The last two times I put up some of my original paintings (Family Pictures) and some faithful copies (Second Hand Art). Today I have picked two paintings which are somewhere in between. These paintings are based on photographs I found in magazines. But they were painted from memory – I did not have the originals before me when I executed the paintings. As the originals were photographs and mine are paint and brush versions of the same and because I added and subtracted from the original compositions, the end products are not really copies. However, since I borrowed the basic idea, I hesitate to call them true originals.
(As usual, please click on the pictures for a larger image.)
One bleak February in Nebraska, I was struggling with a painting that was going nowhere. Both the weather and the creative mind block were cause for some frustratration. I wanted to put the work aside and start something fresh but couldn’t come up with a good idea. Then during a trip to the local library while browsing through an issue of National Geographic, I fell upon an article on Rajasthan, the colorful desert state in central India. Rajasthan is not far from Delhi and the photographs in the article made me painfully nostalgic for the hot, arid summers of northern India in the surrounding gloom of a midwestern winter. I could not check out the magazine. I made a quick sketch of the picture on a piece of paper and later transferred the image on canvas. What transpired was a very satisfying piece of art work that progressed with speed and enthusiasm. I finished the painting in high gloss varnish which lent it a luminous overtone. It is framed in antique gold frame and hangs in a room that gets the afternoon sun – resulting in an attractive glow. It always pleases me to look at this painting because I remember how happily I worked on it.
As evident from my previous paintings, I like to use bright, bold colors. From time to time I would toy with the idea of making something muted using shades of black, grey or brown – like a charcoal drawing or an ancient sepia tinted photo. But I never got around to it until I came across a photo (painting?) in a science journal (I don’t remember which one). There was a picture of a man and a boy in identical, old fashioned top hats and long coats standing by what looked like a canal. The entire picture was in varying shades of brown. I found in it the perfect template for my two toned ambition. Again, I made a rough sketch of the figures and started the painting with much anticipation. But much to my surprise and dismay, even though I felt I was doing a pretty decent rendition of the original, nothing looked right. The hatted and coated man and boy, who looked quaint in the photo, looked comical on my canvas. While the original was “dark and moody,” mine looked “dark and muddy“. Rather than abandon it, I decided to change a few things while giving up the hope of a strictly two toned painting. I modernized the man’s clothing and gave him an umbrella, suggesting rain. The little boy was changed to a little girl in a bright yellow slicker to contrast with the dark clad man. I drew a lamp post on the side to introduce some more yellow and that allowed me to add it also to the sky. And lo and behold, the painting gained a focus and acquired a mood .. and still retained the look of an old photograph!
6 responses to “Inspired Imagery”
I just discovered your wonderful blog while searching for pictures of Udaipur, where my college-aged daughter is traveling during her semester abroad.
I’ve just started to blog about books — mainly fiction — at the above URL.
Thanks so much. I’ll visit often.
Hi Ruchira. Thanks for sharing your inspired paintings with us again. I won’t presume to pronounce on whether they are art, Art, or Great Art ;^) but I will say that I enjoy their moodiness and I think they are really lovely. In fact, I find them far more interesting than the paintings of Richa Arora. Just my $0.02.
Thanks, Usha. These two happen to be my own favorites too – particularly because I worked on them with much enthusiasm and the end result was satisfactory in each case. I like to show these together for another reason. My co-blogger Anna picked up on the common aesthetics of the two. I agree and pointed out the following:
Other than the fact that both happen to be inspired by magazine photos, I put them up together for the similarity in their color schemes. I used almost identical colors in the two paintings. For the most part, they are gold, amber, midnight blue / black and alizarine crimson. But because of the difference in the colors of the skies and the light on the horizon, one picture is cold and the other summer hot.
Namit will probably kill me for shameless self-promotion – but what the heck! Do visit my second anniversary post on A.B. where I have another painting up.
Like Usha, I find these paintings more interesting than Richa Arora’s. I also find your explanation of your paintings far more understandable than Arora’s jargon-laden statements.
I also like Usha’s elegant classification of things into art, Art and Great Art. It has the appeal of minimalism, so I vote that the classification itself should at least be called Art 🙂
Nice work Ruchira, sure beats Jack the Dripper! The trick now is to get the critics to agree with me, and art collectors to pay you the big bucks. Talking of Jack, do you know this saying about art critics: “No degree of mediocrity can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it interesting”?
Thanks, VP and Namit. The advantage of showing off before friends is that one is assured of kind words. As for my explanations being simple, that may be because: 1. They happen to be the truth and 2. Not being a professional in the market, I have no use for jargon.
In fact I find it so difficult to “describe” my paintings beyond the obvious that the one and only time I had to come up with titles for them (during my exhibition), I drove my family up the wall with anxious nagging for their suggestions.
I have heard that quote about art critics (the same goes for lit-crits, to a lesser degree) which is why there were so many derisive references to “art mavens” in my comments on the “Dripper” post.