Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

Inspired by Christmas decoration and lighting in the garden, I felt like doing this lighted Reindeer. There is a lane in our neighborhood that does lots of christmas decorations and lighting. Its a very lively street and many people from far away neighborhoods come to visit here during christmas time. I took lots of pictures and when I was looking at pictures to paint, this red nosed reindeer captured my attention.

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Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas panel

Available - Click Here

Code# PK_14_029

Below are work in progress pictures:

Work in Progress pictures. Rudolph th Red Nosed Reindeer - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Holly Berries - SOLD

'Tis the Season!!
Our block is all decorated with Christmas Lights and through the windows at night, one can see Christmas Tree decorated. Feels like a happy time and I cannot wait for the Holidays.
Talking about decorations Holly Berries are a MUST!! Inspired by decorations, here is my painting. The painting started out looking like this:

Holly Berries - Stage 1: 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

 As I worked through different stages and layers of paint, the final painting emerged here:

Holly Berries - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

SOLD

Code# PK_14_028

Day 17 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - Toy Turtle

Here is another ceramic surface - this ceramic toy was made by my daughter as an activity when she was in girl scouts and elementary school. I loved how she had painted different greens on the turtle. It was fun to paint and brought back memories of that time with her.

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Toy Turtle - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

I have been quite behind this time in my challenge, I have 6 paintings in backlog as of today. But on the positive side, I have finished 11 paintings in 17 days so far, which is far more than I would have done normally. So still good results and I am happy to be able to try painting different textures and materials - ceramic, silver, gold, glass...etc so far. I am eager to try out steel, bronze and more...

Day 15 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - Fragrance Diffuser

Another interesting subject I always wanted to practice more was Glass. I found a neat little Fragrance Diffuser at home that exactly fit my canvas.
After I set it up, I thought I could paint it in a breeze. But the most challenging part for me was to draw it on canvas. The painting part was fun though, I loved how the background cloth showed through at different spots through the glass.

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Fragrance Diffuser - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

 Here's a picture from my setup:

Fragrance Diffuser - setup

Day 10 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - Micky Mouse Penholder

This turned out to be very interesting experience! It is a glazed ceramic surface and a cute pen holder design and on top of it BLACK!! I don't use black color tube at all in my paintings, in fact I don't have one... Due to the glazed shiny surface, there were lot of reflections too on this black surface. This is how it turned out to be painted:

Micky Mouse Penholder - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Here is the picture of my setup. Now looking at the original picture, I think I might have to tweak the base a bit and make it darker. But otherwise I like the painted one and happy with creating blacks!

Micky Mouse Penholder Setup

Day 9 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - Carrots with Ranch

It was early in the morning, time to start another painting for the challenge. Previous night, it was tiring, so I had not thought about what to paint... After contemplating in bed for sometime, I got up and decided to do the chores anyways... I went to the refrigerator to grab my palette. There was the bottle of Ranch right in front, and got an idea of what to paint... yes!!.. Baby Carrots with Ranch, then looked around, found a green plate. Good enough! new subject and different texture!
Also the New Year is about eating healthy... Here it is:

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Carrots with Ranch - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

 As I painted, I took couple pictures of my work in progress. Below is how the painting started - the very first color notes and the bottom most layer of paints.

Carrots with Ranch, first color notes

 Next I tried to put in actual color of the carrots and ranch and plate itself, see below:

Carrots with Ranch - local color of Carrots and Ranch

Eventually each color area seen above needs to be further elaborated by observing and painting variations in it. Eg: in the dark green shadow area, it is darker towards the carrot and gradually becomes lighter towards the outer area. Sometimes, reflections and light bouncing at different angles give a nice twist to shading!! You can see now how the the final painting develops..

Day 8 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - Piggy Bank

Since I started doing this challenge, I am surprised at how the things in my house are being "documented" as paintings!! This Piggy Bank was bought on our trip to Niagara Falls a good ~12 years ago. It was fun to paint since it brought back memories of our trip along with my brother and my older daughter as a toddler that time! I had loved the Heliocpter ride.

This is a white ceramic piggy bank and with the light on left hand side, there were lot of reflections bouncing on the piggy bank. Notice how the whites from the piggy bank are bouncing reflection in the shadow area. Which is why the shadow area looked lighter in the center mass, when normally it would be darker to lighter from closer to piggy bank towards outside.

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Piggy Bank - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

 

Day 7 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - Colorful Mask

While I was completing the Day 6 painting at night, my daughter called me in her room to say good night and to switch off the light. I briefly sat with her and was looking around and found this mask that she had made in 4th Grade I think. I picked it up right away thinking that it will be my next object for painting. It turned out to be COLORFUL!! 

Colorful Mask - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Here is the picture of my set up:
As you can see the original mask had few beads around the eyes and the feathers - all black. But as I was painting, I wanted to spice up the feathers, background and even the face. So I added yellows to background and face. Made the feathers multicolors. Now was the time to add extra beads, but the mask in my painting looked so interesting already that I decided not to paint those. 

Colorful Mask Setup

Day 6 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - Yellow, Red And White Huddled

Once again here is something that I have never painted before... Its a challenge to decide what to paint. But in the time that I have for this creative endeavor, I have to be fairly quick otherwise I will miss the bus :)
So I just pick whatever.. and this time I picked up three different kinds of Onions to amuse myself. Next challenge is to set up the 3 onions in an interesting way..I did it and then started sketching. When I was almost done, I didn't think the onions were looking good the way I set them up. Ended up erasing the sketch and doing the setup + sketch all over. Finally when I started painting, I felt better and actually I am quite happy with the outcome!
Hope you like it!

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Yellow, Red and White Huddled - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Day 24 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Cat and the Red Hat - SOLD

Dear All, It feels awesome that you are all following my posts. It is getting close towards the end of this challenge and it feels very rewarding to have so many paintings done!
Next in the Halloween series, I have Cat and the Red Hat. I wanted to make it look like a scary looking cat, let me know it it looks scary to you...

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Cat and the Red Hat - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on canvas panel

SOLD

For this challenge all the paintings I have done so far were from my own still life setup. But I don't have Halloween decor at all, since it is around the time of Diwali (festival of lights) and I don't like having scary Halloween decor around (my kids complain..., but I haven't given up..). Anyways, so this painting is from a photograph from Wetcanvas. As you can see the inspirational picture is drastically different, but I had a different image in mind to be painted. I thought it will be interesting for you all to look at the below picture and find out that I made use of my artistic license a lot on colors...

Inspirational photo for Cat in the Red Hat painting

Day 23 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Laughing Ghost

Excited that it is the beginning of my Halloween special series...
For the first one, I had a lighted laughing Ghost at home, so the setup was easy, I just turned its light on and kept it in darkness. Then made up the spider and spiderweb!

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Laughing Ghost - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Ya ya.. I am missing a painting from yesterday, in fact my total backlog is 2 paintings as of now, But I am confident that I can make up for these by the end of 30 days challenge. It was a really good break yesterday, I took some good rest and had fun with my long time friend who visited me from San Jose!

Day 21 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Feeling Loved Seashell

I placed this shell in my setup and thought that this is fifth one in the series and the last shell I have. What should I name it !? With these thoughts in my mind, I started to sketch it on my notebook. When the sketch was complete, I noticed a small heart shape in the center - YES! I found the name - Feeling Loved Seashell! And of course, I made up the heart shape colorful so that it shows. In the original shell the shape exists but is not pink as in my painting - used my artistic license to change objects here!
Hope you enjoy it!

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Feeling Loved Seashell - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on canvas panel

Day 20 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Feeling Grateful Seashell

I am having so much fun with this sea shell series. After the fact, I think I picked up a bit tedius subject. It took me longer for each of the shell series paintings and got behind.. As I painted, it felt like each shell has its own personality and that is how I arrived at the title. It feels like this shell is so very grateful for its beauty and glow. I looks majestic!

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Feeling Grateful Seashell - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on canvas panel

Day 19 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Feeling Abundant Seashell

Feels like this shell is sitting there with wide open arms, as if it is open and receptive to all the good and abundance in the Universe!

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Feeling Abundant Seashell - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

 STAGE 1: Putting down the first color notes. Usually I tend to use Purple for the darkest dark, but here I used Green instead to try out how it works.

Feeling Abundant Seashell - STAGE 1

 STAGE 2: Working with actual color of the object

Feeling Abundant Seashell - STAGE 2

STAGE 3: is about developing color variation within each area. But I forgot to take picture of this.