Day 28 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Rangoli Inspiration

Last weekend I attended a Rangoli Competition in our community and was inspired by Rangoli Art. This is a painting from life. I decided to use one of my pastel art sheet done few years ago as base. Then placed one of my very own made candle on top. Actually I started my artistic career by making such soy wax candles and it is my very first blog post. I sold these candles for Diwali celebrations. Still have a few left and just one set of 4 candles as sentimental value... Take a look on that candle post here.
I hope you like my setup and the painting too!!

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Rangoli Inspiration - 8 x 10 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

For those who don't know about Rangoli - It is folk art from India. The purpose of Rangoli is decoration, and it is thought to bring good luck. Design depictions may also vary as they reflect traditions, folklore and practices that are unique to each area. It is traditionally done by women. Generally, this practice is showcased during occasions such as festivals, auspicious observances, marriage celebrations and other similar milestones and gatherings. more on wikepedia.

Day 27 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Dressed for Halloween - SOLD

This one is #5 on my Halloween series!! I am surprised at how quickly I finished this painting! Normally for such paintings, I draw a grid and then sketch exactly before I start. But for this one I sketched the outline freehand with oil paint itself. Then did the initial block in of all the darks and then the lights. Next for second stage, I painted local color. For third stage, I painted variations within each mass of color and for the final painting, few more variations and highlights. After all of these paintings just this month, I think I have definately made good progress!
For the remaining paintings in this challenge, I am just going to take up miscellaneous subjects and see what I can come up with.

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Dressed for Halloween - 7 x 5 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

SOLD

Day 26 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Eyeball Smoothie

Aghh...!! I can't believe I painted this, the name is so disgusting...
On Halloween Parties, people get dressed up scary, and make very creative drinks, snacks etc. Kids go Trick or Treating and get sack full of candies.

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Eyeball Smoothie - 5 x 7 inches, Oil on canvas panel

Lake Mission Viejo Sailing Fun

Mission Viejo is our neighbouring community and year round there are lots of activities around the Lake. I painted this from a picture I took before the Jazz festival on the lake. One of the activities on that day was Paint the Lake competition. I painted this as my entry for the competition, but did not post on the blog, since I was posting one painting a day in this month.
Hope you like it!

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Lake Mission Viejo Sailing Fun - 20 x 16 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Day 25 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - WickedWitch - SOLD

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I don't keep Halloween Decor, so I painted this from a photograph on Wetcanvas library. If you are an artist, you must visit this online Artists Community -Wetcanvas. There is lots going on there, there are challenges for all mediums and critiques and great support from online fellow artists!
This is also a lot made up by me, reference image was just used for the sketch purpose. I would say this will fall into an abstract painting category, something different than I usually do. You can tell I had absolute fun with colors on this one!

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Wicked Witch - 5 x 7 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

SOLD

 Below is photo I used for reference:

inspirational picture for Wicked Witch painting

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!