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

Sketch of a Fishermen boat

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Quick sketch of a simple fishermen boat on river Brahmaputra. The water is so shallow at some places, they were fishing with nets in less than knee length water . Hope they had a good catch.

Medium: watercolor on sketchbook.
Size 5" H x 61/2" W
Time: 20 min.
Source: live

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© Dhruba Mazumder, 2014. All rights reserved.

Gheela Peetha and a cup of Tea

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Being a rice growing region, a lot of the local and traditional snacks, cereal and sweets are made using rice as it's main ingredient in Assam. Peetha is one of the most popular snacks/sweet and it is made in various shapes and sizes during the festive time of Bihu. The one in this sketch along with the cup of tea is called Gheela Peetha and is made from a mixture of rice, jaggery and condiments and deep fried. Interestingly many things which are kind of a disc shape but solid and smaller in size may be referred as 'gheela' in Assamese language. In fact, the knee cap is also referred as 'gheela' in this language! Btw, this one is sketched after a piece is bitten off :).

Medium: watercolor on sketchbook.
Size: 10" H x 6 1/2" W.
Time: 60 min. Approx.
Source: from own reference picture.

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© Dhruba Mazumder, 2014. All rights reserved.

Sketchin at Deeghali Pukhuri, Guwahati

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I don't know what this old structure is but this is a beautifully decayed one situated just off the water level on the north side bank of 'Deeghali Pukhuri' in the heart of Guwahati. In Assamese language 'Deeghali' means long and 'Pukhuri' means pond. This is a naturally developed pond from a discarded portion of the river Brahmaputra, it's very long and hence the name!

Medium: watercolor on sketchbook. (Touches of opaque white for the cranes)
Size: 10" H x 13" W
Time: 100 min. Approx.
Source: live

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 © Dhruba Mazumder, 2014. All rights reserved.

Boats at River Brahmaputra

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The mighty river Brahmaputra runs almost whole across the state of Assam from east to west and definitely one of the biggest river in India. You have to see it to believe it where at places it's almost couple of kms wide!! Along with this, there are numerous other small and big rivers flow all over the state from the surrounding hills, into the valleys and merging with Brahmaputra. Not long time ago, there was only one bridge connecting both banks of this river. Hence these boats of different sizes and shapes were the only mode of commuting option for common people to cross it. Even now, these run on the heart of Brahmaputra. This boat is capable of carrying not only people but also couple of small vehicles on the open space in between the enclosed cabins. Traveling on these boats across this river is a memorable experience.

Medium: watercolor on sketchbook.
Size: 10" H x 13" W
Time: 120 min.
Source: line work on location, colored at home.

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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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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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Value shapes comparision

we often talk about using different numbers of value as shapes for compositional purpose, for example either of 3/4/5 etc. also we often do a quick thumbnail or detailed value sketch before going for the colored version to use as a 'road map', more specially for watercolor, to construct the composition in stronger way. but afterwards how often do we check or know if we have achieved it closely if not exactly.

so this is a small exercise i do most often if not every time after a sketch or a painting has been completed in color and turned into a digital format. i not only often do a value sketch before the colored version, but also convert the final digitized color version back to grey scale or completely desaturated it discarding all its colors keeping only the value shapes to see if the colors i have used holds the desired initial value shapes.

as you already know, all colors apart from their hue and intensity also holds a value of its own. all colors are relatively more or less darker or lighter than the other ones and vise versa and more than often we ignore this hidden but important aspect of colors as we get carried away with our emotions while applying the beautiful hues. and at the end the results may be disappointing because of not using enough value range and contrast from light to dark resulting the painting as 'flat'. by observing a finished painting or sketch as a grey scale or desaturated image helps us to check and analyze this again how close we are to our initial planned value sketch.

© 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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