Portraits from pictures- bringing Rajasthan home.

© Nayna Shriyan

Knowing that I keep hunting for references to work on my oil paintings, my friends keep sending pictures from either their personal collections or their friend's , recently my friend sent me images of a friend's trip to Rajasthan.In the collection was an image of an old Rajasthani man, wearing a very traditional turban and the most interesting wrinkled face I had seen!!
Although I am not a trained painting artist, (having taken up metal work in my college ), I love experimenting and teaching myself to paint. When I saw this image, I knew I simply had to test my skills.

Here is the original image  and to the left is a capture of  the very first layer of paint, here I have just blocked in the major tones. This is the first time that I am working with a tiny double zero brush to make doubly sure that I get in not just all the fine details of this rustic Rajasthani face, but also hopefully the expression on his face, that seems to say that he miles away in his thoughts!!