I am so thrilled.. he praised me today.. my painting, I mean..I mean my art instructor.. the one whose workshop I am going to.. I didn't think he would notice me.. I mean my painting.. after all there are about 25 in the class.. I am totally absolutely completely utterly over the moon! Not only is he a great artist.. I think he can be counted amongst the best in the world today.. but he's such a lovely person.. gentle, soft, unassuming.. yet with an understated air of confidence, not only with himself as a person, but him as an artist.. I could watch him paint all day for the rest of my life.. I told him so.. and he laughed.. a lovely gentle laugh. The way he instructs too is so gentle.. always giving space to us, his students, to work out things for ourselves, express ourselves according to how we want to.. only offering some technical aspects when he feels we need it.. but always gently, sensitively.
About this painting.. did it at the workshop today.. it's still at the base coat.. it will be finished tomorrow. I had a tough time with the face - my instructor achieves faces in a jiff.. a brush stroke here, another there..and voila, the face emerges as if conjured up by some magician... Amazing! Me, I struggle with it. But, looking at it now, I quite like what I've done. I loved doing the folds of the cloth.. I"m pleased with the skin tones I've managed.. so difficult to get the 3-D effect on a face.. the nose juts out, creates all sorts of shadows and shades on either side of it, on the cheeks, on the upper lip and the lips. The eye sockets and the folds of the eyelids, another tough area. The chin, the ears, the forehead.. and then working with acrylics, which dries so fast. At least with oils, one can premix the various tonal values and apply them, blend them, work them in at leisure. Acrylics dry so fast that one has to keep mixing the shades of colour, and apply them fast enough to enable some blending. But the enormous plus point is that you get your finished art work immediately. This painting, for example, would have taken me about a week to finish in oils.. in acrylics I'll have the finished work by tomorrow.. and that too because my instructor has told us to finish it with him..
Oh, I'm calling this painting "The Pilgrim" because he's a Warkari, the worshiper of Vitthoba, the deity that resides in Pandharpur, Maharashtra.
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