My smallest painting yet!!

Miniature painting of Ganesha -Oil on canvas, silver foil, faux gem stones
© 2011 '5.75 x 4.25' inches Nayna Shriyan

           This painting has me going to flash back mode, back to the summer of 2002, right after the final examinations of my final year at Art school. I was dead tired, after the truckload of submissions consisting of a full year's portfolio, supporting metal work, dissertation (which I suspect weighed more than I did at the time ! ) another dissertation on the techniques of metalworking that I had learned in all the four years specializing in metal work. Not to mention the viva (you know where you are faced by all your professors and asked whether you truly believe in what you have slogged for a whole year!) All I was looking forward to was a trip to my native home in Mangalore to the southern part of my country, lush greenery, mangoes, cousins to hang out with and a month long break, but my dad had other plans!  He came home very excited, about how he had discovered a miniature painting workshop in town (by this I mean the city of Mumbai, hee hee, we Mumbaities call the big city town!!) and that he had enrolled me in it! Here I was looking to put my feet up and take it easy, and my dad had a week long workshop planned which meant a two hour train commute again (did I mention, that's exactly how long it for me to and fro home to college!)  

         Well so there I was trudging back the same way, but I was in for a pleasant surprise, as part of the technique for miniature painting was the application of fine gold foil onto the painting surface, a painstaking process involving varnishing the intended area and then allowing the coat of varnish to dry to just the right degree and then gently placing the foil with a brush.

          Recently when I was asked by a client to create a custom gift for some very important people and she said that the piece needed to have a very rich look, I immediately thought of miniature painting. with the rich foil, and faux gem stones. Now my client already had a very intricate silver frame so we decided to substitute silver foil for gold and this Ganesha is the result .
          While in true miniature painting tradition the dimensions of the piece is 5.75 x 4.25 inches the colours themselves are oil on canvas instead of the usual water based colours.Traditionally a mineral based compound is used to give a slight relief to the areas that are gilded, instead, I used texturing white. After applying texturing white to the crown, dhoti and ornaments including the decorations on the two sides, the Ganesha was painted in oils, and boy am I still regretting it!! In order to get a really fine outline, I ended up adding too much linseed oil. So despite having been completed for more than a week now the background black is still wet!

Ganesh painting complete with the silver frame

         The silver foil came next and lastly the faux stones, but the painting truly looked complete once my Ganesha was placed happily into the beautiful silver frame!
Isn't it perfect, almost like the person who designed and created the frame had this very image in mind.

What do you think, should I have stuck to gold or the silver is truly the way to go?