and finally........im up to date

the blue in the painting is not so intense and the goldfish is warmer
okay after this post ill be pretty much up to date. I had worked this one out on tracing paper and then using carbon paper traced it out onto the canvas.
I did not stick to these lines however, simply using them to guide me towards the general placement of things. This is the first painting where i have used paint very thick and wet. Enjoyed it thoroughly

infact id enjoyed it so much that i immediately started another painting (last)from a photograph taken by me in a village called aioli(sp?) a sleepy little village somewhere in northern karnataka(or is it maharashtra?) which has these really old rock-cut temples...i dont even think it figures on any tourist route
the place is so tiny that you can walk through the entire village within 5 minutes.......the temples comprise more than 50%of the village

-oh yeah, i forgot to mention, ive just returned from an awesome trip along with tj ( this guy basically lives off his bike!) we roamed around quite a bit around the western side of theindian peninsula on our bullets( a breed of motorcycle......u can probably call it the indian version of the harley), did quite a bit of the coast.......think we finished over 2500-3000kms!!


in aioli i had to play host to about 20 odd village kids within the range of 6-12 years, while i waited for tj to reach...... was a totally nervewrecking experience...........bought candy for them and tried(really hard but unsuccessfully) to distribute it in an orderly fashion. The end result was utter chaos.......... had a blast though
im planning a series of paintings based on aioli......hopefully theyll happen soon enough
this is a 20 minnute job thus far, ive basically just slapped on colour and spread it around

the pillars look pretty crooked, but that will get fixed as i refine it further
all i was concerned with here was approximately massing in the lights and darks

"looking for fruit" continued

I first got rid of the halo effect around the girl, ie i worked out the edges softening them, sharpening them as required, sorry no snaps of the result.

Picked it up again fairly recently and this is how it looks after a colour layer


........for some reason(think its to do with how dark the background wrt her face) the autofocus in my camera refused to capture her face when photographing the entire piece in one.
kept appearing as a vague featureless white patch



had to take closeups to get the colours properly






snap no2 is what the colour of her face actually is.....try and visualize it together
there also exists an amazing jewel-like quality to her which is not visible here
no three shows the correct colours of her shirt and her arms, the face is wrong

a much closer look at her face
I will be adding a few more layers to her. Im waiting for it to dry first
her nostrils, lips and eyes still need a little tweaking

the last ones a little distorted but the colours are correct

am pretty happy with the way the painting is turning out so far
wish there was a better way of showing you people how she glows!!

" looking for fruit"

this is the initial block in
titled "looking for fruit"

backgrounds done with direct colour, the girls done with a mixture of prussian blue and ivory black
24"x36"

used blue as its complementary to orange

continued from previous post...........damn that image limit!!

I still have to work on the area between gada and the camel. this area will be both the camels hump as well as gadas shirt. rendering this illusion will probably be tricky but im hoping for the best. this will also serve to unify the painting


im also still in search for a decent title.............. "gada humped!" seems a little distasteful(or is it?)............let me know if u think of anthing(no matter how stupid)

a rocky landscape with a difference titled "monolith"

got the picture from a movie clip-stanley kubricks '2001 a space odessey'
fell in love with the image, the contrast between the cold and smooth cuboid in the centre as opposed to the warm irregularity of the rocks

i have changed the colour scheme to suit my preferences.
used colour directly on a canvas which was previously tinted with a light yellow-brown
its just a block in so far and you cant really make out much. will work the sky next and proceed to further model the forms



the next one started as a nutty idea. the person on the left is Gada, a closefriend of mine from bangalore...the person on the right is a happy camel which is what gada looks like!

lol..........i cant help it!! he has alwaysreminded me of a camel!(definately drinks like one)
I tracked down a nice photograph of a 'smiling' camel to paint alongside gadas..............check his choppers out!
almost gives me a complex !








these are basically various stages of how the painting progressed and finally how it stands (see next post)

the u'painting is more or less complete
will post some closeups next

feel this one came out pretty well

ive became pretty adept at a method of paint application called a scumble. similar to a glaze, a scumble involves transparent colour. The method of application and the effects achieved, however cannot be more different.

too lazy to get into a very detailed explanation.........if ur interested look it up or ask me and Ill gladly help you out
oh yeah soon after this piece finished i got a call from a gallery in calcutta interested in my work........ man, was i kicked, my favourite daydream quickly became these freaky visions of grandeur. These got pretty detailed(I even found myself debating over the various nuances of my acceptance speech!!)
ps: is 'adi' too common to work as an effective pseudonymn(sp?) in the artworld.............lol im kidding..........no but seriously.........

My dad asked me to do this one from a photograph he likes a lot.

yup...... thats my nephew again
Cant help it, i miss the guy...we have a blast together at home! the dudes really photogenic too




theres distortion in the last snap
at first i could not capture the faint smile on his face ( its a mona-lisaish kind of smile, a fleeting moment before the actual smile)
Nyway he ended up looking as if he was going to cry(nephew)

worked it, reworked it, kept going until i got his expression down. found an amazing link to do with the different muscles on the face which cause our expressions. figured out the main problem with the face were
1. his lips were turned downward. straightened them and added a tiny indentation at the corners indicating that the cheeks are going be pulled upward. took a while to get this just right, to avoid the clown-smile effect.
2. the most effective change however was in the right eyebrow(his left). found this link http://face-and-emotion.com/dataface/expression/corrugator.html. check it out, this was a total eureka moment. Its to do with a muscle called the corrugator(als called the "angry" muscle) check the clip on the link out. sort of clears up what im talking about. i proceeded to straighten his eyebrow more
3. The left (his right) jowl was droopy. made it more taut ie just about to tuck up into the cheek as the smile develops.

4. The right eye (his left) was looking to the side more than my reference. This made the bottom eye lid look too round. (normall we expect to see roundness where the pupil is.) When one smiles, the bottom eye lid straightens. so i moved the pupil over a bit and voila the bottom lid immediately looked straighter.
Also, when one smiles a small puffed out area forms under the eye lid. I had it there but it lacked emphasis.

took me quite a while to figure it all out,(where i could just as easily have used the underpainting as it was) but i did(think i can write a book on the subject now :-)) and am pretty pleased with myself Needless to say this stuffs going to be a great help for future paintings

this stint with art is one of those extremely rare phases in my life in which im actually really applying myself...which is something i never came close to doing in college. I never really got involved enough in architecture, causing me to, very easily, lose complete interest in the field towards the end of my time in SPA,Delhi

Other than the above i detailed a few other areas. I dont have a photograph of the finished grissaille but will post it as soon as i get my camera back(tj borrowed it for his trip to kanyakumari)
on the specifics: the paintings 20"x30" and i again used raw umber and ivory black added with white as required to get the various tones. a total of about 10-12 hours of work(not in a row:-)) and a shitload of reading up
will post better snaps soon enough

Potrait o my sister and my nephew(again) - 24"x36"
the painting is not so red
wiped the colour of her lip because i just couldnt get it right hence the grey patch
underpaintings a warm gray grissaille worked out using burnt umber and ivory black. I realized the flake white i was using was not strong enough.
made a mental note to get myself a nicer white, read about 'permalba white' which apparently artist swear by, but havent been able to find it(ankush if youre reading this- no.1 on the list- 120-150 ml tube of 'permalba white :-))







ive used only basic washes thus far with the exception of my sisters face(which is also incomplete but the most worked-on so far)

getting her eyes right was a major pain as they are in a shadow

Its currently in the 'ugly ' stage , will work oni it a bit more soon enough

read somewhere that no artist can call himself one until hes painted a horse...................................
so here goes these are my horses.........both are referenced from an art forum http://www.wetcanvas.com/ which is where ive learned 90% of my art skills, and i cant recomend it enough for anyone wishing to learn anything art-related!
anyway the first piece is a foal with its mother, paid attention to the proportional differences in foals wrt adult horses. foals normally have longer legs and an unsteady gait.
this underpaintings in verdaccio(a grissaille leaning towards cooler greys leaning towards green)
verdaccio was used owing to my chosen colour scheme for this painting. the scene is backlit making it a bit tricky to get the light correctly.

I worked more carefully than normal. I also noted an increase in confidence with the brush strokes.
A big smile on his face, adis...gonna give rembrandt a complex soon enough!!!!


next ones of wild horses being rounded up by stud farmers(vague silhouettes in a distance)
creating quite a dust storm in the process

wanted a rosy hue in the grissaille

not intended as a complement but as this would enhance the richness of the following colour layers



the snaps tone down the rosy hue and are darker (more contrasty) than the original.
A note on my chosen method: transparent colour layers (or glazes) enable colour to mix optically. thus resulting in a brighter jewel like effect. these hues cannot be oobtained by directly mixing paints or any other method.
for example if we required an orange say, we would apply a layer of transparent yellow, wait for it to dry completely and then apply a layer of trasnsparent orange. the resultant orange would be optically mixed. this orange is much brighter than the same orange were it to be mixed using red and yellow on a pallette. the hue is the same but the optical orange is way way brighter than the opaque one. This orange cannot be achieved by ANY other method. The application of these transparent layers(called glazes and scumbles) are an artform unto themselves, perfection of which can only be learned by a lot of practice and experience. im still not great at it but have achieved pretty decent results in some places.

these paintings are all incomplete.........thought would work on them later but havent done anything as yet



first ones a gift for my cousin, ankush and his wife ani - 20"x30" on canvas panel
referenced from some photographs taken on this amazing trip to puri(orissa, india) more than a century ago
four of the figures are him and the guy on the extreme left pointing is me
i worked an underpainting followed by simple washes of some predominant hues in specific areas.
looks pretty ugly now as i havent added any proper colour layers





my nephew, terrace outside the drawing room back home in calcutta in the background(24"x36")
halfway through the grissaille(a brand of u'painting with warm greys)
no details as yet , only blocked in basic lights and shadows
had tinted the canvas to a mid-gray before drawing with chalk
hes holding a banana
its my first work which involved any serious thought as to the content and composition

ive never really been attracted to overly dramatic work, preferring rather to seek out a deeper meaning in the ordinary. Simple images from regular everyday life which evoke memories of an entire era. worked this one out from 3 seperate photographs



the next snap gets a little closer to demonstrate what i mean by only basic lights and darks

my first alla-prima potrait. its still unfinished.

im actually a little hesitant to carry it forward........ senti about it

the models a close friend who passed away very recently...am still pretty sore from the experience. An awful tragedy, as she could have been saved were it not for the hospitals mis-diagnosis.

On the painting side, had trouble keeping the fleshtones fresh. there are patches of muddy colour at places. A total of 45 mins of work in it so far! its also the fastest and most free-flowing work ive done as yet. Not entirely happy with it but it definately has its qualities.

Done from a snap of my mum, takenby me, in our kitchen back home in calcutta.



the damn thing had not dried properly, so when i tried to introduce colour the u'painting colour kept running giving a very ugly effect. I had put it off for another time

horrible photographs taken indoors.
my cameras got this stupid autofocus deal which does not allow me to get a photograph as i see it, and theres no choice about it, i cant turn it off

there is less contrast in the painting, theres more detail on her face. worked very roughly, in a better snaps the brush strokes will be visible. Not a great attempt but not a bad one either. learned a lot from this one.

tadahh.this is where it stands as of now
sorry forgot to take snaps of stages in between

these next few are not chronologically correct but its easier to see how the painting happened this way

comp. from 4 seperate snaps. Monochrome painting(called an underpainting), tried working in a similar method as Bouguereau(sp?), an artist i really like.
Blue beacause the fleshtones lean towards orange, blue being complementary to orange.
the u'painting(when dry) is followed by transparent colour layers over it
try and stare at your skin, youll see huge sections of blue and green showing through (its basically transclucent). the underpainting helps represent that aspect, rendering the skin tones realistic




the person shown is gilbert, a very close friend from college (which reminds me...if any of u know his email address, please let me know....mol??)
the upper guys are supposed to be staring down at a memory of them together or something on that line............whatever! words arent exactly my thing

oh yeah the guy on the top left and lower centre is your truly..........rest of them are gil. Had quite a time working out the expressions correctly.......came out pretty well i think. Its amazing how the tiniest change in any feature completely alters the implied expression on the face, that too on a monochrome. working with colour's an entirely different ballgame, gets freakishly complex. Trust me it looks much easier than it actually is.

chal! what the hell.......my first blog
figured yahoo left a lot to be desired.......................ankush if youre reading this, thanks man!
lets see how this goes.....

Wish i had access to a better camera

started with this fellow..........sorry dont have any photos of how he evolved.
Had brand-new paints, so to get a feel for all of them i tried to model the face using purely colour, in an impressionistic fashion. using only complementary pairs of different hues.

the photograph came out much darker and subdued than the actual painting, there also exists a glow in the painting which is impossible to capture in the camera
added two closer shots to help u uys see the brushwork etc.

this one is still untitled
thought a title would dampen the scope of the painting





Excited by the first ones success i sortof got carried away, forgetting every other aspect of my life even basic hygiene! This is all i did
In many ways im still in the same place, i still get moody and unpredictable when away from my painting for too long

dont remember the exact order but i started the next few all at the same time! (got frustrated waiting for a layer to dry)