Dramatic sky at the beach - A water color painting

"Smell the sea and feel the sky, let your soul and spirits fly.” Van Morrison

There are days when you get to witness the dramatic sky at the seashore. The diffused sunlight through the clouds, reflecting on the waters below made for a good composition. Inspired by this scene ( Photo reference: minera13/Pixabay ) I created this watercolor painting on Fabriano Acquarello watercolor paper.

I got more involved with watercolor quite recently and before getting into this medium, I went on to purchase many different brands of watercolor papers. Fabriano Acquarello happens to be one of them. So in the past few months I have tried all the papers at hand, and got to know so much about each one of them. ( Check My INSTAGRAM account  ). Now that I have resumed my blogging I will try and post a little about each one of them.

Fabriano Aquarello ( 200 gsm ) is a student grade watercolor paper, however in this category I find it pretty good to use. It is a professional grade, acid free paper and economical too.

Dramatic sky at the beach
A watercolor painting on Fabriano Aquarello paper
Size 5” X 7”

In the above painting, I used both Camlin and Winsor and Newton cotman tubes. My palette consisted of very few colors and I like it that way. It helps in simplifying my painting procedure. I enjoyed working on the sky. 

As I already mentioned, I am presently totally involved in watercolor medium but soon plan to get back to my charcoals and pastels.

Thank you for visiting my blog and browsing through my artworks.

An Orange - A still life painting

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see." Edgar degas

During a recent water color workshop, I created a still life painting of an orange using wet on wet technique on handmade paper. In the background I sprinkled table salt to get the textured effect. 

My palette for this work was very limited and it comprised of Camlin Artist's water color tubes. 

An Orange

A water color painting on handmade paper

Size 5" X 7"

Presently I am more into doing portraits and landscapes. But I enjoy doing still life paintings too. Therefore when I have a workshop, I plan out different subjects including "Still life". Moreover the participants who come over to learn the basics have their own likes and dislikes. Therefore as a normal routine we do a still life, a floral and a landscape which covers up a lot of different techniques in the medium. 

Follow my latest works and techniques on INSTAGRAM and if you love my works and they inspire you, share them with your friends.

Thank you for visiting my blog and browsing through my works.

At Benaulim beach, Goa

"Inspiration comes of working everyday."Charles Boudelaire

Today's post is a small 5"X 7"study work of a scene that I came across while I was at Benaulim beach, Goa some years back. It was this wild clustered growth of  foliage and dry thin branches against the backdrop of the vast ocean that attracted my attention. Another reason was probably I wanted to put my Winsor and Newton Cotman series, rigger brush to use.

Painting greens and foliage is always a challenge and painting such scenes from nature teaches you a lot. Rigger brush was of great help towards the end to pull out the tiniest of random branches which would have otherwise been difficult with the other brushes. I am loving the rigger brush and will write a detailed review about it soon.

At the beach

Water colour painting on handmade paper

Size 5” X 7”

Hand made paper is great for wet on wet technique and is pretty economical too. I am using Petals hand made paper which is easily available in art stationery stores in Mumbai. I would have preferred using the cold pressed or Matt version but unfortunately, it is not easily available so I settled for the rough textured one.

Petals hand made paper

If you are into water colour paintings, I would love to know about the papers that you use. Do leave in a comment.

Thank you for visiting my blog and browsing through my works. It means a lot to me. 

Follow my latest works and techniques on INSTAGRAM and if you love my works and they inspire you, share them with your friends.

My upcoming workshop :

Charcoal drawing and sketching workshop - 26th of January, 2018.

Timings 10 to 1 pm. ( Only six participants )

Trying out a new handmade paper from Himalaya Stationery ( FORT )

As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently came across a handmade paper which I picked up from Himalaya Stationery. Not being too sure about how it will perform, I picked up just one sheet. After trying out three small water colour landscape paintings on them my conclusion is that this paper is a "DEFINITE YES" for me. The cost of each sheet is 35 Rs only and judging it by its thickness, it should be around 180 gsm. This paper holds water well and seems to be working fine with me for the "WET ON WET TECHNIQUE".

Given below are three different water colour paintings on this new handmade paper. I decided to select three different landscapes which could cover the clouds, mountains, sea, land, grassy land, shrubs etc. These are quick studies and I realised how the horizon line has gone haywire in the last two works. Anyways these works were done with the intention of getting the feel of this new paper and I was so very excited.

I have used some of my expensive brushes which I picked up from Himalaya, ie the sable hair brushes. They do make a lot of difference in comparison to the synthetic ones. Will post the images of the brushes that I have used for the present works. In fact I plan to use these brushes for most of my works from here on.

A scene from Himachal Pradesh

Inspired by Goa beaches

As seen in Coorg

My next plan of action is to create a bigger work sized 11" X 16" using water colour medium. But before I embark on a larger sized painting, as a routine I will first create a small thumbnail sketch to have a better understanding as to how the work will look with the technique and colours  that I plan to use. A thumbnail sketch helps me to evaluate my technique and then I can make changes accordingly in the bigger work.

Using Arches 300 gsm rough paper to create a Landscape

The water colour painting of the Landscape as below has been created on a Arches 300 gsm
sample ( Rough ) paper. The paper is just amazing and the wet on wet technique works
great on it. The paper has good water retaining capacity and it remains wet for a
long time allowing for more colours to be added subsequently.

One needs to be quick when doing wet on wet and if the procedure is not planned out earlier in the mind it can lead to disaster. While doing the painting below, I almost lost my patience and technique while doing the mountain slopes and all I could remember at that moment was that the paper had started drying up. Next time I start a water colour painting I will have to paint the painting in my mind before putting it down on the paper.

The Mountain slopes

Water colour painting on Arches paper

Size 6" X 8"

Water colour medium is a great medium to work with. A well planned water colour painting gets done in a very short span of time. It is not the effort but the steps involved which need to be taken care of or else it gets difficult to get the values and details right. 

QUOTE

"PERSEVERANCE IS FAILING NINETEEN TIMES AND SUCCEEDING THE TWENTIETH

BY JULIE ANDREWS."

My aim is to keep painting the subjects I love, to experiment with different mediums and come up with a technique which helps me in creating a piece of art that I have perceived in my mind, to blog about my thoughts and feelings pertaining to art and to share my journey with like minded people.