Strong Lines....

Looks like I have taken quite long to understand few basics. Not that the books and my teachers were not emphasising it enough, but I think it hit me quite recently that your lines need to be strong. Your hand should draw the line, how you want it. Sounds simple, but I think this is where I can draw a similarity with playing an instrument. Your fingers need to obey you to play the music. And as in music you have to repeat the same note on and on till it becomes a reflex.

I think in landscape partings, you should be able to draw the landscape as you see. This should become a natural thing. Your hand moves once you decide what you want. I suppose the next is the brush, it too must produce what you want.

I think like in music one needs to "Riyaaz" in painting as well. So keep practicing those lines till you are tired. I think that may be the indication that your subconscious has now taken over.

All the best to me.....

First Frustrations

I was just wondering, why did I want to paint landscapes? And why didn't I do it for such a long time, when it was as possible as it is now? So why now?

It could be that if I do not do it now, I may not do it ever, feeling that the time is getting out fast. May be that I have that much more patience as needed to do a good landscapes.

What ever it may be; the thing is I have started it. Like my wife says it is no more a fad, looks like it has stuck.

Well after Dengle sir initiated me, I bought a lot of books rather I bought all the books that I came across (at least those I could afford). I read them in parts, as I found different authors dealing with different areas that I could understand. But with that I unwittingly started copying them. I still like copying good landscapes. Once you complete, it still is your landscape.

Well I then decided to attend live demonstrations of accomplished artists. That helped a lot. But all the demonstrations felt line a magic show! With quick and unrelated wrist actions, brushes flying across the paper and a landscape just emerged. First few demonstration just evoked a sense of awe. But it helped to make landscape paiting a bit real, compared to the ones in the book. But after witnessing these demonstrations, it was clear that most of the artists had their stock demos. The landscapes that they had done a dozen times at the same location or in their studios. It looked well rehearsed stuff. In case of some artists if the loation was new, they had few standard ways to draw trees, the clouds the huts etc. which they may have drawn a hundred times. To me it looked like a cleaver assembly of a landscape. That started making the whole thing a bit unromantic.

A tribute to Dengle Sir

After a long period of procrastination (almost 20 years) I finally found some one who agreed to take a senior student like me thru' fundamentals of water colours. I met him in the winter of 2004, when I was between two jobs. In hindsight, I realize, I was lucky to get introduced to this amazing medium by Late Diwakar Dengle. He got rid of my fear of touching a colour brush to stark while drawing paper. He was a great landscape painter. He belonged to old school of painters. His teaching style was to encourage students to observe him and start painting. He believed in spontaneity. He was very enthusiastic about outdoor even when he had just turned 75 when I met him.

We went to lots of out door locations around Pune. He would paint and asked us to do the same. He said painting is a holistic experience. He would say "do not partition your painting into technique, form, colour masses etc. get started and paint what you see. Think less and paint more. Over a period of time you will get better at all the underlying departments of painting as you will understand them thru need". He was a big believer of learning by keen observation of both the teacher and the real landscape. I feel fortunate Dengle sir, impressed the art of macro painting method. He died two months ago (March 2007).

Om Ganeshaya Namaha

I am quite excited to start my blog on my experiments with learning to paint Watercolour landscapes. I plan to use diary like style. The purpose of this diary is to capture my experiences, experiments, my thoughts, moments of accomplishments (I hope there would be few), moments of frustrations, things that worked and those that did not while chasing this distant dream of painting good landscapes. This chronicle should help me to track progress (or otherwise) and should help readers to get some tips and may be get confidence that water colour is not such a formidable medium after all.

So all the best to me!