Skyscape sketching

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After last couple of days of gloomy atmosphere, The beautiful sky and the sunny weather of Bangalore today has inspired me to do this quick sketch. The sky was beautiful, clear blue and big clouds hanging around. Added the imaginative landscape to complete the picture!

Medium: watercolor on sketchbook
Size: 10" H x 6 1/2" W
Time: 30 min.
Source: live & imagination

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 © Dhruba Mazumder, 2014. All rights reserved

Sketching at Venkatappa Gallery and Government Museum

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It's a gloomy and cold day today here in Bangalore. The Sun is hardly showing its face. Went to Venkatappa Gallery and Government Museum to sketch with few others and did this sketch early in the morning. It was great to meet many sketching people there on the last Sunday of this year!

Medium: watercolor on sketchbook
Size: 10" H x 13" W
Time: 60 min.
Source: Live

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My second sketch from today at Venkatappa Gallery and Government Museum, Bangalore. It has a nice lotus pond with a bridge across it.

 

Medium: watercolor on sketchbook
Size: 10" H x 8" W
Time: 60 min.
Source: Live

 

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© Dhruba Mazumder, 2014. All rights reserved

Watercolor Workshop Demo at Chennai, 26th-27th April, 2014

My demo on Techniques of Watercolor at the recent 2 days Watercolor Workshop in Chennai on 26th - 27th April, 2014. 

We practiced from simple washes to building tonal values with transparent watercolor layers, differences of using various pigments, usages of warm and cool colors within a composition, some brushstrokes and fun tricks too. 

Thank you everyone for your participation and I am pleased to see your passion for this beautiful medium! Looking forward to meet you all again!!!

Medium: watercolor on 300 gsm Fabriano paper [cold pressed]
Size: 10 1/4" H x 14" W

© Dhruba Mazumder, 2014. All rights reserved.
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Plants & Pots in watercolor - IV

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Title: Light of Life.

Medium: watercolor on Fabriano 300 gsm cold pressed watercolor paper.
size: 19 3/4" H x 6 1/2" W

status: Available for sale.


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© Dhruba Mazumder, 2014. All rights reserved

Color temperature experimantaion

playing around with different color temperatures and color combinations, hence experimenting different moods with the same composition. so, which one do you prefer??!! let me know on the comment below! just cover one of them at a time and try to experience your feeling about it!

medium: watercolor on sketchbook.
size: 5" H x 6 1/2" W
time: approx 30 min each.
source: from own reference picture.

© dhruba mazumder, 2014. all rights reserved
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Featured at www.neralu.in

a small feature of me at www.neralu.in  blog

 http://neralu.in/dhruba-mazumder/

the statue of Edward VII

In conjunction to the Bangalore Tree Festival happening on 8th and 9th february, 2014 in this city, Neralu Blog has posted a small writeup about me and my love for sketching/drawing trees from around this city and why they feature prominently in my paintings. You can read more about it in the link below.

thanks a lot Radha Rangarajan for the effort !

http://neralu.in/dhruba-mazumder/

© dhruba mazumder, 2014.
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Color swatehces - a study

Fellow watercolor artist Nirupam Konwar has recently posted this beautiful, moody and atmospheric image clicked early in the morning hours from his native in Assam and it immedietly caught my attention. It has limited but nice color range. I did a small exercise of picking up the existing colors into swatches, both warm and cool hues and also analyzed their postion in tonal value scale from light to dark. These kind of exersize can help to simplify and narrow down the color range to a limited palette creating harmonious color combinations. Also the grey values help to build the solid underlying structure bringing out the more saturated hues inside the picture. Hopefully I will post a quick sketch based on these studies soon.

Original picture courtesy Nirupam Konwar.

© dhruba mazumder, 2014. all rights reserved
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Comparision of sketches done over a period of time.

Do you keep your old, older and oldest sketches for comparison with your recent ones to see how much improvement you are doing over a period of time?! Do you ever take them out?!! Here are three sketches of mine done of the same subject over 3 years and their analysis.

#1 was sketched in early January '11 when for the first time I started going for plein air studies. It was very hard to handle overload of details. Tendency was to look at 'subjects' rather than interesting shapes. Focus went on everything including the distance vegetation. Struggled on the reflection and on the main foliage of the tree itself. Was not happy but I was hopeful to overcome these obstacles.

#2 was sketched on a sunny afternoon of December '12. Improvement on the foliage of the main tree, bolder approach to render them as masses of shapes and not individual leaves. Reflection was better though not confident strokes and I still went on to add unwanted details on the faraway vegetation. and that red roof on the right attracted too much attention. more lessons learned, more improvement required.

# 3 was sketched recently on January '14 from a reference picture by Shyam Deshpande. Tried to simplify as much as possible and visualize everything in shapes of different value masses. Background vegetation was kept to a minimum hint. foliage from the main tree were just a group of different colors all mixed together and the reflection was done in minimum strokes. also tried a different format for dramatic effect. better applications of brush marks. still need improvement.

Its a good idea to take out our old study sketches and do some analysis to understand where we have improved so far, where we still need to improve and where we may be actually going wrong. After all, sketches are or can be for studies, right?! well sometime they themselves are pieces of finished artworks too!

So, dig out your old sketches and start doing that honest comparison! You don't have to share however it will be nice to see the self analysis. I am sure, analysis of the #4 will be interesting too when it will be done in coming time. Still way to go, more to learn. it's a lifelong learning process.

© dhruba mazumder, 2014. all rights reserved
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Sketch of a cute goat

we met this goat on our vacation at Kerala 4 1/2 years back at Alleppy or Alappuzha on our house boat trip. we had some cheerful time with it as it came to eat some banana skin.

medium: watercolor on sketchbook.
size: 7" H x 9" W
time: 50. min approx.
source: from own reference picture

© dhruba mazumder, 2014. all rights reserved
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Inspirational sketch

"there are inspirations for art everywhere all the time. it's up to us how we respond to these inspirations, by contemplating and expressing in our own ways."

while traveling yesterday morning, i noticed this person with a selling cart under the beautiful morning light. it was a glimpse of only few seconds from a distance as i was riding and had to bring my focus back on road. however the quick glimpse was good as i could grab only the essence of it rather than focusing any details. after coming back home i did a very quick, rough sketch trying to put the vague image on paper. satisfied with what i got, i did another bigger sketch with added elements to it.

medium: watercolor on paper.
size: 9" H x 7" W
time: 50 min. approx.
source: from memory

© dhruba mazumder, 2014. all rights reserved
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Ulsoor lake sketch

sketched this view of Ulsoor lake situated at the heart of bangalore city from a picture clicked by Shyam Deshpande. this lake has these small islands in the middle with their specific names and some trees on them which give them beautiful contrast to their backgrounds. it's also a nice place to visit early in the morning or to view the sunset.

medium: watercolor on sketchbook
size: 9" H x 7" W
time: 60 min approx.
source: from a reference picture.

Reference picture courtesy Shyam Deshpande. Used with permission.

© dhruba mazumder, 2014. all rights reserved
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On location at Varkala Beach, Kerala.

this one is from beautiful Varkala, Kerala. there's a pure joy when one sketch/draws/paints on location as you can feel the atmosphere, sound etc around you, hence the other senses are also connected to it and keeps the artwork even more refreshing in one's memory.

medium: watercolor on cartridge paper sketchbook

© dhruba mazumder, 2014. all rights reserved.
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From doodles to final painting - stage by stage approach.

sometimes my original paintings are based on ideas generated from random and quick doodles done in fun way. here's an example how the idea was conceived for the watercolor painting 'Deep in the woods'.

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 © dhruba mazumder, 2013. all rights reserved

Another WIp post.

Few stages with added notes of a recent sketch i did live from our kitchen window of the street in front couple of days back.

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