Posted on

Tree of Love

My first tryst with the Abstract!

Tree of Love is a sketch where I have attempted drawing human like figures in tree shapes. Since nature has bestowed trees with the widest variety of abstract shapes, I thought of using these to create this piece of art.

I did this in GIMP using my Wacom Intuos 4 tablet. Total drawing time was close to 1 hour 15 mins, though I had planned this in an ‘important’ work meeting in the morning!!

Posted on

The Space Station

Space – A Final Frontier!

These words have inspired generations since the last 45 years (yes, it’s been 45 years since the first Star Trek episode was aired). I have been fortunate enough to come across Star Trek when I was of an impressionable age.

So here’s a quick sketch of a Space Station near a distant planet. I took me around half an hour to complete (Wacom tablet + GIMP software). Nice concept to start with.

So I decided to try my again newly found oil paint art onto this. I had an old canvas board (8 x 10 inches) lying around. I completed this color painting of the same piece (with some modifications) in 2.5 hours flat. This was my fastest oil painting, and the first speed painting of my life.

Posted on

2 Influential Art Books

Recently I finishes reading 2 books on the subject of painting, and both just blew me away. Even though both of them are somewhat related (both discuss the topic of fantasy / imaginative paintings), and still quite different, both had a way of teaching things most of us do not even consider while painting.

The first book I read was ‘Bold Visions – The Digital Painting Bible’ by Gary Tonge (http://www.visionafar.com).

Bold Visions
Bold Visions book cover

This book discusses digital painting techniques for painting fantasy and sci-fi, both of my ‘hot button’ topics. Even though the author uses Adobe Photoshop, very few pages are dedicated to the actual PS controls used. The main focus is on painting techniques, what to look for in a given scene, how colors major up against each other, and so on, which is a good thing.

It’s truly amazing to see how Gary brings to life such things as newly forming galaxies, sunrises on a distant fantasy worlds, sorceresses and angels, how the mood of a picture changes drastically when the color scheme changes, and how much of thought process goes on behind every painting.

This book is meant for the painters who want to go up a notch in their understanding of the painting techniques.

The second book I read was James Gurney’s (http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com) ‘Imaginative Realism – How to Paint What Doesn’t Exist‘. The title, as well as the book cover of the strange elf caught my eye, and I decided to buy. It proved to be the right decision.

James Gurney is a traditional medium painter, who has presented mostly oils in this book. The paintings are extraordinary, and the understanding of color and light is amazing (In fact JG has written one more book ‘Color and Light’, which is on my wish list already). The specialty JG brings here is his great sense of almost lifelike painting, which have some very unlikely elements in them. Just have a look at any Dinotopia picture and you will understand what I mean.

All in all, these 2 books have been some of my best investments in myself and my self development, art wise. I will heavily recommend these to anyone who truly want to move ahead in the world of painting.