Heathers and Willows - Watercolor Painting

This is a painting based on a photograph from my summer trip to Mendocino Botanical Garden. They have a beautiful Heather garden under an old willow tree that always has full blooms in summer. The photograph itself was an attempt to abstract both the subjects. I was quite happy with how the photo as well as my painting turned out.

The photograph..


The painting..


As for techniques, the background was wet wash with lifting & streaking with the brush. The foreground heather was intitally masked with some masking fluid and then finished with impressionistic strokes. Done on a 16X20 watercolor paper.

Both this painting and my previous one "Through the Cracks" are very different from my usual realisim/ semi realism style. I have entered both of them for Filoli Gardens "Expressions in color" exhibit and keeping my fingers crossed :-). I don't think I have shared all my watercolor paintings here on the blog. If interested, you can see more of my watercolors on my facebook album : Here

Through the Cracks - Water color painting

Wanted to share my recent latest watercolor rendering with you all. I primarily use watercolor just for sketching purposes but offlate I have been painting lot of abstracts/ impressionistic style landscapes. Here is one such painting..

Family thinks this looks like broken glass. But this is an abstract representation of tree & water through granite cracks. If you have ever been to Yosemite - Olmstead point, you will know what I am talking about. The inspiration was that but the colors were added for fun.

I used one of my favorite technique for the texture- wet wash with sap green, diox purple and turquoise and tissue paper on top. The tree & cracks were free style following the patterns formed by the tissue paper :-).

Done on a 16X20 Arches watercolor paper

Sattui's Neighbor - Oil Painting

11X14 Canvas Panel with Oil

Last spring when drove to Napa Valley and spent sometime at Sattui Winery. There was this little barn next to Sattui Castle amidst the mustards. I took a quick reference shot for painting and forgot about it. Now that the mustard season is in full swing, I went back to that old photo to paint this. Hope you like it..

Here is my reference photo

Sierra Autumn - Oil Painting

Painted this a while back, just getting around to sharing this. Based on an autumn scene from Eastern Sierra. This is more of a fun and play with the colors kinda painting for me. I tried to paint loose not bothering with the details. A bit of deviation from my usual style, but I still liked it.

Done on a 11X14 Canvas with Water mixable oil.

Sassy Pansy

6 X8 Canvas Panel with Oil.
Just a small study to get some practice painting the glass vase.

Wildflower fields

Just realized that this is my first blog post for this year :-). Heres to a great 2011 and hope everyone's year started out great.

Below are my latest paintings that combines two of my favorite subjects - landscapes & florals. These are more of a spontaneous and quick study based on magazine clippings that I kept with me. I often do these small, quick-type paintings between complicated subjects ( and when I am stressed ;-)).. I am quite happy with how both of these paintings turned out. I had so much fun doing these and might do both of these on bigger canvas at a later time.

Both are done on 8 X10 canvas panel with water mixable oil.





Hope you like them !!

Snow Flakes

Howdy all ! Hope you are enjoying your holiday season.. Been a bit busy the past months travelling/photographing and haven't been able to post in the blog.

This is a painting that I have been working on for quite sometime and I am ready to call it finished. You guys know I paint mainly landscapes, right ? Portraits and figures have always been a challenge for me. I did this painting mainly to get out of my comfort zone.

I have always enjoyed watching Nutcracker ballet during the holiday season and the snowflakes are my fav part in the whole show. This is an adaptation of a post card that I had and just in time for the holidays :-)..

Done on a 18X24 canvas with water mixable oil.

Hope you like it..




One more close up..