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?

A bottle with a view series -2

Glass bottle series, '16 x14' inches Oil on canvas© 2011 Nayna Shriyan

            My second painting in this series features two new entrants!! Two very vibrant coloured bottles. The warm reds and oranges reflected by these two simply captivated me. As I proceeded into the painting I soon realized that not only were there reds, oranges , yellows and browns but also blue at a point of time in the amber bottles! The one thing I have begun to notice is that still life objects need just as much a minute treatment as any portrait subject would!
So here is a question for all you folks out there that work in oils, does the work look completely flat as you are working it ( you know your face about 3 inches from the canvas and your field of vision only about 5 square inches :D )  and then when you step back to inspect your work you actually realize that the object of your focus is actually beginning to get depth and perspective?? I know I do, so what about it folks??

A bottle with a view series 1

© 2011 Nayna Shriyan

          For a while now I had been looking for a subject that would allow me to not only paint a series but also to expand my working knowledge of oil paintings. If you know me or have been reading this blog for anytime now you would know that while I am a trained metal artist, oil painting is like a secondary passion that; well seems to always be fighting with my first passion enamels and metalwork!

Glass bottle series 1 ,"14 x 16" inches Oil on canvas
© 2011 Nayna Shriyan

         Recently just as we were about to pack off some glass bottles for recycling I was struck by the beautiful colours of the bottles. The colorless ones seemed to pick up all  the colour from their vicinity and the coloured ones seemed to throw up a huge array of shades, tints and tones with the right light falling on them.

So I picked up my trusty SLR and along with some gentle morning sunlight, it was soon a riot of colours! Before I knew what was happening there were some 20 shots of coloured bottles and their vibrant reflections on the floor !!

         This is the first in the series, I wanted to try out a simple single bottle arrangement and also simplified the background as you can see from the photograph above.While I was working on this painting the one thing that struck me was that painting an object this closely was as good as working on a portrait, the entire time I was using a tiny No. 000 brush and working the minute changes in the colours and shades. One of my students even went so far as to say, 'there aren't so many colours you are imagining them !!'
What do you think, did I manage to do justice to the above picture? Should I have kept the original background, neighbors house and all ? :D

Rajasthani man in traditional turban painting

Rajasthani man in traditional turban , Oil on canvas, 14 x 16"©2011 Nayna Shriyan

Here he finally is!! My Rajasthani man is done in all his glory, complete with salt and pepper mustache, traditional turban and a white shirt( typically the colour worn by the men folk of Rajasthan). I must apologize for taking such a long time, but this is my first attempt at a portrait and I must admit, the many wrinkles and getting the myriad shades of this man's face was quite a challenge. I had posted his original photograph in the previous post, I would love to hear whether I did manage to do this regal old gentleman justice in the painting ! :)

I admit I have changed the design on his turban to something that was easier to manage for me , but it is still in keeping with the something that is very much worn my the men in the state.While the turban took the least amount of time to actually paint, pondering over the right design did take up a day ! But then how would my Rajasthani have been complete without his beautiful turban !!

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!!

The Gondolier

 The Gondolier , Oil on canvas, 18 x 24"
©2010 Nayna Shriyan

Continuing my love affair with the  palette knifes I decided to work on another landscape, but this time I also wanted to experiment with some architecture in the painting. While I worked with palette knifes to render the slightly choppy look of the water, and the vibrant colours of the sky, I decided to work with brushes for the architectural details. The boats too I worked with brushes as I wanted to create a contrast in the textural treatment of the water and the boats.
  Although the gondolier himself occupies the foreground of the painting, the vibrant colours of the sky reflecting everywhere from the water to the buildings form the dominant element.
All of the people that have seen this painting seem to have their own favorite element, someone loved the sky, another person loved the realistic treatment of the water, while a third fell in love with the gondolier himself!! What do you think stands out most in the work?

Oil on canvas '15.5 x 10' inches
© 2010 Nayna Shriyan 

With this painting I have to confess I actually went into a fantasy mode!! I love looking at carpets of gulmohar flowers as they coat the roads each year, but unfortunately living in the city means the flowers coat the pockmarked ugly tar roads and never the lush greenery of the countryside ! I guess through this painting I am expressing some wishful thinking :)

"15.5  x 10 " inches Oil on Canvas
© 2010 Nayna Shriyan

 This painting is in continuation with my gulmohar theme (The art of the gulmohar) With my copper enameled bowl, I stayed close to the actual flower, because it is just so pretty as it is, but with this I simply had to devote one painting to a single petal. I have always been fond of the petals of the gulmohar flowers.Not only are they shaped in the most amazing manner, what completely fascinates me is that any other flower petals that get separated actually look a bit lost without the others, but these beautiful things !
A single petal seems just as complete and as beautiful as the whole flower, many a times after a strong shower I have seen these torn petals carpet the dark roads and look absolutely radiant. It is this effect that I have tried to imitate here.

© 2010 Nayna Shriyan Oil on canvas with palette knives, 20' x 15.5'

I had been dying to try out palette knife painting since the longest of times ! Call me chicken but I was too scared to actually try it out. Then I saw a set of plastic palette knives at my favourite art supply store, and that did it. I simply had to buy a set, and ofcourse once I got the set in hand, I set about trying to create my very first pallete knife painting. 

This photograph of a view of the konkan region in Maharashtra during the monsoons with the most brightest and brilliant hues of colours imaginable seemed to be the perfect candidate.

    I am proud to say that apart from a fork all of the work done is entirely with the knife with no dependence ( sooo tempting when stuck !!! :D ) upon a brush !!!

©2010 Nayna Shriyan 

I had been meaning to do a still life for the longest time, but I guess I simply lacked the discipline to set up a some objects and actually sit down and paint! Well this time the group of objects that one of my student's put up for her still life was too much for me to resist!! I sat down and actually painted a still life for the first time in years. The one thing that I realized painting this piece was how much I loved good old fashioned styled painting , still lifes, landscapes, while I will never stop painting abstracts, I think thanks to my student's I have rediscovered my love of  stills and also realized the discipline it takes to simply sit down put everthing aside and paint ( Since she was going to dismantle everything in a short period of time! :(  )
It was a wonderful experience !!