Broken

Few years after I decided to be a professional artist, I enrolled on Smarter Art School for a mentorship with Todd Lockwood. This was my first actual art training back in 2014. It was a 12 weeks course and I learned quite a bit about art and many things related to it. During this period, I have struggled quite a bit because I didn't have any formal art training before. It felt like no matter what I did, I just couldn't make my paintings work. It felt like everything is falling apart and there was nothing I could do about it but hold on. And all that frustrations resulted in this painting. I painted most of this under the guidance of Todd, but I didn't finish it by the end of the course.

Yesterday evening, a stray dog passed away in front of the house I live in. Some asshole ran over that dog with a vehicle. And I couldn't do anything to save that dog's life. It was the worst feeling to be in a position where I couldn't do anything. I hated it. To vent off that feeling, I got back to this painting and finished it. I will never forget this incident and all I can do is try and reach a position where I wouldn't be helpless to help someone.

Fight Club Sketch 1

"Who you were in Fight Club is not who were in the rest of the world." - Fight Club (1999)

 
I have made a few sketches long back while watching Fight Club movie. I've always wanted to take some of them to a finish, so here's me doing just that. I've started with this one and will upload one by one as I finish them.

 

Girl in a Hat

Took out another sketch from my sketchbook and made a painting out of it. I thought this particular piece would be finished quickly. In the end it turned out to be anything BUT quick. I had to struggle a bit with this piece. I have always found drawing women quite challenging. Its not easy capturing a woman's beauty. It just became more obvious while making this painting. In the end, I suppose this piece turned out alright, but I need to practice drawing more women.

 

Cyclops

I think for the first time I'm making a blog post about a painting I made on the same day. Usually I procrastinate when it comes to making blog posts, but not today. I finished this painting couple of hours back & now posting it here. 

This design is based on Cyclops from Uncanny X-Men comic series. I made the initial sketch last year, and took it out to paint today. I was also trying a new painting technique and I like the way it turned out.

Edit: I just realized that I uploaded a flip side image of this on Facebook & Instagram. Shit. Anyway, here's the original image, and this is how its supposed to be.

Man with No Name

This painting is based on the Clint Eastwood's character from the movie A Fistful of Dollars. I think this turned out alright and I like it. I should soon start experimenting with painting without solid black outlines. I will probably do that with the next painting.

Morpheus

There are several sketches that I selected from my sketchbook last year. I liked the way those sketches turned out and decided to take them to a decent level of finish. I wanted to do this last year, but it didn't happen. This year, one of the things I want to do is to turn all those sketches into paintings. Its been going good so far.

This particular painting is based on the character Morpheus from The Matrix trilogy. I'm still figuring out and learning different ways to paint digitally. I find digital painting quite technical at times, with all the layers, properties, brush settings etc. I'm trying to find a way to make the digital painting feel more natural and less technical.

Naruto

I started this painting two years back. I finished about 80% of this painting back then, but I didn't like the way it turned out. Over the course of next two years, I tried to make this painting work, but it just doesn't feel right. Recently I decided to take one final shot at this, and this is the result. It didn't turn out the way I wanted, but I suppose its alright. The painting is based on an iconic moment from the first episode of Naruto. This is the point in the show where I was hooked to the series.

Character Sketch

A simple character sketch focusing on facial expressions. I need to do more of these.

Outdoor Sketching Day 8-17

For some reason, making a blog post seems more tedious than posting on Instagram or Facebook. So I tend to procrastinate when it comes to posting in this blog. If you're interested in up-to-date posts, you can follow me on Facebook or Instagram.

Day 8:

This was done at a mall in my city. This is the food court(I think that's what its called), where all the food stalls are located in the shopping mall. Painting this location was particularly challenging because of the number of items that were in front of me. And on that day, I started this painting around 7:30 in the evening, and by the time I finished it, pretty much everyone left the mall. It got quite late, & I finished the day by taking home a yummy Subway sandwich. I like getting those whenever I can :) Back then I didn't particularly like the way this painting turned out, but now that I look at it, I think its not that bad.

Day 9:

This was the first painting that I made outside after sunset and the environment is relatively dark. I made this painting without any ink lines as base, and I liked how it turned out. The result feels painterly. Although I don't think I ever used this process again. For the most part, I like having an ink drawing as a base. Its like having a plan mapped out and it allows me to focus more on colors, which makes the process rather fun. The downside is, its very time consuming. Eventually I might just work without an ink drawing as a base. Back to speaking of this painting, the vehicle in the middle is out of proportion. I realized it much later when I was looking back at this one day.

Day 10:

This was done at the book fair. This is probably the least successful painting of all that I have done so far this year. My mind just wasn't in the game that day. I didn't even bother to finish it or take a good scan of it.

Day 11:

I took a couple of days off and it was really helpful. I ended up making one of the best paintings I did outdoors. I realized that pushing through boredom & lack of motivation is just not my thing. I find myself giving my best when I'm patient, inspired, and have a lot of time to work on a painting. So I have decided to not make Outdoor Sketching a daily habit. Instead I go out depending on how I feel on that particular day. And speaking of this particular painting, this was done at Wagon Workshop Colony. This is some kind of water storage unit. These structures have always fascinated me. I think they're the tallest structures in that colony. I've always wondered how it'd look inside this structure. Perhaps I'll take a look inside someday. I was really happy with the way this painting turned out, although I had to hurry up a bit in the end because I was surrounded by a lot of curious kids by the end of this painting.

Day 12:

This is the view of a section of the thermal power plant from WWS Colony. The power plant is few kilometers away from the colony. This was a relatively simple painting. While making this, I was surrounded by few kids and puppies. Its so hard to make a painting when cute puppies are around. As for the kids, its amazing that they stuck around for pretty much the whole time to watch me paint. It can be quite boring to watch someone paint, but those kids were very curious and interested.

Day 13:

I was very fascinated with this particular location. The houses were built along side the slope of the hill and it was covered with so many power cables. I tried to capture as much of the details as I can, and that was a big mistake. The painting ended up being...well my brother put it the best "It looks like you painted something and scratched all over it with lines."

Day 14:

I made this painting at the Vijayawada Railway Station. There is a big replica of the first steam engine(that's what it says on the plaque) located near the entrance of the station. I went out at noon that day to paint this and it was so damn hot. 

Day 15:

This was the painting of the ice cream I had that day at Pabrai's Vijayawada. This was Orange-Basil flavor. They have some pretty crazy flavors like Green Tea. I should try them sometime.

Day 16:

This was the painting of a mosque in my city. The locals said that its the biggest mosque in the city and it has been there for more than 400 years. The mosque is located right by the highway and I sat on the divider in the middle of the road and painted this. Since it was afternoon, there wasn't much traffic, but it got tough to paint by around 4 in the evening when more vehicles started to pass by. But I managed to finish this just in time. I really liked how this painting turned out. Too bad, the scan isn't too close to the original. Until I get a better scanner, I will try to make my scans match as closely to the original as possible.

Day 17:

Ah, finally this long post comes to an end. As I'm typing this, its 8 in the morning and I haven't slept all night. My eyes are pretty tired, I made few mistakes while typing this, and I laid down a couple of times in between and almost went to sleep. Anyway, this is the painting of one of the entrances of the Vijayawada Railway Station. It has a pretty good architecture. It could look even better with proper maintenance of the building and its surroundings. More importantly, people should be more responsible and not litter around.

  

Well, that's it for today. And that's all the Outdoor Sketching I did in the past month. There are still a few more images that I haven't posted yet. I will probably post them in the evening, unless procrastination strikes.

Outdoor Sketching Day 7

Today I did my first color study from life. This painting was done at the Vijayawada railway station. There's this place in the station where all the train engines and compartments stop by, probably for repairs and maintenance I guess. The place itself is just a 5 minutes walk from where I live. I really liked the colors of this one engine, so I painted it. It took more time than I had expected. By the time I almost finished the painting, the light has gone down and I was surrounded by mosquitoes. But I was happy with the result considering the fact that it was my first painting on location, and I enjoyed the process very much.  Unfortunately, the scan on my painting doesn't match the original very much. I should learn how to make my scans look closer to the original paintings.

Outdoor Sketching Day 1-6

Okay, it has been a while since my last post. But recently I started doing outdoor sketching and I intend to do it daily for as long as I can. Let's see for how long I can keep this up. I will upload one sketch for each day, and here are the sketches of the first 6 days.

Day 1:

I have decided to do sketches of the city I currently live in, Vijayawada. Its a city in Andhra Pradesh, India. This particular sketch was drawn at Wagon Workshop Colony, the place I grew up in for most of my childhood. Its a peaceful place, far from the hustle and bustle of the city. Lots of trees all around. Now this place is almost deserted. Most people moved closer to the city for various reasons. Some people still live here, but there aren't many compared to the time I grew up here. And since not many live here, the maintenance of the place is not very good. All the buildings have cracks, peeled off paint, weeds and other plants growing around them. And this adds an unique character to the place and I love it. I visit this place as often as possible so that I can capture as many locations as possible in this place. This particular building is some maintenance related building. 

Day 2:

This is the seating gallery of a playground. Its a small ground, but the largest among the two playgrounds in this colony.

Day 3:

This is a clock tower at the Vijayawada Railway Station. I believe this is the largest railway station in the entire state.

Day 4:

This is the institute in the colony I mentioned above. Its kinda like a community center. It has a small library, a gymnasium, few indoor sports, and a hall for special events and screening movies. I don't think they screen movies here anymore. They used to screen a movie every weekend when I was a kid.

Day 5:

This was at the Annual Vijayawada Book Exhibition. Saw this guy, Raju, making these huge Papads(an Indian snack) at a snack booth. I liked how he handles those huge disc shaped snacks and so I made a sketch of it.

Day 6:

There's a playground across the Vijayawada Railway Station. This is one of the main playgrounds of the city. Small level sports tournaments happen here, and apart from that people generally come here in the mornings and evenings for walks or to play badminton. This place has a basketball court and I drew one of its backboards. The basketball court is not that great and lack of maintenance is obvious. But that's probably because barely anyone plays basketball over here.

Hope you enjoyed these sketches :)