Mangoes and Bananas - Fruit Bowl - Still Life Painting

Just easing up this Summer with delicious mangoes - both in the dining room as well as on canvas.

The market is flooded with so many varieties of Mangoes this year. This tempted me to go ahead and paint a Still Life Painting of a fruit bowl with Raspuri Mangoes and Elakki Bale bananas.





Mangoes and Bananas
acrylic painting on canvas board
size: 7x5 inches

The Lord Ganesha Painting

Loved to start my new year with the blessings of Lord Ganesha. Offering his fav - the 'Gerke grass' even as I chant his manthra, has started off my new year with an auspicious note.

Lord Ganesha

acrylic painting on canvas

size: 12x16 inches

PAINTING OF GANESHA

Ganesha

acrylic painting on wooden panel

size: 8x12 inches

It was a pleasure to lift the brush in my hands and apply the strokes of paint after a long break of almost 6 months. Naturally I started with Lord Ganesha. I painted this from a real still- life setting of a wooden sculpture of Lord Ganesha which has resulted in a 3D effect in the painting.   

'Glass Vase' still life acrylic painting

GLASS VASE

My collector from Patna purchsed the 'Glass Vase' painting after seeing a picture of it in the 'Paintings for All'  blog .  So I asked him after the painting was delivered, how he liked it.     I was very pleased when he wrote to me saying that he rated a 110 out of 100 after seeing it in real life.  Thanks to him, my day was made.   

This is an acrylic painting on canvas of size 6"x8".  This painting was done during a real still life project, whicn I set up for my ART CLASS students, and I too decided to paint it. 

Kankaambaram - pretty little orange flowers

Kankaambaram - These pretty little orange flowers were strewn on the floor getting ready to be woven into long strands along with some jasmine flowers.

They were looking very pretty with light making the petals transparent, and casting intereting shadows on the floor, . . . and became the inspiration for this still life painting, which I did in an impressionist style, deviating a little from my usual pure-realism.

Project painting - 'Portrait of the Kaneri flower' - Oleander portrait

A 'Close Encounter' with a flower happened when I painted this close-up of the 'kaneri flower' - also called Oleander flower in English -  to send it as an entry to a project called 'Portrait of a flower'. This is an acrylic painting of size 10.5"x 7.5".

This April project was set by Marion Boddy-Evans - the Guide to painting on the about.com website. The about.com website is a New York Times Company undertaking, and is a treasure trove of information for many subjects including painting.

I am very happy to note that Marion Boddy Evans has liked my painting. She has especially liked the background texture created by variation in color and tones. She has made special mention of the shadow of this flower. She says that 'this is a shadow with visual intrigue in color and mark making'. She has also noted that I have not used black color to paint the shadow of the flower. I have infact used darker shades of purples and pinks to create the shadow.

Click here to view the actual painting that I had submitted for the April project and also the detailed comments of the project Guide Marion Boddy Evans in the about.com painting website.

FLOWER BASKET

Flower Basket is an acrylic painting of size 16"x12".

'Jasmine' and 'Genneri' (Indian name) are the major variety of flowers I use to do my daily pooja (prayers). These small flowers are very beautiful, colorful and convenient in size to serve flowers to God while chanting manthras. Last October when my garden produced a record bounty of flowers, I just filled handfulls into the basket and set up a still life setting for this painting.

Champagne and Roses

Champagne and roses are the best combination for a present on a memorable day. These roses and the champagne bottle were a present to me. I arranged the roses in a glass vase, and placed the bottle beside it, They looked so good on the dining table, that I immediately pulled out my easel and painted on a canvas. Thus it became a subject for my still life painting.

This is an oil painting on canvas of size 12"x8".

Kanchi Saree

This is an oil on canvas painting of size 13"x18".

I do love to paint sarees especially heavy silk sarees, which have a fall of their own. Kanchipuram is a small town in South India where this type of heavy silk sarees with real gold borders are hand woven. Hence the name -Kanchi Saree. The Kanchi saree is worn and preserved and passed on from generation to generstion because of its high cost and also because they do not degenerate easily. Yes you guessed right. This saree was passed on to me by my mother. Each saree is a masterpiece creation of the weaver, and I only hoped here to bring out the beauty of the saree.

BRIDAL WEAR - KANCHI SAREE

Bridal Wear - is an acrylic painting of size 36"x30".
The bright short colored (two differnt hues of blue here) heavy silk Kanchi saree (hand woven in Kancheepuram) with real gold woven border is representative of our traditional South Indian wedding dresswear. The long string of woven jasmine flowers is worn on the hair along with lots of bangles for the hands. A South Indian bride is dressed very colorfully. I hope to paint a figurative version of the Indian bride- some time in the near future.

The Grinding Stone

The Grinding Stone - is an acrylic on canvas painting of size- 24"x30".

This is a grinding stone traditionally used in India to wet grind while cooking. With the invention of electric wet grinders, this stone is used less and less nowadays. But I can assure you, that 'chutneys' made by grinding with this stone tastes way better than if -ground in an electric grinder. I guess this is because, the food is press ground in this, unlike being cut by blades in an electric grinder.