Posted by Nithya on February 28, 2010 – 3:14 pm
The Virtual Paintout for this month is the San Francisco Bay Area. The Virtual Paintout blog is a year old now, and Bill has decided that we will paint the Bay Area as a tribute to Google for the first anniversary.:)
Now I have never been to SFO, and the only idea of SFO that I have is from the paintings of Karin Jurick. I had painted some Victorian houses last year in one of the DSFDF challenges. Karin also had couple of SFO cityscapes for some of the challenges, but I did not participate in them. So instead of looking all over the Bay Area, I restricted my search only to San Francisco City.
San Francisco Cityscape – A work in progress
© Nithya Swaminathan
As is my usual practice, I spent an obscene amount of time obsessing with Google Street view and took a lot of images. I loved so many images while traveling virtually, but when I looked at them together to select which view to paint, I found all of them rather boring. So I tried various enhancements to the images and then finally decided to paint them with intensely saturated colors. With maximum color saturation, even a mundane cityscape looked quite interesting. This one is not yet complete, but I posted it anyway since today is the deadline. I will be completing this soon and would also paint a few of the other SFO images that I have saved. Only after looking at the image in the monitor, I also realized that there are some tweaks needed too. Stay tuned for the completed painting in a couple of days. Until then, I think I will go back to wishing for Spring with some more flowers.
Check out various views of the Bay Area at the blog. It is a beautiful virtual tour!
Posted by Nithya on February 26, 2010 – 2:45 pm
These days, when I upload my paintings to flickr, it automatically gets updated on Google Buzz. This way, my family gets to follow my paintings regularly. My parents do not generally visit my blog or follow what I do. But then, since Buzz is so on-your-face, they do not miss anything.:) At a time when social media is nothing but suffocating, I was so not interested in embracing yet another place to post mindless status updates. I have however not deactivated buzz for the sole reason that it saves my folks the trouble of remembering my blog url or any such things.:) Though I do not post anything new to Buzz, the auto update from flickr is good for me.
Ecstasy
Acrylics on Canvas, 16 x 20 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
This one is completed and signed, but something about her body/anatomy doesn’t seem alright to me. I thought I have made the hands too small, but looks like that isn’t the case. So while I am unsure of what exactly is missing, I have kept it aside to take another look after a few days. I hope some flaw pops out at me 
Your feedback is welcome!
Posted by Nithya on February 24, 2010 – 2:27 pm
After painting some legs, I think it is time to do a whole body again. So I am getting back to my belly dancers and capturing movement. One of the ideas that I employ in this series is a haphazard background. I wanted the background with large amounts of red, as it is fire and passion that I want to portray. By making the background rather hazy and with very visible broad brushstrokes, it gives a better sense of movement than what a still background would do. And painting the background is one of the most exciting part of the series, as I just play around to my heart’s content and keep applying color as wild as I can.
Break Free
Acrylics on Canvas, 16 x 20 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
This painting is based on a reference from Flickr photographer Adelita Chohfi. With this reference, it was love at first sight, and the flowing hair on her face is what did it for me. The idea of depicting complete freedom and happiness, without showing even a bit of the face or a smile was a fascinating idea and I just *had* to paint this one.
The mood of the painting, and the title, all represent very precisely the kind of mood that I was in while doing this. Over the last few days, I was obsessing over a self portrait, which turned out to be a disaster. I cannot explain how depressed I was with it. I thought I gave it a decent start, but then it turned out really bad. I tweaked it to no end, spent a lot of time and energy tweaking it but it was a lost cause. I did complete the painting and post it on WetCanvas, where people did have nice things to say. But I am totally bugged and will not be posting it elsewhere. Anyway, getting back to this painting, this was the perfect way to unwind for me, after a portrait where I harped so much about the details. This one is so exactly opposite, no detail whatsoever, and is all about mood. I literally did leave myself loose and had maximum fun painting this. And I really like how it turned out.
Your feedback is welcome!
Posted by Nithya on February 20, 2010 – 2:06 pm
As I mentioned sometime last month, I hosted the Different Strokes challenge in the Acrylics forum of WetCanvas for the month of Feb. This was one of the references I provided. This image is from the little French town of Colmar, taken when we visited this place in the Spring of 2008. It is a very charming little town in the Alsace wine growing region of France. I loved this arch and the lighting, the tables set up nicely, and the atmosphere. It has been on my to-paint list for longer than I can remember and I decided this was the best chance. I wasn’t quite sure if everyone would be inspired by this subject, so I gave another street cafe scene as yet another option. Most of the people painted the arch however, to my pleasant surprise.
Le Restaurant
Acrylics on Canvas, 12 x 16 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
I tried playing around with some structure paste for the outer walls of the building. On top of the paste, I used the palette knife to color the walls. I wanted a lot of texture to the walls, to make them stand out and to draw the viewer into the scene. The inside was painted with the brush. I could’ve done a better job with the overall lighting is what I think. I might tweak it a bit, adding a few highlights and some more darks. Let’s see.
I also hope that this paintings motivates me to get started on Europe cityscapes. With tons of references from all over Europe, every time I think of starting a series, I get distracted with something more interesting. Meanwhile, your feedback is welcome on this one!
Posted by Nithya on February 15, 2010 – 2:03 pm
Tango #6
Acrylics on board, 5 x 7 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
Posted by Nithya on February 14, 2010 – 2:01 pm
Tango #5
Acrylics on board, 5 x 7 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
Posted by Nithya on February 13, 2010 – 1:58 pm
This one’s my favorite from the Tango paintings, what do you think? I loved painting it and like how the lady’s legs turned out. Your feedback is welcome!
Tango #4
Acrylics on board, 5 x 7 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
Posted by Nithya on February 13, 2010 – 1:41 pm
These Tango paintings are based on the references from a dancer couple on Flickr. They are a real life couple who also perform together. And when I requested their permission to paint these photos, they were so gracious and allowed me to. In the first couple of paintings, I spent about 75% of the time doing the lady’s legs and hardly spent any time on the guy’s. So a friend told me that they are not as good as the woman’s legs. And so I tried slowing down a bit and added a little more detail to the guy’s legs as well. Your feedback is welcome!
Tango #3
Acrylics on board, 5 x 7 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
Posted by Nithya on February 12, 2010 – 12:34 pm
I had picked up a set of moulding/structure paste recently, just to see what was possible with it. The set also had a bottle of gold, which I thought could be used in these dancer shoes. I love the effect it gives. The shoes are done in burnt umber, yellow ochre and white and finally a touch of gold here and there. It looks as though they are fully done in gold.:) Your feedback is welcome!
Tango #2
Acrylics on board, 5 x 7 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
Posted by Nithya on February 12, 2010 – 12:22 pm
Last year, I did a series of belly dancers. The main idea of the series was to capture movement, and the passion of a dancer without focusing on the facial expression. The series relies only on capturing the body language. It was a series I thoroughly enjoyed, and it also struck me that I could extend it to some other forms of dance as well. I had some references of Tango that I had saved several months ago. If I had painted them then, I’d have done them in full, but now it occurred that I could just paint the legs and see if I could still capture the attitude.:) And so I decided to do a series of just legs in various Tango postures.
Tango #1
Acrylics on board, 5 x 7 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
With these paintings I am also getting back to the brush. Boy it’s been quite long! I do miss my knife a great deal though. Let me know what you think of this one.
