Thirsty Tiger

Title: Thirsty Tiger

Watercolor on Handmade paper
Original Size: 36 x 27 cm
8.1.2011

Having explored different genres in content of art I have finally ventured into wildlife. I have used a reference photo to paint the tiger in detail. I understood the need for detailed observation of subject  before jumping into doing the art work.

After a loose sketch of outlines of tiger and the banks of river, different shades of green and yellows were put into the forest zone in a wet in wet style and were allowed to mix and dry. Details were added loosely with different colours found in the palate later with wet on dry and dry brush technique.

A graded wash was made in the water body starting with dark green and allowing some yellow ochre being mixed in the fore ground waters. When completely dry dark green shadows were added in waters towards the horizon. Ripples were made with brush strokes in needed direction.Highlights in water were added with acrylic white paint.

Tiger was painted with a wash of vermilion with attention on the tone and also carefully leaving whites in needed areas. Once it was dry added burnt sienna in few area to capture darker values. Used white acrylic for highlights. When dry used a black ink pen [fountain pen that I use in normal day to day medical practice] to draw the stripes. This was very useful in bringing the contours in the form of the tiger.Then used a small round brush and painted the stripes with watercolor to darken the stripes. Added a reflection and a shadow to ground the tiger and link with surroundings. Foreground is a yellow ochre  wash with burnt sienna splattered to break the monotony.Finally remembered to sign it with the date.

Hope you liked the painting

Sunflowers

Title: Sunflowers

Watercolor on Handmade paper
Original size: 27 x 36 cm
7.1.2011

I thought painting flowers is simple. Why would it be difficult its the same petals all around?!! I was so wrong in my thinking. It is pretty difficult to control the colours from flowing into wrong places.

I laid a wash of chrome yellow mixed with white on the whole paper as an under-painting. The idea of depth was created with smaller size and poor definition of  flowers at a distance and play of color contrast in the foreground. Green stalks were added in form of negative painting to bring the flowers forward.

My family was thrilled looking at this painting. They think brightness of the painting is reflection of my happiness about life !

Train in the fields

Title: Train in the fields
Charcoal on Cartridge Paper
Original Size: 28 x 34 cm
30.12.2011

I bought an Easel in Hyderabad on 29.12.2011. It costed me about Rs 2400/- [ about US $ 50]. I also bought some handmade paper and cartridge paper in the same shop. These are not available in Vellore, the town that I live in. I saw a charcoal stick which was being sold for Rs 15/- .I could not stop myself from buying it. What difference would that make when you have already spent a lot of money !

At home I could not keep the easel packed up. I opened it and set it up. I was happy at my decision to buy charcoal stick as I could use it right away. Sketching does not need props like painting!

Trains are an exercise in perspective drawing. I like the subject of trains. A large country like India is bound together with a large network of railways. I enjoyed train journeys in my childhood as it made me meet different kinds of people. Although, as a doctor in tertiary care hospital, nowadays I am overwhelmed with people from different backgrounds !

I found a railway timetable and decided to draw the train on the cover. Incidentally this is my second drawing with charcoal. The first drawing in charcoal was done using charcoal meant for barbecuing chicken in a party in 2007. It was in the house of our Professor Dr Deepa Braganza. She told me that she had got that drawing of ‘ships in a harbor’ framed as a memoir of the party. I was so encouraged that I restarted art work after few months.

Charcoal drawings are very smudgy and prone to loss of detail. I do not know how to fix the charcoal. I have now found that there are sprays available. What I did is that I diluted fevicol [ a synthetic glue] in water and painted that over the drawing using a 1.5 inch household brush. The reason for the lost edges should be apparent now! :-/

However this is a landmark drawing for me personally[ First use of Easel, First use of Charcoal stick ] . I would try and find out how people fix their charcoal art and improve next time.  Anyway I hope you liked this one

City Street at Night

Title: City Street in the Night
Watercolour on Handmade Paper
Original Size: 36 x 27 cm
25.12.2011 [the afternoon of Christmas day]

Cityscapes are frightening topics to paint. There are too many subjects in the field of vision.

I learnt a principle in recent times that every painting should have a focus and that detail is not important everywhere. I also learnt from blog of Frank Eber that little is much if we could succeed in giving an impression of the subjects. This painting has elements of keeping things loose in the background only giving impression of a busy road.

I used acrylic white for highlights. This helped giving an opaque white effect. random strokes and dots of white gave the impression of busyness of a street.

I had posted this painting in facebook few days ago and I am glad it was liked by my friends. Hope you like it too.

Streams in the Woods

Title: Streams in the Woods
Watercolour on Handmade Paper
21.12.2011
Original Size 36 x 27 cm

My sister wanted me to paint something with water, hills and greenery. Water is a challenging subject to paint with watercolor, especially moving water. So I decided I would do it today.

I had painted a waterfall in VIII grade.It was one of my best in those days. I stuck that painting to a glass window pane at home for display. It remained there for about 6 years till we had to change our home. The painting tore as I tried to take it out. It broke my heart. I never painted moving waters again as it reminds me of loss of that old painting of mine. Well, it has been over 13 years since that painting got destroyed and it is time I painted moving waters again.

I completed this painting in one day from start to finish.I am very pleased with it, as it reminds me of the old one. I have used a layered approach, waiting for paints to dry before I paint another layer over the previous one. I used red in the tree to bring autumn effect. I ended up using TOO much of it. It distracted the focus from the waters. So I splattered yellow over that region. It broke the edges and also softened the focus in the tree region. I followed traditional transparent watercolor painting style for water, meaning white means paper being left as it is and not white paint. I must add I splattered a little bit of titanium white on the rocks to give appearance of splashes and spray.

By the way the painting did not match my sister’s requirements. She said rocks are not hills. Hills were what she wanted with water and greenery!

Hope you liked it though.

Two Ships

Title:Two ships
Watercolour on Handmade paper
3.12.2011
Original Size:29 x 39 cm

This painting reminds me of something I had pondered over few years ago.
The main issues that a captain of the ship is concerned with are
1. How to keep my ship from sinking?
2. How to avoid bumping into other ships?

In life the answer to first question leads us to ‘personal ethics’. The answer to the second question leads us to ‘social ethics’.

Is not the problem of mankind beyond the pragmatic – why is the ship in the sea?

I had not removed the painting from the easel when it was done. As I kept looking at it, it looked a bit dull.So I added lemon yellow into horizon area, darkened the foreground waters,added some detail into the ship with ball point pen, added some background interest with birds and finally remembered to sign Friends later pointed out that the version 1.0 had better reflections of the ships in water. I then added some plain water to the ships bottom parts and let the water drip to get the reflection look on to the painting. This is the final version of two ships.

Two Ships

Marital Conflict

Watercolor on handmade paper
24 x 32 cm
2.12.2011

Realistic art is technically challenging and abstract art is ‘technically challenged’, so I thought and refrained from abstract art till now.

Art need not be technically complex and simplicity may not be meaningless.This painting has taken a lot of thought and very less time.I call it ‘Marital Conflict’.

Any marriage is attacked by strong emotions and deep passions as represented by the red. It can be shielded by patience, serenity and wisdom as represented by the cool blue. In that love lives on, represented by the form of heart. There is peace, represented by white.In that context partners experience growth, as represented by green. Due to stressors, personality factors and rarely mental disorder this buffer is lost. Peace is found in separation as seen in the inverted funnel.Partners may grow but not to the level they together could as shown by the sizes of green blots.The blue drops above offer hope that outside forces can increase the buffer to protect love, peace and growth through social support,therapy and God’s enabling.

Interpretation of Dance

Title:Interpretation of Dance

Watercolour on Handmade paper
29.10.2011
Original size: 30 X 37 cm

Few days ago I saw dance performance of one of my patients. In our case conference I shared my psychodynamic explanations for different aspects of dance that I had witnessed. A friend of mine joked I could write a book ‘Interpretation of Dance’ like the classic ‘ Interpretation of Dreams’ by Sigmund Freud! I got the title for a painting. Of course I am very far from writing anything academic.

By the way the painting has nothing to do with my patients

Added on 3.12.2011:

The original is found in this post.It was too bright even in natural shadow areas. There were problems in highlights. So I worked on it for some more time.I still am not fully satisfied but I fear spoiling it by overworking on it, as it usually happens in water colours.So we have the version 1.1 today

Venice

Title: Venice
Watercolor on Handmade paper
Painted over 2 hours on 8.10.2011
Original size: 35 X 50 cm

I heard first about Venice in 3rd grade, when I read about a cold fox called Shylock in the story “The Merchant of Venice”. In my fourth grade there was a chapter on Venice in English supplementary reader called the “Lovely queen of Adriatic”. I was amazed at a floating city like that. More than 20 years after that I saw the movie “The Italian Job”. I was inspired by the beauty of Venice again. So I painted this scene featuring the grand canal overlooking the The Basilica of St Mary of Health.

A good psychiatrist maintains boundaries in his therapeutic relationship, so as to prevent hurt and damage to the client and the therapist herself. Is it not like a wise prostitute would want a barrier to prevent transmission of diseases?

A psychiatrist would do everything to avoid being physically involved with the patient. It goes against her professional interest. Would not a prostitute be afraid of being emotionally involved with her clients? Emotional involvement for a sex worker could mean free sex with the one involved, which is bad business!

Both need contacts to earn referrals. They manage the bulk of clients with social skills more than technical skills. However to retain top class clients technical expertise is a prerequisite.

Many end up in prostitution without their choice. It may be a good finding if psychiatrists chose their profession. Interestingly there is something that makes a psychiatrist worse than a prostitute. A prostitute sells her body to serve her client but many psychiatrists sell their soul to pharmaceutical companies without the knowledge of their clients.

Sadly both prostitutes and psychiatrists get stigmatized in society. Society wrongly thinks they are preoccupied with sex when they are actually preoccupied with their business!

—

Intentionally the gender of the psychiatrist used here is female so as to not let men appear intellectual as psychiatrists and women appear weak as prostitutes.