Tech Tuesdays - Integrating Disqus comments on your blog

Today, I would like to show you how to go about integrating the Disqus commenting system on your blog.

Why Disqus?

• Rich features - threaded comments, reply by email, track all your comments etc.
• Sign in with ANY id - you can sign in with Facebook, Twitter, Google and so on. Anything.
• Well integrated with social media - You can share your comments and replies on twitter and facebook too.
• Other add on widgets like Recent comments, popular commenters etc.

Until recently, it was not so easy to integrate disqus with blogger, it had to be done manually. But now it takes less than a minute. I would strongly recommend every serious blogger to do it. Here's how we go about it.

Step 1 - Sign up for Disqus and add your sites.

After you sign up for an account with Disqus, be sure to add your blog to the list of sites that you manage.  Then go to your Admin panel and click on the "Install" tab.

Admin -> Install

Step 2 - Choose the platform on which you have to install. Blogger, for instance.

• When your site is already added to your disqus profile, all you need to do now is to click on the button as it is shown below, to add the widget to your blog. 
• You will then be required to login to blogger and authorize the widget.
• When the page element is added in blogger, you can drag and drop it to where you want. Typically, in the end of the post body. 

Install to blogger

Step 3 - Import existing comments

• Since disqus is the default commenting system on your blog now, you have to also import the older comments in your blog so that they don't disappear now. 
• Click on the tab "Tools" in your admin panel.
• Now select "Import and export" and select the platform from which you have to import comments. Here, it is blogger again.
• This will take a while, depending on how many comments you have in your blog. 
• Once it is completed, you would be able to see your old comments in the new system.

Import comments from Blogger

Wasn't that super easy?! Try it out and let me know if you face any issues. I'd be glad to help. If you have any suggestions for posts in my "Tech Tuesdays" series, drop me a line.

Introducing Tech Tuesdays - a brand new series on A Splash of Color

When I interact with other artists on various venues, one thing that I come across is that a lot of them find technology a tad confusing and even overwhelming at times. If you are one such artist, read on. 

I am starting a new series on my blog that is aimed at artists who wish to overcome the challenge of technology. A step by step approach to demystifying things. This new series is titled "Tech Tuesdays", and yes, it will be published once a week every Tuesday. 

As of now, my plan is to deal with one very specific topic every week, mostly related to maintaining an art blog, a Facebook page for your art, a website and so on. I will try to be as detailed as possible with screenshots and step by step guidelines. 

Who would benefit from this -

• Artists and art bloggers who have very less or no knowledge of HTML, customizing your facebook page, integrating your various online presences, etc.
• This series is NOT for people who are in front of the system all the time. It is much more basic than that. 

How you can participate?

• Leave a comment suggesting any topic that might be of specific interest to you. 
• I am an engineer and having worked enough in software development, there are things that I might not necessarily find "challenging" and I could ignore them. But if you have a suggestion, I am more than willing to help. 
• Share the articles with your friends or anyone else whom you think would benefit from them.:)

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.

A FANTASTIC Blogger improvisation for Art blogs - Try it NOW!

Blogger has launched "Dynamic Views" today, where you can choose how you want to view a blog. It is essentially how a viewer who lands up in your blog can easily view the most important stuff your blog has to offer. 

Read all about it at Blogger Buzz - Dynamic Views for Blogger.

Palette Knife Painters
"Mosaic View"

Why it is a love at first sight? 

No brainer really, isn't it?! For an Art blog, instead of having to scroll down and view post by post, if you can see all the images at once, doesn't it capture the attention of an audience immediately? It gives you a portfolio view of your work, right here on your blog. Awesome isn't it!

Biggest advantages?

I'd jump in and say art bloggers stand to gain the most. I'd also add food blogs and of course photography blogs. Essentially any image intensive blog will benefit immensely from this. I know so many awesome food blogs with such mouthwatering pictures, which I am sure if seen in a portfolio view, the readers would be all the more tempted to check out the recipes.

With the normal blogger view, there is a limit on the number of posts that one can see. And on an average if we have one image per post, it limits the number of images on the front page as well. However, with these views, the images are loaded on the homepage. This, however, doesn't slow down your website. The images are rolled as you scroll and not during launch, so you cannot believe how super fast the page loads.

Views allow Sorting

In the flipcard view, there is this great feature where you can sort the images by date, author and so on. Imagine how awesome this would be in a group blog like Palette Knife Painters that I am a part of, to easily see the posts by various authors. You know what, personally it will be very useful for me for Palette Knife Painters, as I often forget which are the paintings I have blogged there. Now I have a ready reckoner! 

Which is my favorite view?

I love the "snapshot" view, because it gives all the images and the post titles too. The other views do not give the post titles. I somehow like images with titles and find this view best. Check out A Splash of Color in the Snapshot view. The numbers next to some of the posts show the number of comments in those.

A Splash of Color
Snapshot View

How to view your blog in dynamic views?

To view your blog in these different styles, type append /view to your blog address, like http://nithyaswaminathan.blogspot.com/view, and have fun with it! Oh boy! the "normal" blogger looks oh-so-boring now!

What if you don't like these views?
Dynamic views are enabled by default, and you can disable them however. If you want to disable this feature and do not want your blog to be viewed dynamically, you can do so by Logging into your blogger dashboard ->Settings->Formatting->Enable Dynamic Views. Select "No" there and save it. But trust me, if you are an art blogger, you will love it. Try it out right now!

So, which is your favorite dynamic view? 

Moving my blog

This has been a long awaited move, and it is finally here. I have revamped my website completely, and integrated the blog with the website itself. So that everything is now available at one place and people do not have to check a dozen URLs.

I request you to please update your bookmarks to the new blog - http://www.nithyachander.com/blog. The main website, which is accessible from the blog too, is here - http://www.nithyachander.com. I have moved to wordpress for the blog, after over 5 years of using blogger. Let's see how it goes.:)

For those who "follow" this blog using Google's friendconnect, can continue to do so from the new blog too. I would be very happy if you continue to follow my blog from the new space too. Thanks a bunch! Here's to new beginnings and I'd like to wish everyone a very Merry Xmas and a fantastic 2010!

I am still around

I've been working on too many things at once, as I always do. I have so many WIPs, most of which are not even in a showable stage, hence the silence on this blog for a while now. I think I may not be around for the next week too. See you all in a week, and I promise I'll have LOTS to show when I am back. Keep painting until then, Ciao!

A quarterly review of Goals 2009

I have always been an advocate of timely feedback and goal reviews, since it always helps to set things right sooner than later. Last year I was not really acting on the goals, I was doing a lot many other things and I just forgot about them. This year though, things are going good and I'd like to review and revise them now, that we are one quarter into the year.

Summer fields - Work in progress
Copyright Nithya Swaminathan




Here are my goals that I published in December 2008 - they were very very conservative, keeping last year in mind. I tried to play it very safe. I wanted to participate in all the VSDs, but I had to miss the February's. My other goal was to do 10 DSFDF challenges, and I am glad I have already done 4 so far this year. 10 looks rather easy now, so I will change that to 15.

I did not have a goal on a specific number of paintings that I should complete during the year. I have never had such a goal. But, I am extremely happy I have completed around 30 paintings so far (this is including my entries for VSD, DSFDF etc). This is more than the number of paintings I did in the last five years put together! Not to forget the dozen paintings that are in progress, what youe see in this post is also one of them. So I am giving it a shot to complete 100 paintings by end of the year, lets see how it goes. I know that I also had a goal that I should work on one painting at a time and take it to completion. That however has not been possible, and I just left it at that. Some people have a compulsion to multi task and it is best left alone :)

The biggest plus this quarter has been how much I have ventured out of my comfort zone. I always considered myself primarily a landscape artist, who occasionally did other subjects. I never ever thought I'd be doing still lifes for about 75% of my time, but thats what has been happening now. I am having a blast with all these still lifes, since they have been well received and I got some very positive feedback for them. I will be doing more still lifes, and I predict that will constitute a majority this year.

I have done figurative paintings in my winter series, something that I never really bothered to do before. I have also been working consciously on my figure/portrait drawing skills by carrying my sketchbook with me whenever possible. I try to sketch my daughter at home when she is busy with something. I don't post most of these to the blog, but I know I am at it anyway.

As promised, I have also started selling originals now, though not from my blog. I am offering original small paintings from my Etsy store. Most of all, I have been blogging regularly all my paintings and WIPs. It gives me great pleasure to share the WIPs with my readers, more than the completed paintings. And it also keeps me going when I don't feel like it once in a while. Also, though not very important, I have redesigned my blog completely and I like how it looks now. I hope you do too. I am in the process of updating the website, I am moving it to another service provider, and will post the details soon as I should be done anytime now.

I hope the rest of my year is as good as its been so far. We'll do this once again every quarter. How are you doing so far?

BIG News - now offering originals for sale!

Yes, I am now offering ORIGINALS for sale from Etsy. I spent a lot of time thinking if it would be a good idea to have a dedicated sales blog, or go with a known service provider, and I chose the latter. While my studio blog itself is yet to receive any major hits, it was not a wise option to go with a separate blog. So I have opened my shop on Etsy and will be offering all my recent works there. I have currently uploaded only two paintings, and will soon enhance the collection.

You can have a look at my shop here.

Deep woods – a minor update

In between the apples, I got to work on the landscape for sometime today. Here is an update on the same. I have defined the foliage in between the birch barks a little more so that the trees stand out clearly. I have also started some work on the rocks in the foreground.

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time downloading a fancy template for my blog and customizing it to my liking. It was then that I realized that there were a lot of tweaks to be done in the template, much more than what I had time for. It did not even have the feature to display the post categories. But the biggest drawback however, was that it had images in the background and was loading very slowly. So I decided to do away with all fancy templates and have gone back with gold old denim template of blogger. I have just customized the colors so that they look good with my new header. All your comments are welcome.

Revamping the blog

I wanted a sleeker look for the blog, and have gone with a complete overhaul. The update is not fully done yet, I downloaded a new template and not yet done with customizing it fully. So kindly excuse me if there are random changes happening over the next few days. Regular programming will resume soon.

The painting btw is the current stage in which the 5th painting in the apple series is. It should be completed tomorrow.

All your feedback is welcome regarding the blog changes. I welcome any valuable suggestions.

Website revamp

I had completely neglected my website last year and it did not contain any of my latest works. I also decided that the look and feel, the texts etc could be tremendously improved and have given it an overhaul. I do not prefer blogs that have a black background as it is not easy on the eyes reading white on black. However, I thought it suited a gallery website well, and I have gone in for a black background. A blog revamp is also on the cards but it is not so critical right now. Looking at the time this consumes, I'll save it for another day.

While Sitekreator offers good gallery features suitable for artists' websites, their template collection for the free package is rather boring. They have only a couple of templates that I found were stale. I then opted for the blank template and did the entire thing myself.

Have a look at my portfolio and let me know your comments, suggestions, critiques or just about anything else.

Among other things, I have made prints of paintings available through Redbubble also. I think some of you would have noticed already that my sidebar contains a link to my Redbubble profile. Since I came across more positive review for Redbubble as compared to Imagekind, I am giving it a trial. Currently, prints are available through my galleries in ImageKind and Redbubble, and I might switch over to only one a while later.

Some personal updates

About 3 weeks ago, we have moved from the cozy comforts of Madras to Germany. And bulk of my time thereafter has gone in setting up the new house and making it more livable. It is easier to set up a house from scratch, than to set right one maintained by a guy :-D Well, my husband was here for a couple of months before me and things were lying around all over.  

And then of course, a good deal of time has gone in getting used to the cold! Whats with all the -15!! I have never seen even a +15, the least I have seen prior to coming here is warmer than that. Phew! I come from a city that has only hot, hotter and hottest months in a year, with a good part falling under hottest. So this is entirely new to me and I cannot really say that I am having fun. I hate so much of preparation in terms of clothes layers, to even step out of the house. I miss the times when I could just decide at the drop of my hat and start on my bike. 

One thing I like though is the winter landscape, though it is painfully cold. I like the muted palette, the barren trees, everything that's in complete contrast to my Madras. The whole region seems like its been painted, a visual treat to an artist. It snowed here a week ago, and while my daughter wanted to go out and play in the ice, I thought it was a good excuse to click snaps. I have never painted snow, mainly because I have never experienced snow. Now that I have seen a snowfall for the first time ever, I thought I just HAD to paint it. I have accumulated a lot of snowy references, and I am just sorting them out in terms of crops etc. 

I have packed as many canvas panels as I could from home, and a good supply of materials to last me for a few months. Since I wasn't sure when I would locate a good stationery store, I did not want to take a risk. However, I am mighty glad that I have already found a good store, very nearby to where I live. Yay! So look forward to some genuine wintery scenes in this space. 

My to-do list for 2009

2008 was a year that brought in some drastic changes in my personal life, that most of the time Art had to take a back seat. I quit my job and we have relocated to a different country couple of weeks ago and I am still settling down to the new place and most importantly, new weather! Its time for art again once all the dust settles down and here is a preliminary list of what I'd like to accomplish this year.

Butterflies
A collage of all ATCs done for a recent Art Trade
Copyright Nithya Swaminathan

1. Participate in all the VSDs this year - I love the Virtual Sketch Date and look forward to it every month. Though I started late this year, I hope I don't miss a month next year.

2. Participate in at least 10 Different Strokes projects -I love this project mainly because of the references that Karin chooses, they make wonderful subjects. She also sets the bar higher each time and motivates the fellow participants. The DSFDF project runs fortnightly, and I hope to make it on time for at least 10 out of a possible 24.

3. Paint a series of photos from my Europe trip - I had visited a lot of towns during my visit this summer and had taken loads of reference images. I'd like to start working on them instead of the photos just lying around. This would be a collection of series, with photos from every single place we went to.

4. Start selling from my blog - I have done some preliminary research and will start posting smaller works for sale. I plan to commence this shortly, in the earlier part of 2009 itself. It will be a part of this blog or I might have a separate blog for sales, I am yet to finalize on that. To start with, I will be selling Realistic Landscapes/Cityscapes done in Acrylics, around the size 8 * 10 inches.

5. Not to have an unfinished painting in my studio - this is more to do with a work culture. I have this habit of working on multiple paintings at once. When the count is withint 2 or 3 this is manageable but when the number shoots up too high, it ends up in a mess. Having seen first hand how messy things can get, I decided I need to get rid of this habit, once and for all.

6. Work on my portrait and figure drawing skills - I commit to do a minimum of 1 portrait each month, which makes it 12 for the year. If there is time, I shall do more. I also commit to work on different media for these portraits. They would be done in colored pencil, Acrylics, Graphite, and maybe in Ink as well.

7. Do some plein-air painting - I'd like to give plein air painting a shot this year. I greatly admire several artists who work plein-air and I think it will change my whole approach to a painting in handling the details and color. I know its ridiculous that I am not committing to a specific number of paintings I plan to do, but I can assess that better once I make a start.

8. Go a little easy on Art Trades - I love ATC trades, and I am quite addicted to them. I tend to jump in at the first chance if there is a trade happening, and most of the times I do this without assessing my current work load properly. While trades are great fun, they tend to take away a lot of time from my own art. I do not want to do more than two trades this year.

There are other things related to working habit, like making time for art everyday and sketching something or the other, those I don't think need to be mentioned here explicitly.

Have a colorful New Year and may all your dreams come true!

As another year goes by...

This is what I started the year with, making a set of goals for 2008. Now that we are at the end of the year, I think it's time to revisit them. Broadly speaking, it makes no sense for me to go over each of the plans and see if I have achieved them. I did not have any time for art for half the year, and most of the work this year was done in the last 3 months. However, there have been some positives worth mentioning.

Prehistoric Trade Cards
A collage of ATCs from a recent Prehistoric Trade
Copyright Nithya Swaminathan

1. Getting better at composition - I read a couple of books on composition and design elements in paintings. It gave me a great idea into what exactly is meant by "planning" a painting and doing preliminary studies. I really think I have gotten better, and that's not just by reading a few books. I tried setting up my own still life arrangements, and was fairly successful with a couple of them.

The completed paintings don't show the many different alternate arrangements that were rejected outright, but that's where bulk of the learning lies. It has certainly helped me grow and it has changed the way I approach paintings.

2. Getting my self portrait and my daughter's done - The self portrait was done for a challenge on WetCanvas. I moved out of my country recently and wanted to present my mom with a portrait of my daughter. My motivation was higher than ever to get it done, because my mom would miss her granddaughter a lot and this was all I could do. I completed it within the available time and my mom is mighty pleased with it.

Between my self portrait that was done sometime in March, and my daughter's that was done in December, I think I have improved significantly. My daughter's was a much tougher portrait but I think I did much better there. I also had a chance to look back at my husband's portrait that I had done 5 years ago when he was still my boyfriend. It looks so ridiculous now, I seemed to have just scribbled something. I'd like to have another go at his portrait maybe in the coming year.

3. Sketching from life - it was one of my plans to sketch more from life with a stress on human figures. I took part in a sketchcrawl for this purpose and also did sketches of simple still life set up usings day today objects. Cannot say I have improved greatly, because I did not spend the kind of time required for it in the first place. One thing is after the sketchcrawl, I did not sketch figures at all. I'd again like to spend time on it this year.

4. Participating in projects - I did 4 Art trades this year, and took part in the last 3 VSDs. I also did take part in 2 of the Different Strokes projects. Online projects are always great fun, besides offering some great learning as well. This was something I had not planned for at the beginning of the year, but was glad it came across.

5. Working from reference photos - Reading some books on composition and paying closer attention to composition has helped me work better with reference photos. In the last 3 months or so, I have stopped working from references from others. I have switched to using my own sketches or photos for my paintings and I am loving it so far. I'd like to continue this way and completely stop using images from others.

The biggest plus this year was my visit to several museums in Europe, during my trip this summer. It was a huge learning experience for me. Can't say it was a great year, and I certainly look forward to a much better year in 2009. Lots more art to come.

Some exciting news!

I just had my first ever S-A-L-E!!! Not an original yet, I just sold a print of a painting on Imagekind. Still, what the heck, its a sale and I am rather thrilled. This is not the first time I am making money from my art. I have done private commissions, and I am also a published illustrator of a magazine. However, this rather miniscule sale is the most precious to me. That's because this is the first time I have sold something that I did for myself. Not something that a customer wanted me to do, but something that I wanted to do. The confidence this boosts up is quite unimaginable I should say. Something I did not feel even when I landed a dream job! Be rest assured I am not getting carried away, but I have this new wave of self belief instilled in me and that cannot be denied. Someone willing to pay for my art, I tell you the feeling is priceless!

This is the painting that I sold, and my gallery at Imagekind is here. I am adding more images to my gallery, keep checking it from time to time. If you find any image on my blog but not available as a print, please feel free to mail me and I will make the same available.

Moving on to other things, I have just started another still life from life. I contemplated again about the sketch and then paint approach, but decided to try another approach this time. I am painting directly from life. It is another attempt at fabric, lace this time. That is for another post altogether, and that would be tomorrow.

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.

Look who is in the news!

My friend Anand Bora, a very talented and gifted Mathematical Artist is in the Economic times today. Hurray to him!

Read the article on Anand here. Have a look at blog and website.

Way to go buddy!

A blog award!

The Brilliante Weblog Award’s is given to sites and blogs that are smart and brilliant both in their content and their design. The purpose of the prize is to promote as many blogs as possible in the blogsphere.

My blog was given this blog award by Ano, thanks so much Ano. If not for anything else, it gives me so much pleasure that there is someone who reads my blog after all! Just like any other blogging tag, I am supposed to pass on this on to some of my favorite blogs. 

I am not much into blog hopping and reading these days as I do not have that much free time in my hands. My blog reading is restricted to art blogs, and some food blogs as well, since I am equally passionate about cooking as I am about painting. So here goes, in no particular order, some of my favorite blogs.

1. Anand Bora - Anand is into mathematical art, something that I do not understand, but find it very intriguing. Having seen him come up with ambigrams for anything and everything (he ambigrammed my name in minutes!), I can say he is amazingly creative. He says he can visualize mathematical functions and the likes, isn't that awesome! His work was recently juried into one of the most prestigious Math-Art exhibitions in Netherlands, and he will soon make it big time. Do check out his blog and his latest ambigram of Google. 
2. Priyamvada - Hers isn't an art blog, but a favorite nevertheless. I love her posts related to parenting, and I adore her patience/style/whatever in dealing with her sometimes-rebellious-but-mostly-sweet daughter. I hope to have that kind of maturity someday in dealing with people, especially my little one. Most of her parenting posts have been bookmarked by me for future reference :-) 
3. Ferrari - Even on the days when I am really hard pressed for time and I were to check out only a handful of blogs, his would be on top of my list. Great travelogues with amazing pictures, and general posts with a nice sense of humor make his blog an instant favorite. Its like my morning coffee, hard to miss!
4. Ano - Ano's blog is another favorite that I love to read, especially the posts about Lil D and the short fictions. I also love her occasional posts about her current favorite ads on TV, which will most of the time match my then favorites too :-)

So that's it! If I start listing all my favorite art blogs, this would turn into a very long post. I strongly recommend to check out the links on my blogroll instead, it would be well worth your time.

What have I been upto!

Two full months into 2008 and this is my first post of the year! Phew! I have been a little busy with work and I haven’t had the time to even paint, let alone blog. But well, it isn’t that I haven’t painted at all. I did some illustrations for a magazine last month. You can find my illustrations in the Jan 2008 issue of the “Parenting Magazine”. Seeing my stuff in print was super exciting, but I could not continue on that assignment due to tight deadlines. I had a ball doing it for one edition though. Wasn’t 100% satisfied with the output, I felt I could’ve done much better if there was more time, but I guess that’s how the world of print works. It was an entirely new experience for me, both working for a magazine, and doing illustrations in the first place. It was fun!

I have also signed up for a new postcard exchange project this year at WetCanvas. The ATC exchange last year was awesome and I sent out and received some really cool pieces of art. I have about a dozen cards that I will be mailing out soon, and I have already started getting some amazing pieces from others. Boy! People are real quick! I am mostly doing birds this year also, as I love painting birds. I signed up for the project mainly because it helps me keep in touch with colored pencils. I am not yet comfortable working in CP on a large scale, so small pieces like these are the way to familiarize more with the medium which I love so dearly.

If you thought I have forgotten about all those resolutions just after making them, no, that is not quite the case. I am taking them seriously and working on them. Since one of my New Year goals was to work in “series”, I am now working on a series of boats. I have 5 paintings that are underway, all of them 16 * 24. God knows when I will outgrow this habit of having million unfinished pieces and not working on a single piece at a time. As long as it works for me, it is fine I guess.

I have a lot of art that is getting done, but nothing is yet in a post-worthy stage and that’s why I haven’t updated my blog or website.

It was a great coincidence that a new “self portrait” project was announced at WetCanvas and I signed up at the first chance. It was a good motivation, otherwise I wonder when I would’ve got it done. It’s a double challenge actually – I have never done a self portrait, and never done a portrait in acrylics. I have not yet completed the portrait, but it is turning out decently I guess. See my next post for the detailed WIP of the self portrait.

Now that I have got back to the painting mode, I hope to post all my in-process works in quick succession. So stay tuned!

Starting afresh in 2008

I wanted to put this post up on New Year’s Eve, but I could not due to some other work. I am not the kind that makes New Year resolutions, since I know I am lazy to keep it up even for the first week of the year. This time around, things are different. I see that a lot of artists work this way, with a set of defined goals, and they work far more efficiently than I do. So I have decided why not give it a shot. I am randomly noting down the things that I want to do during the year, these are not very ‘specific’ goals, but I would refine them in due course of time. This blog post would also get updated accordingly, and we would have an appraisal at the end of the year! So here goes, all that I want to do this year, only on the art front. I have other goals too, but they are outside the scope of this blog.

Learn – I want to pick up a few art books on composition and design. I completely lack any sense of composition, and have miserably failed in several attempts to come up with my own still life arrangements etc. I want to change that, and I want to learn composition.

Sketch – I want to refine my figure drawing skills, which I think are terrible right now. I can do very good portraits and figures with references, but without a reference, I am lost. I cannot draw something that would remotely seem human. I want to change this by practicing a lot of sketching and probably spending some time on the figure drawing forum at WetCanvas.

Do a series – I want to complete at least 2 different series of paintings. A series is a set of 5 or more paintings on the same subject. I want to see how much I can sustain my interest in a subject, in a painting. These would be at least 16 * 20 in size. I already have a lot of subjects in mind for this, let me see.

Study subjects in detail – I would be studying different subjects, and painting a subject each month. I would reveal the subject for each month at the beginning of the month. I have found that my mind is extremely wandering and cannot keep at any particular thing beyond a couple of days. This has often resulted in cases where I begin paintings with great zeal and abandon them midway due to lack of interest. I want to overcome this, and have consciously made this a written goal for the year. It is a very remote possibility that I would study 12 subjects, but I’d be happy even if I do 5. It would be ideal if I can combine this with the previous point and do series as and when I study subjects, but I never know.

Art Business – I am an absolute beginner when it comes to the business side of art, but I want to improve. I want to learn marketing skills and market myself better. That obviously means improving a LOT on the art itself, making more saleable stuff. I hope to improve on both fronts.

Paint for myself – I have two paintings that I have been planning forever - a self portrait and a portrait of my daughter. I am listing this here so that I know I need to make time for it and get them done by the year end.

Maintain my blog and website - I want to maintain my blog regularly, by posting at least thrice a week. My website would be updated every month or so.

I think this is enough for now. I have these written down and I will be sharing with my readers as and when I cross each one out. Wish you all a very happy New Year.