A Ram masquerades as an innovative cover for a peep hole

Some habits die hard, especially those of an artist. I have seen a 90 year old artist continue to paint and exhibit after having officially 'retired' about two times both times having a 'My very last show' to announce the retirement. So given that I have shifted to making only jewellry for the past three years this project made me realize that I will never really be able to stay away from proper metalwork. So here is what I am upto these days, now this is an attempt at getting back to metal work though I am not sure how many pieces I will be able to churn out on a regular basis.
This is a piece that really  has no official name, its just that the peep hole in our main door has a little chip of sunmica missing on the bottom and I wanted to cover it up with something. So I came up with this

Sketch of a Ram in profile

The peep hole itself would nestle in the round gap in the centre of the horn on the right. The original plan called for having a hinged lid soldered onto the horn so as to completely cover the peep hole when not in use. But as the piece came to completion I realized that the lid would actually hinder any body from actually looking out through it comfortably. So the lid is now tossed. Here is the Ram with the outline tooled out.

Ram with the out line tooled out

Ram with a basic relief worked out. This is after one turn in my pitch bowl.















The final relief done with another round in the pitch bowl. This time I got all the areas worked out or so I thought I had to use my tools outside the bowl again to round out a few of the areas.

All finished with the detailing done and the extra metal cut out along with the space for the peep hole within the curls of the Ram's horn.

All finished !

A portrait in water colours and water colour pencils

Portrait in water colour pencils and water colours
©2012 Nayna Shriyan

Another portrait commission !!! Well this one was short notice so I had to do some quick thinking and change the medium. Normally an 'oils' only girl I  had to switch to colour pencils and surprise surprise I loved it!!!

Started out quite cautiously as I was painfully aware that any mistakes it would be a complete do over. After getting the drawing in place I started out with the lightest pencils and started blocking in areas graduating to the middle and darker tones quite gradually. I realized that it was all about the control and the amount of pressure I was applying to get the correct tonal depth. I also opted out of using a wet brush over the pencils as I really fell in love with the kind of textural effect that I saw coming about from using the pencils over a smooth hand made paper block. 

The hair was the result of some very thick water colour and the clothes did get a slight wet brushing to smoothen things out . What do you think should I keep experimenting with pencil colours or stick to my beloved oils?

Seeing Double !

This seems to be a month for commissions first the 'Shivaji' piece and now a double portrait commission My first ever !! :)  While most artists must have some method of conducting studies I went with my  usual style of jumping right in ! The client had given me free reign with regards to size, medium and just about everything so that made my life much easier ,and here are my progress photos of the painting.

A very first coat just blocking in the major areas( P.S. my family thought it looked eerie! :P)

Both the subjects with the second layer

Almost done with my favorite being the blue silk tie !

I concentrated on just one person at a time, having finished the groom, my sole attention was on the bride. Her face proved to be the most challenging I wanted to get not just her face but also her glowing skin tone and blush correctly

The bride's Sari and jewelry was the most fun I must say and the one element that got done in literally one stroke was the groom's tie!