Peace comes from within, do not seek it without - Goutama Buddha

/hihi

Belated Diwali wishes, hope you had a blast this Diwali with less crackers :) Here I am sharing my latest acrylic work - Buddha, one of the greatest spiritual teachers from Indian sub continent. I have been thinking for a long time to paint Buddha, but was not getting proper idea.

Even after exhaustive search on the net, I was not convinced, rather confused. One fine morning, I started the basic sketching with a plan to convey - how Prince Siddharta came into contact with many old people, sick people and a dead body, how he attained enlightenment while meditating under the Bodhi Tree and his teachings to solve all our inner problems and attain a truly peaceful mind.

  

I felt it was tough to convey all these things in a single painting. To make things simpler, I have decided to have some texture with red color to indicate the sufferings he had witnessed, bodhi leaves as a symbolic representation of Bodhi tree, pigeon as a symbol of peace and a circle to symbolically represent enlightenment. Once I have the sketching ready, I tried various color options for the background using Photoshop.

I was so impressed with texture white which I used in my earlier mural, thought of using the same for the basic texture here as well. Spent quite a lot of time searching the techniques to use acrylic color on texture white. At last I was very clear about the concept, colors to use, etc. Took a 2 ft X 2 ft canvas, applied the texture white and used thin plastic paper to get the basic texture. Once its partially dried, I traced the sketching over the texture which I had on a butter paper. I did not sketch directly, as erasing is not possible on texture white.

Next step was to re-apply the texture white to give the embossed look. I have used one of  the clay modeling tools to give texture to hair and Peepal leaf for leaves. Then I started the 'real painting' with acrylic color, with initial hiccups as I was kind of new to that, I could complete it as I had planned. But don't ask the time I took to complete this work !!! Acrylic color provides you an advantage to work for longer sessions when you are in a good mood, as it dries quickly. 

I have captured the progress of this work and is available here - https://picasaweb.google.com/aasha.bhat/Buddha

And here is the completed work ...

My next plan - The Taj Mahal, an abstract work. Since I had visited Taj last week, I have fresh memories of that wonderful white marble mausoleum. However there is no ETA for this work... :)

Have a gr8 day. /bye