My journey so far

It is has been almost 2 years since I moved to India. I left San Francisco in 2014 and traveled the world with my husband for almost 1.5 years. We each wanted to find out what we were good at. I finally found my passion — arts. However, I also learned that keeping up with your passion is a difficult thing. It’s not easy to be motivated every day. Moving to a whole new country and starting it all from ground zero is a whole new ballgame. It is quite difficult. So here’s my journey so far.

When I moved to India, I was extremely thrilled and promised myself that I will paint or draw every day. The initial months were awesome. I always found new subjects to paint from and ideas to explore. I was super excited to wake up every day and paint. I made a painting a day and took progress shots and posted it on social media. I got kudos from my friends and likes from people I did not know. I was happy and carefree.

However, as time passed, I started finding it very difficult to continue painting each day. I was getting accustomed to my new location and was unable to find a flourishing art ecosystem. There were no art meet-ups or conferences that focused on contemporary artists who wanted to paint from live models or places where artists could just go to see other artist paint. I also couldn’t find artist grade art supplies and materials, which were so easily available in San Francisco. Slowly I grew frustrated and my painting hours reduced. New ideas started dying and I couldn’t even pick up my brush to paint something simple. I started making excuses for the day and stopped painting altogether. However, I was still not comfortable. There was this lingering feeling of doing something about it because I was still in love with arts and I wanted to find my way back.

What got me started again was something simple. I decided I would restrict my posts on social media and would just spend my time learning from the artists I admired. I picked up one of my favorite artist “Richard Schmid’s” book on Alla prima and spent a few days just reading and understanding it. I knew many artists who admired his books but I never understood why until I read it a few times. It was brilliantly written and gave me the much-needed boost that I was missing. I started copying his work and now spent hours painting. I don’t post on social media as regularly as I did and I am pretty happy about it.

Here’s a sneak peak into what I learned:

Portrait in oil. Image courtesy: onairvideo.com

My copy of Richard Schmid’s painting “The Professor”

Painting Elsa Day 3

Yesterday for the last day for painting Elsa. Here’s what I was able to achieve

"Elsa Day 3"

I checked my eyes to nose triangle and found that I had painted the nose long. So i redid the nose and as a result moved the mouth and the neck.

Overall a great learning. Next time I should check the eye-nose-mouth location in my drawing stage.

Painting Elsa Day 1 and 2

Repost: https://www.shuchimuley.com/single-post/2017/12/09/Painting-Elsa-Day-1-and-2

In one of the many long pose sessions at studio — Basic Enquiry, I started painting a portrait of our amazing model Elsa. Here’s my process — -

Stage 1: Setup

First, I arrange my stuff. Here’s what I use — oil paints, board/panel for painting, Gamsol, brushes, medium(1/3rd stand oil, 1/3rd linseed oil, 1/3rd Gamsol) and kitchen tissue roll.

I paint on boards that are primed. In case they aren’t primed I coat them either with acrylic gesso or oil grounds. The pre-primed ones I use are from Ampersand and I love them!

Here’s a link for Blick in case you want to buy:

https://www.dickblick.com/products/ampersand-gessobord/

Stage 2: Drawing

I always start by making random marks on my canvas using a mix of Terra Rosa, Viridian and some Gamsol (Odorless Mineral Turpentine). This is just to make a mark on the board. Why do I do it? I don’t know, maybe coz I saw many good artists starting that way and I thought it was fun. :) It also helps me in knowing how absorbent the surface is.

Next, I take some Terra Rosa and start marking in the structure of my portrait. I make lines for where the head will be and also the neck (I always make some portion of the neck). Then, I put in marks for various landmarks such as the eye socket, tip of the nose, mouth accent, chin, pit of the neck, and so on.

I draw directly on the board and make edits using Gamsol. I shift my eyes between looking at the model and my board and also mass in the shadow at this stage.

Stage 3: Color

Now I start painting in the eyes, one at a time.

Palette next to my panel

I clip my palette next to my panel because it helps in making better color decisions. I also look for temperature changes and compare each color that I apply with my previous color patches. I  also look at the anatomy of the head and check to see if I have painted them in the right place such as the eyes to nose triangle, the location of the ear, the distance from the forehead to the eyebrow to the tip of the nose to the accent of the mouth to the chin. 

"Elsa in progress shot"

I paint from left to right starting from the light to the shadow. Many artists paint from shadow to light but I still have to try that.

I also painted the background, which I usually do much earlier in the process. It helps fix issues with the form next to it. It is always a good practice to put the colors next to each other and the background early in the painting stage. You should not add the background later since it creates a hard edge when the paint gets dry. Also, remember that with these color choices and temperature changes you are turning the form!

After 3 hours it was time to wrap-up until next Monday, which will be the last session for this pose. I carried my oil painting in my newly created wet-painting carrier.

"Wet-painting carrier that I create"

"My painting in the carrier"