Jazz

I finally have my first decent fully palette knife made painting. The key being a firm painting surface/base and wrist movement. I still feel I get caught up in perfecting the strokes which sort of spoils the natural palette knife look. 

This ones inspired by one of artist A. Austin's jazz paintings and by the amazingly made move 'Whiplash'. New found respect for orchestra players! Wanted to squeeze in a guy with a trumpet or a flute or an organ, should probably use a bigger canvas next time. Its also time to buy a set of knives of different sizes!

I had a theme in mind when I painted this. I asked Satish what it symbolized or what he thought of it. He came up with certain interesting things and it was only then that I realized that I should stop giving names or titles to my paintings. When you name art, the observer takes your word for it and the depth is lost. Abstract art does not have one explanation or meaning, it is defined by what the artist wants it to be interpreted as. It would be interesting to know what you all see in this piece. 

Autumn

Am I missing fall colours or what! No place as beautiful as Canada in fall, Smoky Mountains is a close second! I have been wanting to paint colourful trees for a while now with acrylics, after my first not-so-successful winter trees painting. This was inspired by one of the works by Patty Baker that I came across and I just had to try it out. Difficult to paint defining leaves with acrylic brushes that I have, hence the patchy work. 

Fresh!

Back to acrylics, with a simple bunch of flowers. I didn't realize how difficult it would be to make fine strokes with the acrylic brushes. I wanted to try something that I would normally paint using water colours. There is less definitiveness and more abstractness but with the right selection of brushes, I think, its possible to fine-tune the strokes.  

Dawn

This one took me back to my high school days when I would paint a lot of landscapes, all with water colours. This painting is actually inspired by a photograph, set in Kerala I believe, clicked by my friend Karthick and I made it as a gift for him. It caught my eye when I was going through his collection since the caption for this one was 'New Beginning' (http://goo.gl/2fBMNY). It seemed apt since it was a gift to wish him all the very best for his new start in Toronto. Its obviously not as perfect as his picture, but I enjoyed painting the water, the trees, the sky after a long time! I name it 'Dawn' since thats what it reminds me of.

Freehands

Its been a while I sketched with a pencil or a pen, its all mostly been use of paints directly on paper/canvas, as rightly pointed out by mom. This post is hence dedicated for freehand sketches! This is probably my third or fourth art related to ships, I guess I am truly fascinated by them. The one on the left is just a pen freehand with a little bit of pencil use. I definitely should work more on my sketch work, always feels good to go back to where you started.

Addiction

My friend HK wanted me to paint with a theme 'addiction'. I thought about it, one aspect of addiction I felt I could represent through colours was its deep-rootedness. I also wanted to show the different phases of addiction through different colours. Addiction implies loss of control and hence the haziness and randomness of colours in the top part of the painting. The theme probably doesn't come across very clearly, so I guess its open for interpretation to the observer :)! I do have another idea in mind for the same theme, should give it a try in my next attempt.