Project Watercolors Resumed

Months ago I set myself the target of learning to paint decently with watercolors. After the initial few futile attempts, I almost gave up. In fact I haven't created any art for the last couple of months. Last week I happened to visit a neighbor of mine who is an artist in her own right. Saw her work and got inspired. But instead of trying with oil paints like her, I tried my hand at some watercolor pieces. I personally feel these are much better than my last attempts. What do you think of these and what are the obvious improvement areas?

I'm still not sure about what kind of paper to use for watercolors and where to find it in Bangalore. I used handmade paper for the first 2 paintings and was not happy with the way the color wouldn't spread around easily. you can see that in the backgrounds....they look so messy.The 3rd is on a normal sketching paper and that turned out better. 

These go to PPF hosted by Eva and Kristin. There are so many wonderful artists participating these days that it takes almost the whole weekend to go through all the beautiful art.

The May Flower challenge grand finale!

I had hoped to post a flower everyday in Lori Moon's May Flower Challenge. But my sudden travel plans disrupted everything. I was still hopeful I would be able to post flowers once I reached my destination but when on a vacation at your parents place with 2 active kids to be taken care of and entertained while you are working from home all the time, the motivation to blog takes the backseat. 

Today being the last day I thought I will post all the flower pics I had taken in the last few days. 

A blue flower -

Hibiscus -

Spider Lilies -

Oleander -

Trees full of colorful flowers. The violet ones are the flowers of the same tree as these dried pods I had posted earlier. The red ones are known as Gulmohor in India and are also known as Flame of the forest as the entire tree becomes red when the flowers are in blossom.

 

Brocade and embroidered flowers in Indian sarees and a cross stitch tablecloth motif.

 

So this is my first post today and this goes to Lori Moon's May Flower Challenge. Thanks Lori for giving us such a wonderful chance to spot flowers around us, capture them and share them. And it was such a  pleasure visiting all other flower enthusiasts. I wish I'd joined earlier and not had to take the break too.

I'd fallen behind in another challenge too - 29 faces at Ayala Art. So I sketched a few faces to make the total count 29! :) I'll post those in a separate post.

The versatile flowering plant...

Bougainvillea! You see it climbing on roofs, on fences...you see small shrubs of it...you see it pots...you see a myriad range of colors and shades. That's Bougainvillea. 

Here's a collage of some badly taken pics of the beautiful flower :)

This is for Day 16 of the May Flower Challenge. There are some wonderful paintings in today's entry list. I might not be able to take part in this tomorrow as I'm traveling. Hope to be back on Day 18. See you all soon!

Nib painting

I'm sharing another old painting of mine for Day 15 of the May Flower Challenge at Lori Moon Studio. I'd seen something known as a nib painting and wanted to try it out. Evidently you dip a pen nib into paint and use it to fill your picture. I just used all available-at-home stuff for this. Even the nib was replaced by a toothpick and I just let the flowers take shape as I painted. Its best done on a velvet kind of cloth as the end result has a 3D effect to it. But mine was just plain left over fabric. The overall result, I think, was passable. But alas...years of neglect have made it look dirty and I think there are even some oil stains on it now. 

Vinca Rosea

I just managed to get my entry in for Day 14 of May Flower Challenge. I joined only on the Day 10 of Lori Moon's challenge of posting a flower related picture every day of May or at whatever frequency suits you. 

These Vinca Rosea flowers are abundant in India and are found in different colors. But we have only these violet/pink colored ones below our balcony.

Daffodils

For today's May Flower Challenge, I wanted to share a watercolor of Daffodils I had done quite sometime ago. I think I've already put it up in this blog in a post of my watercolors. But I'm putting it up again. 

Do go and check Lori's wonderful tulips!

A garland of white flowers

This is for the May flower challenge Day 12. These garlands of white flowers are used to adorn pictures and figurines of deities. They are also sported in the hair by Indian women, especially in South India.

Flowers or fruits?

I picked these lovely dried flowers during my walk this morning. These are actually the dried fruits of a tree that has beautiful violet flowers. I don't know the name. The fruits after drying split open in this wonderful way to disperse the seeds. 

And the vase is an empty glass bottle with almost white sand and shells that I got from my Andaman holiday. More about it another day :)

This one is for the May Flower Challenge hosted by Lori Moon. If you want to see some beautiful flower pics do go and visit the participants.

May Flower Challenge at Lori Moon Studio

Ok....so I have jumped into another challenge. This time its the May flower challenge hosted by Lori Moon of Lori Moon Studio. The rules or the lack of them make it easy :) Thanks Lori! So every day in May you have to post a flower - either a painting or a photo or any art/craft or anything and anywhere you see a flower. And the best part is Lori says you can participate any number of days you wish to. 

If I had come across this earlier, I would have started earlier....but better late than never. And I love flowers too! So here goes my first flower entry-

This is a pic I had posted earlier here. But I love the urli (that's what the container is known in India) filled with bright yellow flowers.

A paisley and a flower

I've been doodling again...Indian style! Happy PPF!