portrait

portrait  demo by Azhar Inamdar 

I love portraits. People, especially faces, to me, are a fascinating subject. So expressive and varied—there is emotion and character and life in every subject.

First, what is a portrait? The extremely open-minded among us will argue that any photo can be a portrait—face not required. A hand, a wisp of clothing, a musical instrument. To each his own. For me, a portrait is a painting  that would allow me to recognize the person depicted if I met them on the street. A face is an essential ingredient.

But beyond that, the possibilities are limitless. Do you include the environment and the subject’s body? Just head and shoulders? Profile? There is no wrong way to make a portrait. But the goal in portraiture should be more than just reproduction of a person’s features. We’re not making mug shots or identification badges after all. Ultimately you want to make a painting that makes a connection with the viewer.

This is a wonderful portrait by Azhar Inamdar. He indeed captures his subject. And so brave to do it publicly!

To begin he applied a warm grayish tone to the canvas. Used a large old brush to scrub a mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna onto the canvas. Wiped it down with a clean rag.  The effect is a slightly warm (in color) surface that he painted on allowing us to judge colors more accurately

This was originally a 2 hour session. This particular oil painting was done in the “Alla Prima” method which simply means that this painting was completed in one session as opposed to the artists normal way of working in glazes.

    illustration: mp

Painting with a friend

I tried following excuses not to paint

I needed a place of my own, may be first I get me a studio!

I don’t get time from work

Will I do it right

May be after six months

Then I realized giving such lame excuses is an art it self! How wonderfully I was able to do that.

I talked to Samhita about it. She was giving similar justifications to her self too.

After a couple of meetings we decided to do what worked in the past.

Paint together!

We remembered that painting together has always created an energy that leads us back to a place where the ideas, motivation and inspiration start flowing again. I fondly remembered painting with my friends samhita and khadija back in college days. We’d spend a Saturday/Sunday together painting and eating and catching up on each other’s lives.

We missed that friendship and wanted to recreate that

We talked and started working at samhita’s place.

We soon realized the longer the non painting period lasted the harder its going to get back to brush works. 

There are so many ways to express feelings and opinions for my friend she loves to do intricate pen work. And I like working in watercolors. And now it seems like we still got the spark... we can spend the free time in hand playing with colors and pens.

I have waited to write about this for a couple of weeks... May be because I did not want to jinx it! 

I don’t know where we are going with this activity, I don’t really worry about it... but I do know that there is a lot of joy in painting with a friend.

Too much independence frightens them all

Old sketch.. 

What happens if there is no such a thing called textbook?

Well, life is not so easy without those textbooks…are there standards? Yes.. if you want.

There are a lot of labels here

Right family, right school, right art, right way of thinking. It only saves one the effort of thinking for your self.

Do me a favor. Do yourselves a favor. Stop talking and look. You are not required to like anything. You are required to consider everything.

I have not worked at all....Nothing seems worth putting down. I seem to have nothing to say. It appalls me but that is the way it is.
Georgia O'Keeffe