Read all the posts listed in the Painting category. Alternatively, visit the Gallery to view my recent paintings.

I started painting in childhood after being inspired by my elder sister and one of my close elder cousins. They used to paint beautiful watercolours, and their precise and perfect works sparked interest in me. I’m not sure when I had started painting in earnest, but I remember that by the time I was in fifth grade, I used to paint A LOT. I was so obsessed that I used to paint every day and every night, sometimes, by candlelight during electricity cut. But, somewhere along the road, I gave it up. There were times when I wanted to get back to it, but the idea remained snoozing at the back of my mind.

When I finished my post-graduation, I had a lot of free time in hand before joining for the job. So I thought why not give a try to art again? So I bought an A2 sketchbook and some graphite pencils. I took references from Pinterest which had some basic tutorials. Later on, I also bought a few sketching books and watched YouTube tutorials. I kept doing it on and off, even when my free time was over. Needless to say, I heartily enjoyed it.

With time, I took up watercolours again in 2018. It is the medium I was familiar with and I loved it. Earlier I used to work with students grade paints which were highly opaque and non-blendable. But, now I wanted to capture the fluffy clouds and lush green forests. So I invested in artist grade paints, brushes and paper. I had loved painting landscapes in childhood, and I was glad to have started painting them again. I started to feel so much at peace with myself because back in my mind, I had always wanted to connect to art again. With practice, my strokes improved. Good quality supplies are important to achieve desired results and after tinkering with different supplies, I have settled for some favourites – Mijello Mission, Sennelier, Daniel Smith, Schminke for watercolours, Brustro for brushes, Arches and Khadi Papers for paper.

Now that I had started painting, I wanted to begin with oils. But, before that, I picked up acrylics – which I like to think of as a bridge between watercolours and oils. I found and still believe acrylic is a very easy and beautiful medium, somewhere between watercolour and oils. With enough water, it flows like watercolour, with thick consistency it works like oils, and it helped me bridge the gap between my experience of watercolours and the desire to start oil painting. I learnt many new techniques with it and after doing many pieces on acrylics on canvas, I felt, without fear (finally!), that I was ready to paint in oils.

I researched and read heavily about painting with oils – the mediums, the colours, the thinners. I thought that oil painting was some serious, scary stuff, but when I really started it, it didn’t feel serious or scary at all. It was fun and easy! When I first started laying down the colours I instantly fell in love with the way they blended! The paints flowed smoothly as butter with the right amount of thinner or alkyd medium and the way they blended stole my heart. It was a minimal start after which I started practising in earnest. Not to waste canvas boards for practising (not only because of expense but because of space as well), I found canvas cloth notebooks are the next best thing. They are not expensive and the strokes are as good as they are on canvas. My hands are also itching to try MDF panels because their smooth texture would be lovely to try landscape paintings in. All will fall into places, as it happened earlier. The aim was to start and I started it!

And, so the dream had finally been realised and all I wish to do is to keep painting in all of the mediums I love so much – watercolours, acrylics, and oils. I wish to continue learning about all that is there to learn and all in all, just enjoy the process. Because when you enjoy the process, the end result would always turn out to be great, and if it doesn’t, what does that matter? Start again!

My painting related writings

• Artistic PursuitsFebruary 18, 2018
  I have started sketching (sort of) again. It started about three years ago just after my college placements… After getting a job offer, I felt so relaxed that I started thinking about picking up my favourite, old hobby: painting. I overestimated myself and thought that I was ready to try oil paintings (after a gap of almost 10 years!) I […]