Experiments with palette knife

I have been watching videos for palette knife painting (http://www.painting-with-a-palette-knife.com) and wanted to experiment since a while now. Yesterday finally I did it with little success. Clearly a regular acrylic paper is not good enough for palette knives. My next attempt would mostly be on a proper canvas or a wooden board. Anyway, I started first with the tulips, trying to paint from a card my friend Aditi sent me last spring with a picture of tulips from her backyard. The paint wouldn't stay on paper and hence the smudgy output. I then tried something where I could use some strokes and use up the excess color :D, and so the martini glasses. Hopefully my next attempt with a palette knife will be much better.

Spring

Finally my attempt at a pen sketch for spring, though its summer already. This is just outside of engineering department at university around the corner. This path that I usually take while walking/biking is very green during spring and was an easy choice of scene for me to sketch. This is probably my first attempt at a complete scenery pen sketch, trees are definitely easier to paint than to draw :D.

Connectivity

As the theme was connectivity and I hadn't tried anything with colours really, this one was due. The abstract effect could have come only with the magic of acrylics! And I think spring season just brought out these set of colours :)! Wanted the "connected" rings to have a more chain-like look but didn't quite happen. I guess I'm still sort of trying to get the thin brushes working properly for me. 

Free hand

      

Had a couple of free-hands to upload, finally sat down to do it. The tree on the left was an outcome of this new pigment liner I got and wanted to try it out. The rendition was sharp and neat! The next theme was 'connectivity' and the one on the right was my first attempt, had to be since it happens to be my bread and butter too, again made with the liner. 

New beginning...

   

I couldn't think of a better art for Kirti, my closest friend's little one, when I came across this http://goo.gl/eXUKd. I don't know if its the brushes or my inexperience with acrylic that the sharpness is not quite there. 

But I am definitely moving forward with respect to acrylic colours. I just hope the new parents like it :)!

Togetherness!

This painting was not part of the theme series and is not an original idea of mine, http://goo.gl/LJaHO. But posting this one since I was happy with the end result considering I used acrylics. I sure am getting a hang of acrylic paints! 

My close friend Tejal is getting married this month and I cannot make it for the wedding, but sending this painting, hoping she likes it. When I saw this art on the web, I couldn't think of a better wedding gift!

Portrait abstract

The theme was making an abstract of one of my own pictures, http://goo.gl/Q9YOD. Used water colours again after a long time, felt like I went back to my roots! I realized I get caught up with paying too much attention to detail, it restricts my brush strokes. This was just an attempt towards trying to work on that. 

I thought I would go without any post this month, but I'm glad I sat down on the last day of January to paint, although something small. I need to paint more often and its just getting busier by the day! Hopefully I should be back with my new post soon...