Hi,
With lots of time on hand and weather in Pune being ideal for outdoor painting, I have started to paint every weekend. Today while painting, I was wondering why my finished paintings do not look as good as published ones and those of other mature artists. I was watching Sachin Naik painting the other day and few things occurred to me. Typically while say working on a tree or foliage, I tend to use same colour. The trick seems to vary colour more often. I noticed Sachin goes back and forth between pallet and the paper many more times. This should help to get some depth to masses. The other difference I noticed is my paintings lack luminosity expected out of a watercolour. I suppose I use less clear water. It is equally important to judge wetness of the paper to get the expected result. I suppose plenty of practice is the only solution here. There is yet another practice I observed which I do not employ much, and that is to fill masses top to bottom allowing colour to form small puddle at the bottom edge giving the opportunity to change colour tone or introduce yet another colour.

Another change of view point is to think of secondary colour (Orange, Green and Purple) as the base instead of primary colours (Red, Blue and Yellow). This can help in seeing more middle shades enabling more variations.

Here are paintings of this week

Two Arches

The morning sun was directly on the side wall, which attracted me and another armature painter. Luckily there was good place to sit. Incidentally the building opposite was a venue for some function. Steadily there were number of young folks around us watching us. Many of them had lots of questions, this on one hand was interesting but on the other disturbing. I suppose this is part of the outdoor session. I think I could have done a better job both of sketching and laying colours. The perspective of the side wall is incorrect. Overall an enjoyable morning.

Wind on the slop

A friend of mine Uday Karanjakar, is working on deciphering "What is a good Painting". He is a chronic analyst. He is gifted with the ability to break a complex problem into components and work on the parts, assemble the whole and go back to the parts again. He can do this Up and Down circus endlessly, improving each time. He was talking amongst many things the movement in the painting. This triggered my thoughts and I painted this showing movement due to wind not on the spot, but by visualization.

Old Pipul Tree

I am sure this tree is painted by novice to more matured artists many times. The tree used to be much more majestic prior to some of its branches falling. Even in its current state, it is a good subject