BMCC Sketch (water colour)

I always had (still have actually) lot of reservations about my ability to paint structures. So I have decided to give it a serious try. I wanted to paint some building I like and what better choice than my own college. So here is attempt no 1 - subject BMCC, Pune. This is more like a quick sketch not bothering much about details. Some more attempts are due but I guess it will require well over 4 hours to finish properly.

Seascape (water colour)

This one is a milestone for me. I am very happy with this effort and this gives me great confidence and motivation to keep working on water-colours. I am just loving water-colours as a medium and now feel ready to get some formal training.

This is based on an oil painting but I have changed most colours and the overcast atmosphere. I wanted to paint something bright and colourful. I hope you will like it!

Experimenting with colours (Water-colour)

Yesterday, I was trying a landscape. After 3 failed attempts, at 11:45 pm, I decided to do a quick still life. Inspired by many paintings of shoes, especially by everyday painters, I thought of painting my chappals which are very "Indian". Halfway I realized that I had put them on an off-white wall in white light and there was almost zero contrast. So suddenly I decided to use dark background either grey or violet or dark green. The end result was quite interesting! After 3 failures, this was enough reason for me to sleep peacefully.

Garden (Water-colour)

This one took few attempts and lot of time to complete.

Picnic Pose (Watercolour)

This is again from an old photograph with a very typical picnic setting and picnic pose!

Rainbow on Earth (water-colour)

There was a beautiful photograph in a local newspaper 'Sakal' yesterday titled "rainbow on earth". It showed some children with colourful dresses sitting on a wall while rain clouds were gathering in the sky. I liked it so much that I decided to make a painting from that. I am posting two attempts here. The smaller one was meant to be a practice piece but now I am not sure which one is better.

Reflections (water colour)

This one is based on a photograph taken at Khadakwasala dam. The reflection of clouds in still water was a great sight.

Evening in Kodaikanal (watercolour)

Some years back we stayed at Hotel Carlton in Kodaikanal. It is a beautiful location right next to a lake. I took a picture of my daughter in the evening with the lake at the background. Tried to make a painting out of that photograph.

Morning bird (water colour)

This is another one from Mahabaleshwar, based on a photograph taken early morning.

Home-ward Bound (Water colour)

This one is based on a July '08 photograph from my Mahabaleshwar trip.

Cane Chair (Still Life - water colour)

I bought a new sketchbook for my daughter and she wanted me to sit with her and paint something. So I painted the cane chair that was right in front of me.

Hill View (Watercolor)

Here is my attempt at painting the hill view from my bedroom - once again but I promise for the last time.

Landscape (Watercolour)

Here is another watercolour again based on a painting from Milind Mulick's book. Whatever is good in this painting is because of original painting, whatever is not good is my creation!

Water colour practice - a glimpse!

For last few weeks I am trying water colours - different washes, different colours, different brushes and what not! A formal training will be a great help but given my work schedule, as of now, I have to work with books only. Most of these coloured papers are not worth showing anyone, though I have preserved them for myself! A couple of days back I copied one from Milind Mulick's book "watercolour". It is based on one of the demos in the book. Thought I would just keep it here for the sake of documentation. I have another 6 months to look back and see whether I have made any progress! Need to keep working everyday.

children at play (pencil drawing)

For last few weeks I am practising rapid sketching where I try to draw sketches in 60/90/120 seconds. This hopefully will help me sketch people on the move, especially children who hardly sit still. These two sketches have benefitted from this practice.

Back to old habits

I used to make portraits from celebrity photographs. With lot of patience and some skill, I was able to copy number of photographs in pencil drawing. But I never seriously practised any drawing techniques. I did not take any training either. So for many years this was the only thing I could do in the art world. Each portrait used to take around 6 to 8 hours (some up to 20 hours) and I had to use as much eraser as pencils. I used to work sq. inch to sq. inch and complete the picture. Since I have now been practising for last 3 months, I thought let me see whether I can do the copy stuff any faster. And this picture was born in around 25 minutes. Though it is not a perfect copy, I feel I was able to catch the essence of the photograph (the meditative concentration) quite ok. What do you think?

Portrait by accident (Pencil drawing)

Originally I was just planning a quick sketch. After drawing the contours of the face and hand I realized that the sketch was too big for the small (and cheap) pad I was using. So I decided to draw the face also. I was not expecting much from this (and especially given half my attention was on TV). But to my own surprise, not only the features but also the expression on face turned out to be quite accurate. This is what I call luck! I hope with more and more practice, the odds improve further.

Reading Face (Pencil Drawing)

Face of a woman reading seriously!

Another sketch (Pencil Drawing)

And this one is little better I think!

Few quick sketches (Pencil Drawings)

There were breaks in my 1 drawing a day routine in last 2 weeks. The only "achievement" was these quick sketches. Few attempts at portraits were not successful. Need to work a lot on that!

One more from Mahabaleshwar (Pencil Drawing)

Here's one more sketch from my Mahabaleshwar trip. My room partner watching TV.

Cane Chair Sr. (Pencil Drawing)

The senior cane chair was feeling dejected since the junior one got recognition first, ignoring seniority. So yesterday I had to be fair to the senior one.

Quick portrait (Pencil Drawing)

I went to Mahabaleshwar with a group of friends. It was raining heavily and it was very cold in the morning. While we were chatting before the breakfast, I was sketching the people around. The senior-most member of our group (Age 75) was sitting next to me. His head was covered with a scarf, which I could not resist drawing. The time was short since he did not know that I am sketching him. So this was done real quick, less than 5/7 minutes I think. I again drew the contour first and then the details inside. This approach is helping in improving the proportions.

Cane chair (Pencil Drawing)

This small cane chair was far too tough than I thought. After struggling to get the proportions right, I finally decided to draw the outline first and then filled the details inside. I have been reading about how left brain cheats us while drawing. This was a great example for me.

Statue of a monk (Pencil Drawing - Still Life)

Drawing the clothes was very enjoyable once I got the proportions right. At 12:30 in the night, I was happy that I did not sleep without sketching anything.

Still Life (pencil drawing)

The original plan was to draw only the school bag. But after drawing the bag, it seemed to be floating in the air instead of lying on the floor. So I decided to keep the laptop bag behind the school bag and also to draw the skirting of the wall. So finally the school bag is down to earth now.

One more portrait (Pencil Drawing)

This portrait took around 45 minutes to complete. The hair cut and light eyes proved quite difficult. Since the light came from a large window on his left, his right eye was looking little darker than the left one (I have perhaps overdone it here!). The shading in the ear could have been lighter than here (I realised it after publishing the image here). In the end I was quite satisfied with my effort.

A new portrait, finally! (Pencil Drawing)

Here is a decent portrait attempt worth putting here. This was done yesterday night and took around an hour. The girl, was very very helpful, in spite of a bad cold and running nose, which troubled her throughout the hour.

Portraits (Pencil drawing)

In my college days I used to draw portraits based on photographs. Nowadays I am trying to draw portraits with my wife or daughter as models. I am finding the going pretty tough but haven't given up yet. I hope to make something worth posting here by end of this week. In the meanwhile, I am posting here 2 portraits made by me 20 years ago. That of Ms. Thatcher is based on a photograph in Readers' Digest and the one of JFK is based on the cover of SPAN if I remember right. I am also posting a recent one of my daughter, made in 2004, again based on a photograph. Keep checking this space for some new ones.

Experiment continues (pencil drawing)

I liked my previous experiment of sketching my own hand. So here is one more.

Finally a face on the sketch (pencil drawing)

After numerous sketches without face, yesterday I dared to draw one with the face. Is it good? I don't think so (may be I will give it 5 out of 10). But it gives me satisfaction to have moved forward. For me progress is important. I am not (yet?) an artist, so you will not find great drawings or paintings here. What I am documenting is the learning process. To see after one year whether the line strokes have become more confident, proportions have improved, perspective is correct, light and shadows are depicted properly and so on. We always see the end result of learning but what about the process? How did the present artists practise their craft? I do not know. This is why I feel documenting the learning is important. Each person has his/her own style of drawing/painting. Some day I will develop something of my own also. It will be interesting then to see whether one can figure out how my style got developed based on these posts. End of the day, the style will be determined by my likes, dislikes, strengths and weaknesses. This journey will tell me whether the way I learnt had an impact.

My Left Hand (pencil drawing)

One more experiment to get the lines right rather than the shading part.

No tension, just relax! (pencil drawing)

Reading in the comfort of cushions (pencil drawing)

Snacks Time! (pencil drawing)

Updates with new photographs

I have now updated all the post with new photographs of the sketches taken in day light. These are not scanned images. I am just using digital photos of the pencil drawings to load here. Let me know if there are better ways of showing the nuances of pencil sketches.

Parking on a slope.

Viewed from the first floor.

Hair Style

Hair style was drawn first, then the full figure.

Watching TV!

One must be very comfortable while watching TV.

The women's club!

From my housing society!