Ms.Glowing beak - Original Bird Portrait in Oils

I loved this bird reference in morguefile. I was looking for some more owls but a few eagles turned up too. No complaints, as I love most of them. This fella was great fun to do and it suited well as an "end-of-palette" piece after my still life yesterday. I could mix a variety of greys with everything that was left over on the palette. How cool is that! 

Ms.Glowing Beak
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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What's up?! - Original Textured Bird Portrait in Oils

What's up?!
Oil on Board, 6 by 6 inches
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I usually shy away from too close crops. This one just drew me in. After a long time, I am so thrilled to be painting birds again and I am having a blast. There are a couple of more birds in the works, stay tuned.

Look at me - Original Palette Knife bird portrait

Look at me!
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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Painted from a reference in morguefile.

Up close - Original Palette Knife Bird Portrait

It's been a while since I painted with the knife, and I was itching to an exclusively knife piece. I wanted to have some fun with a bird portrait, but something that I haven't painted earlier. As I was browsing morguefile, this owl just popped out and said "Paint me!" :-) I could not refuse. 

Up Close
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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Chasing my rainbow - updated

I was so not happy with my kiddo's portrait and I was really looking for someone to rip it apart. And no, that did not quite happen. Apart from a few suggestions from WetCanvas, there wasn't much I got. So I went by my original plan to leave it aside for a few days and then get back to it with a fresh eye. I must say that really helped. Also, till I posted it the last time, I was looking at my reference in the system and painting. This time, I took a print out of it and had it in my hand. That made a world of difference to the whole thing. Looking with the image in hand, side by side with my painting gave me a much better idea of what all I had messed up.

And then, I turned to my ever dependable dad for pointing out the issues in the portrait. Not that I could not do it on my own, but I firmly believe a fresh look helps, more so if its from him. As expected, after I mailed my daughter's portrait version 1.0 to my dad, I got some fabulous suggestions. I got some great suggestions also from my brother, who is a very gifted artist unfortunately with no online presence! My dad pointed out n number of places where I could improve, and finally said that I have to satisfy myself first. I think he nailed it with that one sentence. I wasn't even close to being satisfied with the previous version. A mother's obsession is too strong and I just could not settle with the earlier version. Not that I am greatly satisfied now, I am certainly not. But I feel I am almost there. Here is how the portrait looks now.

Chasing my Rainbow
Acrylics on Canvas, 16 * 20 inches
Copyright Nithya Swaminathan

Some of the things that I have done -

1. I have added more darks around the corner of her lips to bring in more depth to the smile.
   
2. I have softened the area where the neck meets the chest, earlier it was too hard edged and I think it looks better now. So instead of looking like an attachment on the chest, the neck looks like a continuation.
3. Softened the background a bit. One thing people at WetCanvas and my brother pointed out was that the background was kinda competing with the image. Since it could hinder with the outline of the face I could not do much, but I have greyed it down as much as I could.
4. I have slightly increased the size of the hand and palm. I am not even sure if it can be seen, but I made the hand a little thicker.
   
5. I have redone most of the hair, as I felt it was too artificial looking. It looked like it was pasted on her head, I have tried my best to correct it. I worked a little patiently, strand by strand!
   
6. Oh, and most importantly, I have painted over and repainted her left eye (the one closer to the viewer) at least 6 times. The eyebrows looked terrible before, like caterpillars! I tried to soften them as much as possible. And the whole eye was done over and over again. That's why I love and hate Acrylics. While I love it for the flexibility, I sincerely believe I'd take much more care if it were an unforgiving medium. So it is not Acrylics that I hate, it is myself actually. Huh!
   

My reference for this portrait is a terrible one. It is an image of Teju shot indoors on an overcast afternoon, can it get any worse than that? The lighting is just as pathetic as it can get. If someone gave me such an image to do a commission, I'd just refuse. But as I mentioned, this is a mother's obsession and I just had to paint her in that pose. It was sheer luck that among the dozens of snaps I took, this one had that sparkle in her eye and caught her mood so well. So I just couldn't let it go. I played around as much as I could with the lighting in photoshop, just to get the facial features lit up a little better. I am glad I pulled it off reasonably well.

This painting also has the dubious distinction of being the one that has undergone maximum changes after I signed it. As I mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to schedule this one to be posted on Mothers' Day, before I went on vacation. I therefore finished this up in a hurry and signed it. Even my husband told me it was decent enough to be posted. It was only when I looked at it through the camera that I realized how terrible it was. It was a bad painting, terrible if I were to consider likeness and mood. I just put aside the camera and realized it had a LOT more work to be done. I have worked for about 10 hours on this after signing it. And with great effort it has reached a stage where I like it. I only hope I still continue to like it after a week and don't have to pick up my brush again.

Chasing my Rainbow - portrait of a princess

I generally do not take up tags on my blog, obviously since this is an Art blog and I have not yet come across any Art related tag. However, this tag is different. I am first a mother before anything else and so I am willingly taking this up, a lovely tag going around the world to list the 5 best things moms love about motherhood.

I have to say that I am no good at articulating my thoughts as well as some of my friends. Go here, here or here to read some really nicely written tags. :) I will try my best to put across what I love, though it is extremely difficult to limit it to five. I was tagged by the lovely IBH, and here goes my thoughts in no particular order.

1. I have rediscovered myself with motherhood. It is a no brainer that motherhood has made me a stronger person. My daughter has actually made me believe that I can handle two full fledged careers, a happy home, and still find time to pursue my other interests and have time for myself. She has done all this without uttering a word! Before she was born, I had time to roam around every street of Bangalore and equip myself to be a walking Bangalore-restaurant-guide. In short, all that I did was eat and sleep, and crib that I have no time for Art. All that changed miraculously and the more busy I got, the more time I had to do many more things. If not for motherhood, I am sure I'd still be a lazy bum shuttling back and forth between work and home, and nothing else worthwhile to do.

2. I feel I am actually getting younger by the day after becoming a mom. I am rediscovering the simple joys in life, I am more aware of the beauty of nature around me. I stop to notice a butterfly, a ladybug and what not. I go out and dance in the rain, jump around in snow making footprints and have no qualms about doing any of these. I have learned from my daughter to live my life as I want to.

3. Motherhood has made me a believer. In miracles. In unconditional love. It makes me want to be a better person, to make myself worthy of her infinite love. And to give back at least a percent of the love that I get.

4. I have learned to forgive. Or at least ignore if I cannot get myself to forgive. Every time I give my little one a whacking, she showers me with hugs and kisses within minutes. She humbles me with her behavior, that I really want to forgive and not harp about things/people that don't matter.

5. I get to hone up my portraiture skills by painting the most beautiful face in this world. And free of any copyright issues, how cool is that! The gratification I get out of doing her portraits is something I cannot express in enough words. The excitement in her eyes when she sees her face pop out of the canvas is priceless. I get hugs in return, and that is obviously better than any recognition my Art could ever get me. If she is in a great mood, I also get to hear nice things about my work.:) I could of course go on and on, but since the tag says only 5 things, let me stop here.

Chasing my Rainbow
16 * 20 inches, Acrylics on Canvas
Copyright Nithya Swaminathan

I have been planning to do a portrait of my princess for a while now, and Mothers' day seemed a good occasion for it. It is my way of celebrating the blessing that's my daughter, and also the best gift I could give myself this Mothers' day.

I wanted to post this for Mother's day, but I was on vacation. And I wanted to so some last minute tweaks before posting it. Now I would say it is about 90% done, though I have signed it. I don't think I have done justice to her expression, the excitement with which she was chasing these bubbles. The portrait lacks life I would say. I have also posted it on WetCanvas and am waiting for any suggestions to make it better. Else I will have another look after a week, when I hope things will glare at me.

Any moms reading this, please feel free to take up the tag and post your thoughts if you wish. I am not really tagging anyone, take it up if you wish and its fun! Oh and by the way, the first title that crossed my mind when I was doing those bubbles was "Venn diagrams in the air". I was proud of myself for a moment.:)

A portrait in graphite after ages

This is a portrait of Jeanette for the monthly portrait study. I have posted it for feedback it the group, and some more tweaks are pending I should say. I am not happy as of now and I hope I am able to fix the issues soon. It was fun doing a graphite portrait after a long long time, more than 5 years if I remember right. The last graphite portrait I did was of my husband, when he was still my boyfriend! And looking back at that portrait now, it looks so childish. This time I used the flatter side of the pencils to block areas quicker and also to get a softer look. I am pretty happy with the shading and the edges, but the resemblance is way off. Your feedback is welcome.

Jeanette Jobson
Graphite on paper,
Copyright Nithya Swaminathan

A silly portrait - Kevin

As part of the monthly portrait study, this is the portrait for February. It was an extremely fun portrait to do, with so much of color in the reference. I was initially scared about the tongue, as I have never done tongues before. But I was wrong. The tongue was actually quite simple, I had big problems in getting the shape of the face right though. I did one version first, that ended up with a completely distorted face, and I scrapped it. This is ver.2.0, and the face is still not okay. Because of the tongue and the pose, it was difficult for me to judge the length of the face correctly. I have made it a little wider than it should be.

Kevin, colored pencils on paper
8 * 10 inches.

Rose's Portrait - updated

I received some feedback on the portrait and incorporated those. What I have done now is a slight decrease in the size of both eyes, and I have made the glasses a little bigger. Tried to soften some of the edges, since it looked like a hard edged drawing, wonder if it shows. Here is the updated version, and I think I am calling it done.

Rose - completed
Colored pencils on paper, 7 * 10 inches.
Copyright Nithya Swaminathan

Portrait Study - with WIP

I joined in the portrait study group of Rose and others, and committed to do along with the group one portrait every month. So here goes my attempt for January, a portrait of Rose.

My freehand sketch in graphite, with some shading also started. I wanted to do it in graphite initially and changed my mind later.

After seeing another artist's portrait in CPs though, I too was tempted to do it in CPs. They are a great medium for portrait, especially for rendering hair etc. Seen below is an almost completed stage of the painting.
I knew it had some issues to be fixed but was unable to point out exactly. That's what happens when you look at an image for a long time continuously. My husband had a look and told me that the mouth was not okay, and needed some tweaking. I realized that I had made the lip line flat, and not a little angled. I changed that and I think it looks decent now.

Portrait study - Rose
Colored pencil on paper, 7 * 10 inches.

Since this picture is all I have and I do not know Rose otherwise, it is very difficult to even say if it looks like her or not. If it was a portrait of someone I know well, it would be better for me to judge. I'd just have a look in the mirror and I'd know immediately if something is messed up. Now I leave it to Rose and maybe others who have seen her to judge the closeness of the portrait with the person. It was a fun portrait to do, because it was a very close up look at the face. It was a different pose and new for me. The face is at an angle that isn't as simple as it appears to be. I think even now some fine tuning is needed to get the angle accurate. I think I have captured a decent resemblance though.

It is also great to work in a group because it brings in a sense of commitment to an eternal procrastinator like me. That, for me is the most important advantage, apart from getting honest reviews of the work done. The next month's portrait is sure to be a complete blast, and I look forward to it. All your feedback is welcome, whether or not you know Rose ;-)

My Masterpiece

Ever since my daughter was born in mid 2006, it has been my wish to paint her. If I had captured every pose that I wanted, my house would be running out of space now. I never got to doing it though, as I was too apprehensive to try my hand at her. Whether the artist in me was good enough to satisfy the mom in me was the big question. No matter what the artist did, the mom would always feel that justice has not been done to the original masterpiece.

Anyway after mustering sufficient courage, I went ahead with it, near life size. The piece measures 20 * 30 inches. Capturing her million dollar smile was such a big challenge. Her naughty smile and her endearing eyes took much more time than I ever imagined. Neither the artist nor the mom are satisfied, for obvious reasons. While the artist feels there is always scope some improvement, the mom is quite convinced no artist can ever match her precious princess. :-)

My Masterpiece
Acrylics on Canvas, 20 * 30 inches
Copyright Nithya Swaminathan

This would not have been possible without the help of my dad, who was guiding me through every step and was pointing out minor mistakes and suggesting changes. After every time when I thought I had got the resemblance right, my dad would point out at least 2 mistakes, and so it was a very slow progress. I should quickly add though, that he did not touch the canvas and it is entirely mine.

I posted the portrait on WetCanvas and got some very valuable feedback. Almost everyone felt that the foot was oversized. It was pointed out by my dad too earlier, but since I was too engrossed in getting her face right, I did not pay attention to the foot. Also, when the see the image in real, since the canvas is quite large, the proportion did not strike me. It looked terrible though when I saw the image on my system, in a smaller size. I have now corrected the foot, made it more like a baby's than mine :-D I also made the face a tad more chubby, just one more stroke and I feel it has made a huge difference. See the updated version below.

My Masterpiece - updated
Acrylics on Canvas, 20 * 30 inches
Copyright Nithya Swaminathan

This painting has been done from a photo of my little girl on her first birthday, so she is all dressed up wearing the traditional South Indian attire. I hope I get to paint a little more of her. Your comments are welcome.

The Indian woman in my art

While I was digging out some of my old sketches as part of a cleaning mission, I stumbled upon this old portrait of mine, one that I really liked. It is done with only 2-3 pencils on black sanded paper. She is supposedly wearing a black sari with a red border, so I have left the black paper as it is to form the sari. With very less actual work done, this was completed in about half an hour. It is one of my favorites till date, as it was one of the very first colored pencil sketches I did and turned out decently.

An Indian Woman

Colored pencil on paper, 8 * 10 inches

Also, while I was browsing some of my work, it struck me that I have been enamored by the Indian woman in general. I have done at least half a dozen works centered around her. They are direct representations of her like this one, or in other forms like the Indian goddesses. I have a fascination with their traditional jewelry, attires and accessories specific to each state, dusky skin tones etc. These are things I do not use myself, I hate any kind of jewelry on me, but I love to paint them :-) I have a few compositional ideas in my mind/scrap book/sketch book, all of which have an Indian woman as the central figure. I don't know how many of these would get translated into paintings, I hope most of them do.It just struck me that I could almost do a series on these lines, and I am working on that.

Face to Face with Rembrandt!

When you study some masters and are greatly inspired by them, actually seeing the paintings for real is an experience quite unmatched. Such was my state of mind when I saw not one, but around 40 Rembrandts in flesh and blood, at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Rembrandt Van Rijn, obviously the most popular amongst the Dutch masters of the Golden Age, is one artist whom I admire hugely for his masterful usage of darks in order to get dramatic lighting. They say if you want to paint light, paint the darks first. This is true, because only proper darks and shadows with bring out the effect of light. And this is showcased best by Rembrandt.

Blame it on my lack of knowledge, I thought that Rembrandt painted realism painstakingly. But then that wasn't the case. He painted realistically only the focus areas, giving them a lot more detail than the 'out of focus' areas. They were done effortlessly and that kind of increased the effect and completely draws the viewer to the focal point which he aims. It has to be seen to be believed!

One more thing that strikes me is the splendid usage of black in his paintings. This is the case with not only Rembrandt, but a lot of the Dutch masters. They use black extensively, be it in the clothes or in backdrops. My art teacher used to vehemently prohibit us from using black paint as is from the tubes. She always insisted that no shadow or object is absolute black and it is formed by mixing other dark shades instead. I followed it blindly many years ago, and then saw that it was true. The more and more paintings I studied, more real life objects I closely observed, I understood the meaning behind her statement. It is amazing though how these masters have used the color to create the best possible darks and bring in an atmosphere to their paintings.

Rembrandt’s paintings show very clearly his strong brush strokes, and it is believed that he used the bristles and the back of the brushes also to create impressions like fine hair. In his first self portrait seen above, when he was aged just 22, the hair is so masterfully done. After dabbing a lot of dark colored paint, he has scratched on the wet paint using the back of his brush. This creates a great suggestion of hair and looks extremely real too.

My favorite amongst the Rembrandts was the Jewish Bride. The audio guide mentioned that it was Vincent Van Gogh who said that he could spend 10 years of his life sitting there just looking at that painting, and surviving on stale bread. Coming face to face with the masterpiece, it isn’t surprising that he made such a statement. The focus in the painting is on the sleeves of the guy, one that shines in gold. To get the shine, the artist has done an under-painting in burnt sienna, and then followed it up with huge amount of yellow (and some ochre, I think) dabbed with a
palette knife. It gives an unbelievably realistic look to the sleeve, as if it shows every crease possible. But going closer, we would note that it isn’t detailed as a photo realistic painting. The forms are only suggested and terrific values established with the under-painting and the palette knife. Also, photographs will not really capture that 3D effect the painting has.

The genius of Rembrandt can be seen in how he has handles the shadows of the lady’s fingers, and also give glimpses of red on the man’s sleeve, which is nothing but the red reflected from the lady’s dress. One more point which I wouldn’t have noticed if not for the audio was a tiny black outline on the lady’s thumb, which goes to show that she is not resting her hand on his body, but it is away from it. Mind blowing! I just stood there in front of it for a long time, just unable to take my eyes away from it. Though every Rembrandt is a stunner, this one just blew me away, totally! I wouldn’t mind going there again just to see this one.

Another one of my favorites from Rembrandt was the painting of Anna, the Prophetess. This is a profile of an aged woman with diminishing eye sight reading the Bible with the help of her fingers guiding her through the lines. The focus is on the “reading hand” and not the face of the woman. Rembrandt depicts every single wrinkle in that hand, he probably wanted to show in terms of folds all the experience in life she had. Apart from the hand, everything else is shown in less detail. It is not impressionism per se, but it is done in a loose style. The lighting of this painting is also brilliant, the light rays fall on her reading hand. Her face though lacks any detail, and is almost hidden in the shadow.

There is another painting of Anna and Tobit with a lamb, which conveys a great deal of emotion. The story is something like Tobit suspected Anna for stealing the lamb and later regretted it. I do not know the story too well, and it hardly matters anyway. Suffice to say that whatever emotion is conveyed in the story is captured masterfully in the painting.

One more painting that had a religious connotation was Jeremia Mourns. The painting is of the destruction of Jerusalem, and Jeremia, a prophet laments this sitting alone. The story mentions that he had prophesied this event, but he could not prevent it. The emotion that's conveyed in the painting is one of immense pain and grief, and its fantastic. The focus is on the prophet's face and each wrinkle in his face shows the amount of pain. Here again, in doing his bears and hair, Rembrandt employs the back-of-the-brush technique. The ornamental shawl is also exquisitely done.

The photograph here looks as if the top left of the painting is entirely dark with no detail, which is not the case. What is shown there is a lot of troops marching into Jerusalem, a fortress, people attacking each other etc. War and destruction depicted with great lighting but not very intricate detail. This photo obviously doesn't do justice to the painting.

Though Rembrandt was a master of the portrait, his landscapes were no less spectacular. There is only one landscape by him in the museum, called the Stone Bridge. This piece uses the same dramatic lighting that he employed in his portraits. The photo again does not capture the complete detail in the painting. I loved the clouds in this one, very very dramatic. And in the foreground, there is a lot of detail not shown in this photo. There are people walking, one man carrying some load and going, one family going with a cart and so on. It is one of my favorites in the museum.

And then, The Night Watch. This is the most famous painting in the museum, and it occupies an entire wall. It is absolutely gigantic. The painting is a group portrait with terrific light and shade. The scene is that of some militia men marching out of a gate. There is so much of movement in the scene, because the men are not static. They are marching and this effect is achieved in their various postures which are all distinctly different.

The focus is on the lieutenant in the front, and the little girl in the middle who is a mascot. It is interesting to note that both these "objects of interest" are not bang in the center. They are slightly off-center, adding interest to the viewer. So much attention is give to the fabric worn by each person, their collars and the expressions on their faces.

Though the night watch is the most popular painting in the museum, and probably the most popular group portrait, my favorite group portrait is another painting, The Sample Officials. This painting captures more than just faces, it just captures a snapshot of a moment in time, frozen forever. And that is awesome to say the least!

There are 6 men in the picture, and each of them is so unique in posture and expression. They are officials who sample the quality of cloth produced and hence the name for the painting. It is as though the room in which these guys are is slightly raised. As in you open the door, walk up a couple of steps and then these guys would be sitting there. Now, if someone entered opening the door and they all notice this, this is how the moment would be. All of them seem to be looking in one direction, towards the visitor. The cloth is also so wonderfully done. From a distance, it will look like the red cloth is done in intricate detail, which is far from true however. In the focus area where there is light, there is some (not much) detail of golden threads etc. This gives the viewer an impression that the entire cloth is detailed. It is however just red and sienna dabbed randomly with no detail whatsoever. The focus is actually not on the cloth, it is on the faces and they are brilliant.

Some other paintings of Rembrandt that I loved are his other self portrait when he was 55, then some more portraits of other people, specifically one of a young rich woman where he is at his detailed best. Her dress, collars and ornaments everything just oozes detail. I wanted to put in my first thoughts about all the Dutch masters in the museum, but Rembrandt has awed me so much that I am running out of space. So all the other masters, some other day.

All the images in this post are copyright Rembrandt :-)

For further reading -

• What is Baroque Painting?
• Rembrandt's masterpieces at Rijksmuseum - Its a little user-unfriendly, but scroll through each image in the top to see them in detail below.
  
• Night Watch - Read completely about the painting using the 'Next' button in the bottom right. It is again not very user-friendly, but the information is good.
• List of painters in the Dutch Golden Age
  

Self portrait - almost completed

I posted the incomplete version of the self portrait in time for the challenge at WetCanvas, and the extremely encouraging folks there said it was looking good already! People said that there was a very good resemblance and some tweaks would finish it up well.

After a week, I got back to the portrait and it is almost completed now. My face is fully done and I just have some little tweaks in the background. So more or less done. The face hasn't undergone any big changes from version 3.0. I had to increase my right cheek, which was not showing my chubby face fully. A slight increase in the cheek made a HUGE difference to the picture overall. And then pushing of some darks around the eyes kinda did it. Here is a look at the whole picture.


A closer look at my image alone -
I am happy with the result. It now looks like me in the mirror too, though it looks like my mouth is skewed at an angle! In the normal view it looks just fine. Let me know your comments, especially if you have met me in person.:-)

Updated: Here is a link to the Self Portrait Challenge 2008 at WetCanvas. This thread contains everyone's portraits with other's comments. Absolutely stunning work by all of them! And this is the gallery with all images alone put together, aptly titled "The Rogues Gallery 2008" :D

Some ugly stages of a self portrait

Thanks to a recently announced Self Portrait Challenge at WetCanvas, I got to do my self portrait. After more than a month of shortlisting some photographs, I finally zeroed in on a reference. I was not even sure if I should use a reference or sit in front of the mirror. But since the mirror option is certainly more time consuming, I went with having a reference.

My reference would be familiar to those who are on my network in Orkut, for this pic has been my profile pic forever. The original reference is this -


I opted for a closer crop so that the focus is on my face and not the background. Here is the cropped reference -

To begin with, I did a rough sketch blocking the main regions, for my face, body and the background. And filled it with one layer of colour. I have simply filled flesh tint in the face, without marking the features.


Then, I directly marked the features with a pencil on my face. A very rough marking, which would be refined later as I lay down paint.

I do not have stage by stage WIP images to show the painting process, as I was too involved to pause and click. I completed the face (ver 1.0) only to later realize that the proportion between the size of the face and height of my body wasn't alright. The width was fine, but the picture showed me taller than I actually am. I did not like it, and painted over the face again with flesh tint. I have emptied a tube of flesh tint for this picture alone and need to replenish my stock, btw!

Version 2.0 seemed alright with regards to the proportions overall, but I did not like the eyes. The eyes were perfect in version 1.0, but 2.0 altered this, and therefore the overall resemblance to myself was lesser. When the eyes are perfect, they kinda make up for other goof ups. But if the eyes go wrong even a wee bit, no amount of perfection in the other features will set right the overall painting. Here is a look at ver 2.0.


If I find something wrong, I do not have the patience to "correct" it. I would rather paint over it and start from scratch. Which is why I painted over the eyes alone when I felt they were not okay, and version 3.0 was born! I think the proportions are okay now and the eye also looks fine. A lot of shading is yet to be done though. It was getting too late and I was feeling sleepy, so decided to continue at a later point. Here is the portrait as it is right now -

At every stage, my only verification was with my daughter. If she could recognize me, I thought everyone else can! So I showed it to her and she was happy, which made me sort of relieved. But one thing that is nagging me is that the picture is terrible if seen in the mirror. When I am unsure if I am on the right track, I always use the mirror to judge my painting. And this time, it looks like someone else in the mirror (not that it looks 100% like me in the normal view either!:-) ) I have left it aside for sometime. Will go back to it later and spend some time analysing what needs to be done where, and I hope to complete this soon. Ofcourse, with background and all.

In the meantime, I would like to hear from you folks about what you think of this attempt. And suggest any changes too. Thank you!

Focussed

I last used Acrylic paints about 10 years back, at least. They were never a medium of choice, since the colors would dry up even before I was done with my shading etc. When I first started using Oils, they instantly became a favorite and I have never gone with acrylics ever after. However, I had to get some work done in very little time, and well, it was acrylics to the rescue!

When I was amidst some shopping, I chanced upon a call for entries poster for a juried exhibition and the deadline was about 10 days from then. Since I had spent 5 days deciding what to paint, there was very little time left. And I jus started dabbling wiht acrylics, not really bothered about the end result. I was more than happy with the painting though. I think its one of my best. Goes to prove that a lazy soul like me does quality work only under pressure. Ah! I need deadlines looming over me forever, be it in IT or Art.

Focussed - Acrylics on Canvas, 16 * 20 inches
copyright Nithya Swaminathan

Not just that, I am a fan of the medium too. I realised that it wasn't an issue with the medium, but my inexperience that produced sub standard works then. I can do a much better job now. I have a couple of unfinished pieces in acrylics, and most of my art cards were done in this medium. 25 cards in 3 weeks, I could not have imagined with Oil. I am one happy soul now, having rediscovered this medium.