Stuffed Animal in Sun

As plein air (i.e painting outdoors from direct observation) practice, I placed a big stuffed toy animal on a chair in our backyard. Positioned it to get some interesting light on it and originally had placed a trash can on the side instead of the bush. After about 3 hours the painting was not complete but light and shadows had changed drastically, so I had to stop. In my studio finished the stuffed animal, but the trash can was looking rather odd. So instead I converted it into a bush with pink flowers following the same light and shadow pattern as it was on the trash can. Looks good to me now!!
How do you like it?

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Stuffed Animal in Sun - 8x10 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Code# PK_15_050

Available - Click Here

Coconut Halves

Here is the demo painting I completed on the day of Ganapati Festival in LA. It took me 2 hours to paint this, while I was painting there were people watching as they were passing by, few stopped to talk. But there was a very curious little girl who stopped with her Dad and brother and watched for sometime. Eventually she asked me questions and it was fun chatting with them during the demo.

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Coconut Halves - 8 x 10 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Code# PK_15_045

Available - click here

Perfect Coconut Split

This painting was created as a practice for doing Live Demonstration during the Ganesh Festival in Los Angeles. A week prior to the actual demo, I set up this still life in my back yard. It was fun to paint, standing in the shade. I chose to paint coconut because that is what I had on hand for preparing the sweet offering "modak" - a favorite of Ganesha.

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Perfect Coconut Split - 8 x 10 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Code# PK_15_044

Available Click Here

Here is what I made after doing the painting:
Modak: my favorite too and I make them only once a year during this festival time.

Modak

Modak Offering for Ganesha

Healthy Choices - SOLD

This is a custom painting based on 30 paintings in 30 days challenge I did in January. This time, I set up the still life outdoors in my front yard, keeping the table in full mid afternoon sun. Even though I stood in the shade and painted, it became very hot. Since there are more objects in the painting, it was taking me long to paint. After about 3 hours, I was not approx close to half done. But the light had changed, the shadow had changed a lot and I was getting tired. So brought everything inside and took rest. The next day I decided to complete the painting in my studio from the reference picture. Its drying on my shelf now and will be on its way to India by end of this month!!

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Healthy Choices - 14 x 11 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

SOLD

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 4 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - Winner

Here's an experiment with Gold. I had this trophy for a while and in my children's class I helped them sketch and shade it with pencil. Once again I was tempted to use this as a reference and this time for oil painting. This is my first object in gold, hope it looks like gold to you. I will be happy to hear your comments and suggestions!

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Winner - 10 x 8 inches, Oil on canvas panel

Day 3 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - Pomegranate on Silver

The goal of these paintings is to do something different that I haven't painted before. So I chose a pomegranate, which I haven't painted earlier. Used a silver dish under it - this was a complete adventure - how do you paint silver using oils? The cloth under it was dark color. So most of the Silver became dark, specially underside of the dish. Does it look like a silver dish to you? I will do something with the same dish in one of these paintings.
Only thing I am in catch-up mode right from day one. Just sketched day 4 painting in the evening. Hoping that I will catch up by tomorrow! Also it is taking me little longer to paint 8x10 size, so maybe I will try smaller size as I had done in the September 2013 challenge.

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Pomegranate on Silver - 8 x 10 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Day 2 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - Together

It is just Day 2 and I am wondering what to paint. Once again started painting fruits - that's the most easily available subject to paint, and I haven't done Pears before. So here is a pair of Pears... Together.
This is painted from live set up right next to my easel.

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Together - 8 x 10 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Day 1 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - Egg on Red

Its been long that I did an oil painting, so here is an end of the year painting. I did this as a warm up exercise for the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge starting tomorrow. It was a very simple setup - a boiled egg on Red cloth - with that good bye December and goodbye 2013!! And now I can go to the New Year's party - YES!!
WISH YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!!

Egg on Red - 8 x 10 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Day 1 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Mango

As part of 30 paintings in 30 days, this is my first one and starting out with my most favorite fruit - Mango! I decided to do small paintings and from life. So yesterday I tried setting up the first time and painted this today. I will be painting everyday, you can put your email on "Follow my latest Paintings by Email". All paintings are for sale, contact me for purchasing information on preranap@hotmail.com.

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Mango - 6 x 6 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Code# PK_13_020
Available here

My setup for painting Mango

Calla Trio

I am teaching one day workshop this Saturday to a group of friends. Painting a Vase with flowers was requested for this painting project. We wanted something simple and identified a photo from Wetcanvas Reference Library that seemed simple to do. So this is how the completed painting will look like:

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Calla Trio - 12x16 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

 Reference Photo from Wetcanvas Library:

Whimsy Hat

Care to try this Whimsical Hat? The photo reference is from one of the weekly challenges on Wetcanvas online artist community. This was very unique and interesting hat and so I had saved it for painting. I change the original picture as per my interpretation i.e I may sometimes crop the original pictue to create an interesting composition or I may change the shapes a bit or change colors as per my liking. In this case slightly cropped and also added some of my own colors, you can compare by looking at the original photo reference also posted below. Also I have 2 different versions of the picture, the first one is taken in daylight and the second one in studio light.

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Whimsy Hat, 11x14 inches Oil on Canvas Panel. Picture taken in daylight

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Whimsy Hat, 11x14 inches Oil on Canvas Panel, Picture taken in studio light

Original Photo Reference: Wetcanvas



Original Photo reference from weekly challenge on Wetcanvas.

Illuminated Apple

This is a demo project for teaching Oil painting.
It is done using palette knife and with Winsor & Newton Artisan Water Mixable Oil and very limited palette: Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, French Ultramarine, Phthalo Green (BS), Yellow Ochre, Titanium White.
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Illuminated Apple - 11x14 inches, Oil on canvas

Ganesha - SOLD

I am a big fan of this elephant headed deity called "Ganesha". He is popularly worshipped as the remover of obstacles. All ceremonies and rituals begin with invocation and worship of Lord Ganesha.
This was my first sketch on canvas in this year and finally got to paint and so happy to have finished this painting!

Ganesha - 12x12 inches, Oil on Gallery wrapped canvas

SOLD



Since this is gallery wrapped canvas, I was able to paint all the sides too. So there is no need of a frame, it is ready to hang. Below are couple pictures of painted sides:


Ganesha - 12x12 inches




Ganesha - 12x12 inches