Genesis

 

I finally sowed the seed for oil painting! I knew that the only way to pick up oil paints was to join some sort of a formal class. I stumbled upon a continuing education course with Emory here in Atlanta and was happy to see a 'Beginner's Oil Painting' class listed. Its been two classes so far and the best part about it has been coming home with a painted canvas :), I'm glad I took it up. We started with black and white still life and then moved onto colour theory. Its super fun to paint with other amateurs and to be guided by a fantastic teacher, Guy Robinson. Looking forward to the remaining classes and some more art...

Harmony

A water-colour piece again, this time with the new brushes I got from China. Plain strokes is something I usually paint when I want to try out new colours or brushes. I wanted to use just three colours, chose my favourite colour combination! The brushes are undoubtedly fabulous, happy with the outcome. The painting can be oriented in any way, I prefer this way as I like the way the verticals fall, with a dash of horizontals, a perfect harmony!

Paris

I have never been to Paris, would certainly love to go one day. The first thing that comes to mind when you think about Paris is the Eiffel Tower. Over a period of time it has become a symbol of love and freedom. Probably the reason why the peace symbol created by artist Jean Jullien went viral. 13th November 2015 was a sad day, innocent people died and the inhumane rejoiced. I felt disheartened and this painting was my form of prayer for the death. As I didn't have a picture of Eiffel Tower to emulate, I looked for inspiration on the web and found one on etsy, art by Jessica Durrant https://goo.gl/dXZ3eX. 

Tiny Dancer

Elton John's song 'tiny dancer' became even more beloved to me after hearing it in 'Almost Famous', one of my all-time favourite movies. When I came across this beautiful painting on Pinterest, I had to make it and I had to do it with my new water colours :)! Although I drew it up more than a month ago, filled it up with colours only last week. New colours feel smooth and I probably might continue with water colours for a while. 

Haven

Blog entry after a really long time! Painting after a really long time! Continuing with water colours, except this time I have used the new set of colours I bought recently, the M. Graham 5 water colour set. Fresh colours, amazing all-in-one Chinese brush and a slightly yellow paper :D. This one is inspired by one of the "Etsy" products. The little nest adds a different meaning to the tree and hence the title of this blog. Etsy has some really cool stuff and if I'm not buying from them, I'm definitely getting some painting inspiration from the website. Hoping to move on to some acrylic soon, probably using palette knife. 

Sky & Water

A water colour landscape after a long time! Made a small one but a good start I think. Hopefully the next one will be a bigger water colour painting and will be soon! 

This one is just an evening sunset sky and a colourful reflection in the water. Shadowed castles and structures along water are my thing :D. 

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!