Photographing paintings, especially oil paintings, is a problem; they either come out too dark, thus losing the subtle colours (in the sky in this one) and changing the mood of the painting, or they come out too glossy, the light bouncing off the oil paint. I struggled again with this one, again with the perspective. The first attempt resulted in the rocky piece of land being too large, so there I was scraping away the paint and messing with pushing it back by making it smaller. I never used to have a problem with such matters, perspective came so naturally to me.. I saw a picture, or a scenery, and I knew exactly how big or small the elements in it had to be on the canvas. However, the positive thing is that I am spotting the errors and correcting them. Correcting a painting too requires technique, which I am getting plenty of practice now :)

I'm trying to loosen up my style, which I managed in this one in the reflections of the sky colours on the wet beach. Still, over all, I think it's too controlled, which is natural enough, since I'm painting after quite a while. Hopefully, as my confidence grows, I'll be able to loosen up. Though being the kind of person I am, I don't think I'll ever achieve the kind of loose, almost nonchalant style of say, a Van Gogh.. which thought makes me think.. I wonder how Van Gogh would have approached this scenery. Maybe I'll try painting one of Van Gogh's painitngs next.. just to get the feel of his style.

I had forgotten how tiring painting can be. These days, by the end of the day, I just have enough energy to grab a quick bite, usually while watching Arnab's show, and then just flop out into snoozeland.