Why I strongly recommend Art Trades

In an art portal like WetCanvas, at any point in time, there would be about half a dozen "Trades" happening. These are nothing but forum projects where artists exchange original art. The media could be anything from photos to bead art.

MidNight Glow
Colored Pencil on Paper
2.5 * 3.5 inches
(c) Nithya Swaminathan

Since the ATCs or Artist Trading Cards have become very popular these days, more and more artists take part in such trades. An art trade is one where a group of N artists take part, and each one prepares N-1 original pieces of art and sends it to the other participants. Whenever I get a chance, I take part in these trades. I love them and I plan to write about my experiences with Art Trades over the next couple of posts.

Striped
Colored Pencil on Paper
2.5 * 3.5 inches
(c) Nithya Swaminathan

The Kiss
Colored Pencil on Paper
2.5 * 3.5 inches
(c) Nithya Swaminathan

In this post, I will write about all that I have gained by taking part in Art Trades, and I wish to reiterate that this is entirely subjective. And then I also plan to write about what it takes to participate in an Art Trade, as it requires a lot of committment from one's side. That will be in a later post.

Experimenting with techniques/media
This is by far my biggest gain by doing such projects - that I am able to stretch my boundaries and try out things I normally wouldn't. And since a trade generally involves doing about 20 cards, by the end of the project it becomes "normal" too!

Golden Twins
Colored Pencil on Paper
2.5 * 3.5 inches
(c) Nithya Swaminathan

Early 2007, when I joined in for my first Art Trade, I picked up a lot of autumn references, fall colors aplenty. I wanted to work in colored pencils and did all my cards using CPs. However, I felt my CP work lacked some punch, and touched up one painting with a little bit of acrylic paints. The result was so good that I did a dozen cards in the same technique – doing it entirely in colored pencils and then with a dry brush, just indicating some leaves etc using acrylics. It became a signature style and was well appreciated.

Turquoise
Colored Pencil on Paper
2.5 * 3.5 inches
(c) Nithya Swaminathan

This year, for another trade, I did a lot of birds. This time I wanted to try an under painting with watercolor pencils. After a wash with watercolor pencils, I painted them over with normal colored pencils, and the results were really good. The colors were more intense. When I normally paint in a larger format, I do not experiment this much with technique. When working large, I prefer to do what suits me best. That would generally be working with Oils/Acrylics.

Underwater Exploration
Colored Pencil on Paper
2.5 * 3.5 inches
(c) Nithya Swaminathan

Talking about trying out different media, all my Art Cards so far have been in colored pencil. My readers would be aware that I love the medium and try to do as much work as possible in CPs, in between my paintings. Since the ATCs are small in size, I always do them in CPs. It helps me to build my confidence to do larger colored pencil pieces. I also plan to do some more cards in Pastels and Watercolors. These are two media that I find really fascinating but have never tried myself. An Art Trade would be the right place to make a start in a new medium for me.

Experimenting with Subjects

Angel Fish
Colored Pencil on Paper
2.5 * 3.5 inches
(c) Nithya Swaminathan

Just as I try to experiment as much as I can with techniques and media, I also try to do a lot of subjects that I normally would not while working large. My body of work majorly consists of landscapes and water scapes.

I have never done a large still life as yet, but I have done couple of dozens of still life Art Cards. Same holds good with birds. My fall landscapes on the other hand were more like studies. I would definitely love to do them large, and wanted to see how they would turn out.

Peeping Tom
Colored Pencil on Paper
2.5 * 3.5 inches
(c) Nithya Swaminathan

My most recent Art Trade was a theme based one – I took part in an exchange titled “Under the Sea” on Drawspace. I have never done any fish before; I never really found them inspiring till date. So took part in the project as a chance to try out a new theme and I had a great time. I still cannot say I would do them on a larger format, but they were ideal for the ATC size. Super fun since I can go wild with the colors!

Fiery Orange
Colored Pencil on Paper
2.5 * 3.5 inches
(c) Nithya Swaminathan

Working in a Series
This is something that I have successfully tried in all the trades I have been part of. Though there is no rule that the cards should be on the same subject, I always make it a point to do all my cards around a single subject. That really helps me explore a subject more, and I enjoy it. I have done exchanges with still life, birds, fall colors, and most recently underwater seascapes/species.

Tiger Fish
Colored Pencil on Paper
2.5 * 3.5 inches
(c) Nithya Swaminathan

I am a person who finds it very difficult to sustain my levels of interest to do a series in a large format. But in the smaller format, I am completely at ease and have always made it a point to work in a series with Trades. This kind of gives an idea to my recipients as to what they could be getting in the mail, though there is always an element of surprise.

Enhancing my knowledge

Until I took part in my first Art Trade, I never knew what was "Encaustic Art". I was fortunate to trade with an artist who did such brilliant encaustics and am now a proud owner of 3 encaustics. It is not something I would myself give a shot at, but it was fascinating to read about a new form of Art and also receive something extraordinary.

Golden Fish
Colored Pencil on Paper
2.5 * 3.5 inches
(c) Nithya Swaminathan

Look at Me!
Colored Pencil on Paper
2.5 * 3.5 inches
(c) Nithya Swaminathan

In my next post, I would continue with some more things that I have gained, most important of which is a trading network of sorts, with all my Art Trade buddies.


All the images in this post have been done for the "Under the Sea" exchange on Drawspace. The trade ended in October and I have all my cards sent out. Waiting with bated breath for the comments from the recipients.

Evening Glow - Postcard #3

In a quick change of events, I landed in Germany couple of weeks ago. I am here for the next 2 months, joining my husband who was already here on an assignment. So that means that I am not going to be actively painting (hardly anything in fact) until then. What I would be doing though, and doing generously is visiting museums and seeing some of the best art this world has ever known. Now that's interesting isn't it?

I will try to sneak in an occasional sketch here and there, but you guys look forward to seeing and reading about Art that is much better and bigger than mine. It is going to be a helluva learning journey for me, and I look forward to blogging about it.

Evening Glow - 6 * 4 inches,
colored pencil on paper

Before I go ahead and blog entirely about the Masters, I thought I would leave you with a couple of my own. Stuff that was done last month in Bangalore. It aches that I have come here leaving behind so many unfinished paintings and I cannot get my hands on them in the near future. This is one of the colored pencil drawings I have done for the postcard exchange, from an awesome reference by Dave Slaughter. I just love his bird pictures, and I know I have said it already. I have tried my best to capture the evening sunlight that's hitting the body of the bird, the lovely shade of orange.

Evening Glow - completed
colored pencil on paper

The method is the same as my previous postcards, a watercolor pencil underpainting followed by a wash with a wet brush. And then finer details added with colored pencils. Your comments are welcome :-)

p.s: Just realized that this post remained in my drafts! Posting it before its too late!

Postcard #2

Continuing with the postcards, here is yet another very colorful bird, done in the same style of a watercolor underpainting followed by colored pencils. I am drawn towards anything blue, and this one was no exception. I am no good at bird watching and do not even know the names of most of these. There is an artist in WetCanvas who gives such jaw dropping bird images for references. Each and every single snap of is a wonder, and all these birds are done from his photos only.

Electric - watercolor pencil underpainting

Electric Blue - colored pencil on paper, 4*6 inches
Private collection.

Among other things, my website is also getting updated with images of these cards. You can locate them under 'Miniatures'. And I guess you would have already noticed the change in my blog layout and color scheme. A reader had suggested long back that I could have a painting as a backdrop, and I felt I could have it only in the header. Finally got around to doing it only now. Let me hear your feedback on the new color scheme, if it is pleasing to the eye.

Postcard #1

I am doing a series of postcards for a Postcard exchange project that I signed up in WetCanvas. A postcard is typically 4*6 in size. Just like the last year's exchange, we are about 25 participants. Each of us will paint 24 postcards and mail it to the others. I have already got about half a dozen postcards and I am a late starter this time.

Postcard #1 - Yellow bird & Cactus plants
Underpainting in Watercolor pencils

I am getting back to colored pencils after a while, and the best way to get back in touch is to work small. Since colored pencil is a medium I was investing so much on even before doing anything worthwhile, I have too many sets of pencils, most of them watercolor pencils. It took me a while to actually realize that people generally don't work with the watercolor pencils to get the pure CP effect. Now I possess a set of pure CPs also, but my watercolor pencils will remain idle if I don't use them, so I use them to do underpaintings. And it works wonders, I should say.

Postcard #1 - Completed
Colored Pencils on paper, 4 * 6 inches

The method is simple - I first do a cross hatching with watercolor pencils which is very rough and the strokes will be haphazard. This is okay, because they will be evened out when I do a wash with a wet brush. It will give a lovely smooth look to the background, especially useful when the background lacks detail and all the focus is on the object in the foreground. After washing with the brush, the color would brighten up a lot too. I then complete the painting with the normal colored pencils on top of the watercolor pencils.

Ideally I should not be posting this in public before my recipient gets the card, but I don't think any of the participants even know about my blog, so it is okay :-)

Bliss!

Not a single human in sight, yeah, not even one. No one to attend to, no one to cook for, no one to question if I ate or not. And no one to really bother about what I did and did not do. That’s exactly my version of bliss and precisely what I did this weekend. So this weekend was essentially no cooking, hardly any eating (I survive on Maggi) and all the time in the world to me only to paint. Till I get tired of it, and I haven’t yet, thankfully. I must agree that I got physically tired though.

Times like these reaffirm to me that this is what I love doing, and this is what I should be doing full time. I love what I do in my job as well, but that’s besides the point. Every time I get to paint extensively, my gut feeling urges me to take it up full time. But then somewhere deep down, there is a little apprehension. If I am forced to do Art and not do it on my own, would it still invoke so much passion from me, I am not sure. And it is too huge a risk to take! Sigh! So many things to ponder!

One great thing that comes out of a weekend like this is ample subject matter to blog about. So even if I did not do a single painting for the next one month, I have stuff to blog every day. Ain’t it cool?! So here we go, before actually looking at any art, a first look at my so called studio. It is amazing when you have no one around that your entire house is your studio to play.

So this is how I exist when I have no one to supervise me. And this is a sneak preview of all the artwork to come in the following days, most of them. I wanted to get some work done on the Postcard exchange project that I started off. I am lagging behind awfully! And also experiment with doing some still lifes, besides getting back in touch with my pencils. Will post some more works over the next couple of days.

Orange still life

This is a still life I did as part of the ATC Exchange at Wetcanvas. This picture is based on a beautiful photo by Henz Fotojam in Flickr. I had asked his permission to paint the photo, to which he graciously agreed. I initially wanted to try an oil painting of this one on a black surface, but ended up doing a colored pencil drawing on white stonehenge paper.

Still life with Oranges
pvt collection of Ardith
(c) Nithya Swaminathan

I was mainly attracted to this reference because of the beautiful flowing fabric that was so rich in color. I absolutely suck at doing fabric, and wanted to give it a go. I am sure I did not succeed fully, but was happy for a first step.

Also, I tried a complementary underpainting with this one, where I did the first layer in red and crimson for the fabric and mild blues for the oranges. Then went over them with the actual colors. As I had mentioned already, the ATC project gave a chance to try a lot of new things, since it was very less consuming thanks to the miniature size.

Fall all the way

I love fall colors, maybe more so because I have never experienced it being in Madras all my life! Needless to say such vibrant hues make for great painting subjects as well. For the ATC exchange, I did about 14 landscapes in fall colors. Most of them turned out quite well. Have a look at the first set of those.

Autumn reflections, 2.5 * 3.5 inches, pvt. collection of Pat Halverson
Copyright Nithya Swaminathan

The above painting is Chander's favorite among all the cards that I did. I was not very pleased with it initially, I probably tried to do too much in too little space. But it looks quite appealing to me now. I like the scan better than the original!

Across the Bridge - 3.5 * 2.5 inches , Pvt. collection of Mariette Hebert
Copyright Nithya Swaminathan

These have been done with colored pencils, with final touches with acrylic paints. I will probably describe the technique in detail later.

In the woods - 2.5 * 3.5 inches, private collection of Monica Gillis
copyright Nithya Swaminathan

I guess this will do for now. I shall post the rest of the paintings later, and I will also flaunt the little gems that I received. A lot of them deserve to be framed, I am absolutely delighted and honoured to have got them. What a treasure!