Art, India and Information

My water color art- "Tibetan Kid" Water color is one of the most common type of paintings. The only fundamental requirements for most juried shows are that the painting be done on paper, left unvarnished, and that the predominant medium be watercolor. Water colours are amazing and if you love hyper real paintings then the medium of choice is definitely water colours!!! Basically, almost anything goes when it comes to watercolour painting these days- landscapes, portraits, realistic, hyper realistic... anything ! Watercolor painting books too are easily available and even the most basic of them have got all the detailed information regarding all the technical points, step by step guidance which will guide beginners as well as professional painters.  Watercolor painting books guide you step by step. If the artist wants to use collage elements, stamps, sand, plant material, fabric or other materials, this is definitely a plus, but for beginners simple landscapes will be...

I recently did a nice oil painting piece, which overwhelmed my cousin so much , he begged me to write about the “beginners guide” to oil painting ! In fact , he said he was “ afraid” of it ! Strange, because oil painting is an amazing versatile medium, which can be applied in a thick buttery fashion or thinned down to a watery consistency. You can play with your oil paints, literally ! This opens the door to a number of different painting techniques. 1. My personal preference is to begin my oil paintings by first sketching out the composition using acrylic paint or with water-soluble oil paints. The popular approach to oil painting is to thin the paint with turpentine to apply the initial layers.  Turpentine is quite toxic and I prefer not to work with it. Acrylic or water-soluble oil paints can be thinned down with plain old water and are more pleasant to work with in my opinion. You can also begin your oil painting by first drawing out your composition in a red pencil and then fi...

Modern office decor has evolved from the boring, completely utilitarian look of yester-year to a more vibrant place that showcases the ethos and values of the company! With more executives enjoying and employing office styles that include either big canvases or photo walls or inspirational quotes etc,  the look of today’s boardrooms have changed and improved dramatically. In today’s business environment, motivational art has quickly become the darling of entrepreneurs. Why? Simply because it works! In short, motivational art canvases/posters/prints are drawings that carry an inspirational  message that corroborates with the vision and mission of the company . Therefore, to make the perfect office wall an artist needs to understand the company’s mission and vision and needs before embarking on this ! In the past, most professional offices were designed to keep the occupants focused solely on work with no distractions, hence the walls were kept bare and colours chosen were sombe...

Ni’ja Whitson is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and writer based in Riverside, California. They are an Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of California Riverside. Whitson is Gender-nonconforming and uses the pronouns They/Them. Whitson focuses their work based on african Rituals, that aim to bring the Sacred onto the streets. They engage a nexus of postmodern and African Diasporic performance practices, through a critical intersection of gender, sexuality, race, and spirituality.  What intrests me the most about their work though, was how captivating it was. we were only able to see a snippet of their work in class due to time restraints, but, the Majesty and sheer Magnitude of concentration in their performance had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. The simple movements, the dance, the voices, the music The magic of their performances is indescribable.  While not only being technically advanced, with well researched and meaningful performances...

In Derek Murray’s essay on the selfie, he focuses largely on the ill effects of the selfie on young women and also looks at the affliction to take selfies in contrast to narcissism. While also being a advocate for the advancement of technology and being aware that the selfie provides and indispensable alternative to self love and self healing, Murray being a man, cannot surmise just what exactly selfie taking brings to the young adult. Derek compares the act of taking selfies with a kind of narcissistic personality forgetting the fact that most of his statistics seem to be those taken from men rather than women, and from relatively poorer countries rather than the first world country he is from. In doing so, a really important question is brought to mind; does the fact that Derek himself is neither of these things, affect his judgement? Murray’s article reminded me a lot of this post, that forced me to ask the question, why do we feel the need to classify Women’s self love as vanity? I...

10 tips to increase the worth of your  artwork!!! There are several things that you might not have thought of, that add extra value to your artwork and can make it worth more money when you come to sell it. No , no I’m not talking  about reworking pieces you felt weren’t upto the mark , nor am I talking about redoing your watercolour by using a pen and ink technique to give it some character ... definitely not talking about  painting  right over parts of an oil or acrylic painting to give in that extra punch or 3 D effect  ,not even hinting at completely reworking the area, but here I am talking about techniques that don’t involve changing your artwork in any way it enhancing it instead ! 1. Frame it - Sometimes all you really. need to put , is a cardboard mount around a painting to bring it out of the doldrums, and there is no doubt that the right mount and frame can do wonders for a slightly mediocre piece of art. 2. For a sculpture, or a piece of cera...

I have often been told : Dont use colours, think like a "white man", make art for "white audience", your colours are too much and too many . My blog is an answer to that! I have always loved bright colours and movement, l don't know if it is a cultural thing because I am an Indian or is it, my intrinsic love for colours; I find it very therapeutic, relaxing and fulfilling too. The bottom line is, the feeling and message that I want to convey through the medium is only brought forth by the usage of colours. When I paint, every time I think " this time I'm going to not play with colours and just go black or monochrome but then I am unable to capture the myraid emotions of warmth, passion, joy and bliss in colourless objective compositions, somehow, although  I do enjoy experimentation of different media and subjects. My subject varies based on my emotion and statement but my love for colours is constant. In spite of this, viewers of my art se...

If self portrait is an art form, then so is a selfie ! Self portrait by Vincent Van Gogh  For long I have been trying to master the art of taking a selfie and I realised how tough it is to take that perfect selfie ! The light, the focus, the perspective,  all led me to research some more into the art of taking a selfie and I realised it is worthy of its own ART form ! That’s when I stumbled upon the a portrait discussion in a blog which said ,“The selfie has taken self-representation even further and made it even easier, making portraits just might seem like the celebration of a dying art. In our digital age, portraiture might seem to be less and less relevant when you can just snap a picture of someone with a camera. Or, of yourself.?” Well, does seem relevant somewhat ! In my construct that selfie is a potrait art form , I would like to begin with the definition of a portrait  according to the 18th century art theorist Roger de Piles, is that a portrait is an a...

Color Models The joy of the colour wheel !  A  color wheel  is an abstract illustrative organization of colors in a circle, which shows the relationships between primary,secondary and tertiary colors in a diagrammatic form….., says Wikipedia. Very few know that  a color wheel actually demonstrates color temperatures- hot to cold . In fact, digital teams communicate using hex codes to get the exact color and shade and it is very interesting to know! A color wheel is an illustrative model of color hues around a circle.  It shows the relationships between the primary, secondary, and intermediate/ tertiary colors and helps demonstrate color temperature. Digital teams communicate exact colors through the use of hex codes. Understanding the Color Wheel Many color wheels are shown using 12 colors.  Using this color wheel as an example, it can be read as follows: The Three Primary Colors (Ps) : Red, Yellow, Blue Three Secondary Colors (S’...