Not that I am done painting with all my own images and am running out of stuff to paint, but just to get my creative juices flowing I look at different images, and then work up possible compositions in the mind and so on. 

That's how I landed on this image at sxc.hu. And loved it so much that I just dropped everything else that I was doing and got to this. Loved the idea of painting this guy and his very many mirror reflections without showing a glimpse of the face. This one too is painted only with the primaries. No burnt sienna on my palette, though it forms a large part of the painting. 

Mirror mirror on the wall
Acrylics on Canvas, 5 by 7 inches
$100 and ships FREE. Click here to Buy

Coming up with a title for this one was great fun. I first named it "Glass Palace", which was of course oh-so-boring and pretty lame. And then I wanted to name it "Infinite Loop". That's the first thought that comes to my mind thinking of these endless mirror reflections. My husband felt that non techies would not get it though and that would be a bummer too. Just then my friend Arvind suggested this title to me on Facebook. He originally said "Mirror mirror on the wall, tell me who can count them all". Since it was too long a title, I just cropped it :) 

Spring on the Highway - Original Landscape from my backyard

Whenever I thought about doing plein air, I always wondered how I would find the "perfect" spot to paint. How I would identify a great landscape and then capture it on my canvas. This was a mental block of unimaginable proportions let me tell you. And then as mentioned before, I started reading Kevin Macpherson's "Fill your oil paintings with Light and Color" that mentions working from the same spot repetitively so that the same location can be captured in different moods. 

Spring on the Highway
Acrylics on Canvas, 8 by 8 inches
$120 + $20 shipping worldwide.
Click here to Buy.

And then, I ditched this idea of "finding" a spot. I just went to a place amidst some fields, less than 5 minutes drive from my home and set up my easel there. As I stood there and looked on all sides, I could see at least half a dozen views that I could paint. Phew! So much for hoping that some day one mysterious landscape would suddenly pop in front of me. 

The first view I painted was "Ocean of Yellow", a view of the rape seed fields that glow here in Springtime. And when I turned to the other side, I loved this view of the highway with entirely earthen tones except for those little spots of pink. What screams Spring more than flowering trees anyway?! I'd have even painted some more, but it was nearing noon and it became too bright to see the colors properly on the canvas. So the next time around, I hope to start earlier and work plein air. Let's see. Hope you like this one, let me know what you think. 

An Ocean of Yellow - Finally some plein air!

I have a weird relationship with Plein air painting. I have always wanted to do it, but never got the hang of it really. I tried it once exactly a year ago, but I would think of it as a disaster. I did about a third of a painting and wanted to complete it in the studio and never got to it. 

This time, my approach was new and more effective thanks so some knowledge from books. I am reading this book "Fill your Oil Paintings with Light and Color" by Kevin Macpherson, and that helped me get a better understanding of the thought process behind plein air. The last time I tried it, I just set up my easel, made a mental note of what would be my boundary and started sketching right away. I mean directly on the canvas. And oh, the book is lovely! It is not an art instruction book that gives you how-tos, but it makes you think with the help of a lot of images provided. I love it. 

Ocean of Yellow
Acrylics on Gallery wrapped Canvas, 8 by 8 inches
$120 + $20 shipping worldwide.
 Click here to Buy.

So this time around, things were different. I went with a view finder proportionate to my canvas size, decided on my view, sketched it entirely first on my sketch book and then started painting. And I deliberately made an attempt to squint a lot and see the values. It was great fun. This time since my approach was better, the whole process was indeed a lot more enjoyable. 

Also, I painted this entirely with the primaries. No green anywhere on my palette. I went in for a palette of Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Yellow Pale and Titanium White, also as suggested in Kevin's book. While this makes the painting great fun and makes me think better in terms of colors and color temperature, I love the fact that it makes traveling so easy with paints. Just 4 tubes and I am ready to go! Is that fun or what?! I hope to write in more detail about my learnings from the plein air session, so stay tuned. 

Splashing Around - Sun, sands and some kids!

While I can sit for hours together all alone at a beach, the other thing that I greatly enjoy is children playing in the sand and water. It makes me very nostalgic and I get transported back to my childhood when playing with cousins and friends at the beach was such a regular affair. I loved this boy running around in the water. 

Splashing Around
Oil on Board, 6 by 6 inches
$100 and ships FREE. Click here to Buy.

I added the bigger male figure in the front to bring in more distance into the frame. I was quite in a double mind whether or not to add the bigger figure, then went for it. What do you think of it? Do you like the painting? Do let me know.

Crossing Paths - More fun on the beach

As soon as I finished Sand Castles and Looking at the Horizons, I was in that zone and had this urge to paint a couple of more pictures of children. And this was the outcome! Let me know what you think.

Crossing Paths
Oil on Board, 6 by 6 inches
$100 and ships FREE. Click here to Buy.

Bleeding Blue! - Stuff of a billion dreams!

As I mentioned in my post on Daffodils, the cricket World cup is going on and guess what, India are playing in the final tomorrow! Whoooo! This painting was completed after their semi final win over Pakistan on Wednesday. It was a great exciting match and this is my way of celebrating my team's victory.

It is a palette knife painting of a blue tulip! I was looking for some blue flower to paint, and while I was looking for references with mainly bluebonnets in mind, I was rather pleasantly surprised to find a blue tulip! So started it right away.:) Let me know if you like it!

Bleeding Blue
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
$100 and ships FREE, click here to Buy

It is probably the most cherished dream of any Indian, that our cricket team must win the coveted cup. And tomorrow is a great chance for us, I really really hope we pull it off. The last time we were in the final, in 2003, we were beaten black and blue by Australia. It was so disappointing as my whole class was watching the match with so much of enthusiasm in college. The last edition in 2007 was a very forgettable outing for us. So this is definitely our best chance. Sri Lanka, the team we are playing against, are as tough as opponents can get, but then let's see. I think the momentum is with us.