Its been such a long time since I wrote in my blog. To start with we went on a trek to Roopkund in the Himalayas and that meant I couldn't attend my painting classes for a bit and now they are shut for a month so I have missed doing that! But am firmly back!! This was the last still life I painted before class shut. I enjoyed putting in a dark backgriound....the red was good. Still havent quite got the hang of painting fabrics! But guess practice will help.

I'm supposed to practice drawing so tried to draw Flea using a 4B pencil...Found I loved the drawing bit...and will probably work to develop this while I learn to paint. I can see how capturing tones in pencil, helps focus on tones and hues while using paints. So I am busy drawing everything in sight!!!!
I am beginning to get the hang of showing perspective in my work now, and also capturing light and shadows.
Still feel that the work is too 'heavy'. Need to get the transparency of water colour!

I decided to just paint a 'still life' for practice....but this came out so well and didn't take too much time to do either. Viveck thinks this is one of my better ones!

More Art!

This was a challenge to do...had to try and capture the transparency of the bottles, the reflections...But I was keen as I think the composition is great as the blue bottle just adds that bit of colour!
Painting folds in cloth is a real challenge and I still need a lot of practice.

Habib says to master any form of art one has to practice painting still life. I Must say I am beginning to agree with him. Last week was a disaster, and I think possibly because I am still learning, but also I didn't like what I had to paint. This week has been great. I loved painting my wooden spoons in Ma's old white jug...and the checked jharan. .Today at class we decided on an arrangement of fruit, which proved a challenge, but I loved it.
I find I look forward to my afternoons now, not to sleep, but to paint!!!!

Lagos

The view of Lagos from David's terrace. I seem to have messed up the sea a bit, and will probably paint this again...but its a wonderful reminder. It was hot...not humid, but pleasantly hot and impossible to pint from the terrace, so did the drawing and then have painted the rest from a photograph that I took.

the colours of Portugal

The colours of Portugal. A pot of geraniums in front of the wonderful green door in the varandah. A typical cobbled street with sheer white houses and so many plants!