Endless Love

/hihi

Hello ...
   Finally I have finished an oil painting ... which I started in the month of February. When I posted an earlier version of this, I was asked what exactly it conveys ? Now, I just hope things are clear.

  
   I was desperate to complete this, as I was not able to spend enough time. I don't think I have given my 100%, lost interest due to long gap of 3-4 months.      
   
Have a gr8 day /bye

The Duel

/hihi

Hello ...
   I am back with a short film by Aromwana Studios. The project is titled The Duel, depicting Kalaripayattu, an Indian martial art from the state of Kerala.
  
   As evident from the video. one of them is muscularly built and the other warrior is slim, skillful with accurate strikes.
  

  

   This is the first short film I've worked on, and am so happy with our work. We at Arowana Studios, worked really hard for this project, hope you find it interesting :)

  
Have a gr8 day /bye

Handmade Greeting Card

/hihi
  Hi friends, I am back to blog after a long time. Hope all of you are doing great, I was really busy with my professional life, its hard to find time for my interests.
 
  I should thank the animation industry as I am getting the opportunity to meet some of the highly talented creative people. But I had mixed feelings at office in last few weeks as couple of my colleagues resigned to explore new challenges. First of all, it was the creative head of our company, a highly talented individual from whom I have learnt a lot. Although I feel myself lucky to have worked with him for more than 6 months, but its not easy to accept that he is not in our organization now.
 
  Also my good friend at work, a pure-hearted girl, moved out of Bangalore for some personal reasons.I really appreciate the way she handled the things in her life and impressed by some of her philosophies of  life. Although I can stay in touch with her through social networking sites and telephone, but I really miss her at office. Here I am uploading a greeting card made out of handmade papers, which I prepared for her in a hurry. While writing the text over the card, I thought I would have learned calligraphy ... my wish list is growing day by day :)

 
  

  

During my school days, I used to prepare a lot of greeting cards at home to wish my relatives and friends during New Year and Makara Sankranti. Unfortunately I don't have the photographs of them to share here. Now we are moving towards e-wishes and text messages, so most of us stopped sending the 'hard copy' of greeting cards !!

I've tried one more, please have a look. The photos are taken before writing the message, bit personal you know .. :)

   
Have a gr8 day /bye

Happy New Year - 2012

/hihi
 
        May the stars carry shine upon you,
        May the flowers fill your heart with beauty
        May hope forever wipe away your tears,
        and above all ...
        May this new year be wonderful ... Happy New Year ...
                                        (Courtesy : SMS from my friend)

Here is my first painting of  the year 2012 !! Yes, I did this today and took just 5 hours to finish this work using acrylic color. Of course, its visible from this work :)

 I was in such a good mood this morning that I wanted to paint. Since I had not planned this, used only the few colors I had. I applied texture white on an old painting of 1ft * 2 ft (although its an odd size for this work), as I had no other canvas at home. Now its time for your comments :) ...

Have a gr8 day and a wonderful New Year 2012. /bye

Handicraft using Mangalore Cucumber seeds

/hihi

  Hello everybody, hope you are enjoying the winter season. In this post, I am going to upload couple of  handicrafts made from Mangalore cucumber seeds, around 4 years back.

 

  I don't know why its called as Managalore Cucumber, although its grown throughout the Malnad region... we too grow this in my native place. Since this is regularly used at home to prepare Dosa and Sambar, collecting the seeds is not a difficult task.

  After seeing this in one of my relatives house, my mother was impressed with that and resulted in relentless pressure on me to do the one for our showcase as well. So I visited their house (although I don't like visiting relatives !!),observed the intricacies and got some tips from my relative. Bamboo stem is used here as the base and the seeds are glued over it. Regular sewing thread and needle are used to string the seeds to prepare flowers. This is the difficult part as the seeds are very small.

This work gave me enough confidence and I've decided to do one more ...bit more complicated one. And here it is ...

  

  This is called as Aarati Kattu in Havyaka language and is used as decorative item on Aarti Plate on special occasions like threading ceremony (upanayanam) and marriage. Feel free to share your valuable suggestions.

 
Have a gr8 day. /bye

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

Experiment with watercolor painting ...

/hihi How are you ? Hope things are fine with you. I will come straight to the point, because I am not good at building sentences, developing paragraphs, and composing essays :P I would like to share couple of watercolor paintings in this post.

As watercolor is a transparent medium, you must decide from the very beginning where the areas of white will be in your painting. The best practice for successful watercolor painting is to avoid the areas to be left white and apply the lightest washes first, gradually working towards darker washes. Also you have to be really quick as mixing becomes difficult once the color starts to dry. Of course hand made paper makes life more difficult. I found watercolor tougher than oil paint, might be because I don't get second chance to correct my mistakes :)

I would like to share a Rajasthani Miniature Painting as well, which I bought in a recent exhibition at Chitra Kala Parishat. Vegetable colors and gold powder are used here as medium and its just 3 cm * 3 cm in size and painted on an ordinary paper. Zoom in to see more details..

In such a small area, you can see each and every part of the elephant in detail .. wrinkles around the eye, ornaments, cloth, etc. Also I came to know that the artist doesn't have any formal art training behind him, hats off to his work !! I purchased a brush from him, claimed he used similar brush for this work. Although I knew he had used some other (good) brush for the work, but I was so impressed that I purchased without bargaining. I am very happy and proud to own this work and the brush. The only thing is - I have to make use of it :)

Right now, I am working on an acrylic painting - Buddha. The groundwork which I did for this work is far more compared to my previous works. May be because of that I have developed a sentimental attachment on this work, hope it will come out nice. Fingers crossed :)

Have a gr8 day. /bye