Win a Painting -The Coloured Wall Giveaway

My Facebook Art Page , TheColoured Wall turns two this August, and to celebrate I’m giving away not one,  but two of my original watercolour paintings.Here is the first of the two paintings-

They say good things come in small packages, and so does this first painting , a small watercolour , unframed size  approx. 6”x 4” .

 
Like what you see?  The giveaway begins on Monday ,04 Aug'14 and will end on Friday, 08Aug '14 .

So, If you want to take a shot at winning this painting,

Login to Facebook, Like The Coloured Wall , and follow the instructions on the giveaway post, to participate

Also , the second giveaway will happen a little later this month, so watch this space for a chance to win another original watercolour painting !
  

Terms and Conditions

1. Entries for this giveaway will be accepted till 11:59 pm IST (UTC+05:30) on Friday, 08 Aug 2014.

 2. For your entry to be valid, you should be connected to The Coloured Wall on Facebook by liking the page, and your comment must appear on this Facebook post .

3. At the close of this giveaway, the comment with the most ‘Likes’ will be the winner. In case of a tie, I will pick a winner at random from the tied comments. The name of the winner will be announced on The Coloured Wall, and they will be contacted on the email address provided by them in their winning comment.

 4. The winner will be chosen as explained above and will be informed by email and/or a message on Facebook (so be sure to check the other folder in your Facebook messages) In case I don't receive an acknowledgement from the winner, within three days of informing them, the comment with the next highest number of Likes will be chosen as the winner.

5. For ease of shipping, this painting will be shipped to the winner, unframed and suitably wrapped as a hard backed flat package.

6. This giveaway is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. By entering in this giveaway you understand that you are providing your information to The Coloured Wall  and not to Facebook. All inquiries related to the Giveaway or The Coloured Wall's use of your personal data should be directed to the The Coloured Wall , not Facebook.

 

7. No purchase or payment is necessary to enter this offer.

Do I need to know sketching very well to learn watercolors

The short answer to this question posed to me by a reader , on this post is

To be able to sketch very well,  would certainly add value to your painting. However , even if you  can do some basic sketching, have the ability to observe, and the will to practice, you can create good paintings . As you progress along your art journey, you'll find that sketching starts to come naturally.

For the long answer, please continue reading.

To begin with, I'd like to suggest that you go through this article about the importance of drawing for painters

Now, even if you think you can't draw well ,  the good news is that it is possible to learn the kind of sketching you need to form a base for your painting, with a very simple approach and some practice. The idea is to basically break down a complex shape  into smaller more manageable shapes, while maintaining  the relationship between shapes. Don't worry too much about the  details of the painting , because those can be suggested at the painting stage, with different shades of colour.

So, for the purpose of illustration, I'm sharing the preparation I did to make my latest painting- 'Coloured Boats' .

I began this painting from a reference photo of some colourful boats, mainly because it seemed like a simple scene to draw. I can't post the photo here , because the copyright to the reference photo belongs to the photographer, but you can see it here on  my favourite ( free to join ) artists website, called Paint My Photo .


If I had painted these boats when I first began painting watercolours,  I would have  done lots of measuring or drawn a grid on my paper and then painstakingly tried to copy the reference photo down to every last detail. Then I would have gone about adding colour , trying to get the painting as close as possible to the original and produced a painting like this

'Orange Boats' Original Watercolour (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury. Find more of her artwork on her Facebook page, 'The Coloured Wall' .

However, two years of experience have taught me that there is an easier, more painting friendly way to create an initial drawing. That is why ,once I had decided on the photo I wanted to work from , rather than getting out my ruler and drawing a grid, I spent some time just looking  at the photo to see what captured my attention ( in this case it was the shape of the boats against the sky) Again, instead of trying to get every detail right in the pencil drawing, I now find it easier to get the shapes and the relationship between the shapes roughly correct. After this (depending on how patient Im feeling that day), I start my sketch, either directly on the watercolour paper or  do a few trial sketches with a pencil on a sketch pad (see this post for this process ). For this painting , however , I took it one step further.

I did a quick thumbnail sketch with a pen, on the back of a discarded painting.

'Boats Minor' Ink Sketch on 300 gsm watercolour paper. (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury. Size 1.5" x2.5" . Find more of her artwork on her Facebook page, 'The Coloured Wall'.

Since I had no fear of destroying expensive watercolour paper, this gave me a lot of confidence to begin drawing and let any mistakes that may happen, just happen . Also, the initial purpose of this drawing was to get a feel for the shapes of the boats. If you  look at the sketch , at a glance you can see that the tops of the boats start from approximately 40% of the way from the top horizontal edge , and that they are basically just a number of  wide 'V' shapes at the top. What is important , is the angle of the adjacent shapes with respect to each other.

Coming to the bottom edges of the boats, I followed a similar approach, taking each boat one by one, and for each successive boat, I started my drawing looking at it's size with reference to the previous one, till I reached the last one. Again, working from left to right I drew the broad triangular shapes of the shadows of the boats keeping in mind the proportionate distance ( of the narrowest part of the shadow) to the bottom right edge and corner of the paper. Confused? Look at the shadow of the left most boat , and then continue looking at the shadow of each of the boats,from left to right .  You'll see that they are roughly at an angle to the bottom edge of the page, and the last few shadows actually end on the right vertical edge of the painting . Also, another thing I kept in mind  while drawing was that relative shape and size of the spaces between the shadows cast by the boats.

Once the shapes were there, all the drawing needed was actual darkening of the shadow shapes to give the boats and sand some depth. From the reference photo, I could see that the shadows were deeper under the boats on the right of the page(far away from the viewer)  and lighter in the left most boats ( nearer to the viewer), so I put in darker marks for the deeper shadows cast by the far away boats and lighter marks for those cast by the nearer boats. Also, the boats themselves are lighter and darker in some parts, so I darkened the parts that were darker. Then with a few random shadow marks in the sand, my sketch was finished.

Once the drawing was done, I just put in some dabs of colour to get a feel for the finished painting, and that is how I ended up with this -

'Boats Minor' Ink and Watercolour Sketch on 300 gsm watercolour paper. (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury. Size 1.5" x2.5" . Find more of her artwork on her Facebook page, 'The Coloured Wall'.

By doing this, what I've achieved is basically a reference painting, with minimum time and effort (it took about 15 mins from start to finish) and lots of pleasure and confidence. I plan to use this approach in most of my future watercolour paintings, because, you see doing something of this size

'Boats Minor' Ink and Watercolour Sketch on 300 gsm watercolour paper. (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury. Size 1.5" x2.5" . Find more of her artwork on her Facebook page, 'The Coloured Wall'.

is a good way to lose the fear of drawing, and attempt something bigger, like this

'Coloured Boats' Ink and Watercolour Wash on 300 gsm Watercolour paper, © Monishikha RoyChoudhury . Size 13"w x 9"h  . SOLD .Find more of her artwork on her Facebook page, 'The Coloured Wall'. 

So if you want to paint, and don't know too much about sketching, I say dive in anyway,you might surprise yourself. What do you think ?

A Post full of Belly Dancers

A few days back,  I had , "a beat stuck in my head" after watching a random video of belly dancers  on you tube, and I knew I just had to paint one .Normally I paint directly from a single photo reference, not deviating too much from  the original photo.However since , I couldn't find a satisfactory  photo reference on my favourite reference photo site Paint My Photo, I knew I had to actually work  to translate the beat onto paper.  

So I began by looking  at a number of  reference photos, and quite a few videos of belly dancers in action. Then ,  I  did  a few pencil and ( one) colour sketches to find a pose that felt right to me. 

Belly Dancer Sketch 1 (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury

Belly Dancer Sketch 2 (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury

Belly Dancer Sketch 3 (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury

Belly Dancer Final Sketch on 300 gsm Watercolour paper,  (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury

Once I had settled on the pose that  I liked, I did a free hand watercolour sketch on a sample of watercolour paper I would  use  for the final painting,  to see how the colours, that  I had in mind , would look on paper.

Belly Dancer Freehand Watercolour Sketch on 300 gsm Watercolour paper (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury

Now, this is not my usual process of painting, in that I generally don't have the patience to  do so much preparatory work before actually painting what I want to paint.The reason  why I've decided to record this  process here is to remind myself when Im feeling lazy,  that preparation is worth it!

Anyway,  I'd love to hear your thoughts on the process , so here's the final painting-

'Belly Dancer' Original Watercolour , (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury , Size 6"x 9"

Also, in case you're interested in looking at ( or buying)  more of my figurative and other watercolours, do visit my Facebook page, 'The Coloured Wall' . If you're interested in buying greeting cards or museum quality prints of  my artwork,  please visit  my  profile on Fine Art America .

Of Woodland Walkways and Pretty Shoes

I have been on a tree and woods painting spree last month ,struggling to get better at this particular subject . Here are the results, in the order that they were painted.

'Walk Way ' (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury  . Original Watercolour   on 300 gsm Watercolour Paper.

'Misty Trees' (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury  . Original Watercolour   on 300 gsm Watercolour Paper.

' Sunny Trees ' (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury  . Original Watercolour   on 300 gsm Watercolour Paper.

'Woodland Walk' (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury  . Original Watercolour   on 300 gsm Watercolour Paper.

Of course after I painted 'Woodland Walk', I got a little too ambitious and tried my hand at painting trees and flowers on a larger scale and fell flat on my face.  I know from experience that when that happens, I need to take a break. The trouble is that sometimes a girls' gotta look at some pretty shoes and if said girl has humongous feet, she has to settle for either window shopping or painting shoes.

'Shoes'   (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury  . Original Watercolour   on 300 gsm Watercolour Paper. 

 And now, I think I'll get back to painting some more trees , unless of course I get sidetracked by some new photo on my favourite source of inspiration , Paint My Photo

Speaking of getting sidetracked, guess who has been writing for Parentous once in a blue moon a month for the last few months and has forgotten to mention it on her blog. Also, in case I haven't mentioned it before ( or you  haven't noticed the link on the sidebar) and  you  like my paintings and want to see more of them regularly , come take a look at my Facebook page The Coloured Wall  which is updated far more regularly than my poor neglected blog.

A Fresh Year Begins

Wishing all of you,  a very Happy New Year.

"Fresh" Original Watercolour (c) Monishikha RoyChoudhury

  

"Shells" Original Watercolour (c) Monishikha Roy-Choudhury

This past month, I've been traveling , on vacation meeting friends and family. These paintings were painted for a friend who wanted a shell themed painting  and since I didn't know what she would like, I decided to paint these two and let her choose whichever one she wanted. 

Although they were painted about a few weeks apart, in retrospect, I can see that Im actually quite partial towards certain colours. Can you see which ones? 

A Very Rough Guide for Beginners in Watercolour Painting

I've been dabbling in watercolour painting for approximately two years now, and after high praise from family and freinds, I decided to see if they would appeal to unbiased observers too. Luckily they did, so after selling a few paintings and launching my facebook page, The Coloured Wall ,  I also wrote a post about how I had managed to sell my first few paintings . Then, in the spirit of shouting it from the rooftops, I promoted this post on Indiblogger too.  A very welcome outcome of this was a new friendship with a blogger, sudhagee, who  liked my post and also some of my watercolour paintings enough to buy them. That is how these paintings found a new home, where they are loved just as much or more than they were in mine.

'Roses' Original Watercolour painting (c) Monishikha Roy-Choudhury

'Dancers' Original Watercolour Paintig (c) Monishikha Roy-Choudhury

That, I thought was that, till a month or so back , when Sudha ji, sent me a mail telling me that she had got my paintings framed, and the walls in her house , actually painted a in a colour meant to compliment them! All I could say in response was that I was "flattered and honoured" and that was quite an understatement. The best part is that , she didn't stop at that. Which is why, this Monday , I began my week with quite a Diwali gift, a post about Roses and Dancing Girls .

While thanking all those who appreciated my paintings, and the few who have asked some questions about the creation of the more popular painting,"Dancers",  it occurred to me, that there are quite a few people like me out there. People who are probably learning their way through watercolours , the way I am, one painting at a time. So , in the spirit of sharing, I'm answering a few questions that someone has asked me about my paintings . The answers are of course,based on my experience and not to be taken as "expert" advice, because I'm a novice myself. So these are my tips for anyone who wants  to start with watercolour paintings

The Evolution of this blog

  or The Reason Why This Blog Limps Along At Times

"Flowers For A Rainy Day" Original Watercolour, (c) Monishikha Roy-Choudhury

When I started blogging , ,six years ago, I was enamored with the idea of sharing my thoughts with other people. People who I'd meet because they were like minded , had similar interests, and I'd be able to discuss things that touched my life without having to wait for my husband to come home, or call up my best friend and explain the background, or just escape the negativity that sometimes surrounds me because of my full blown case of foot-in-the-mouth-tis. This happy state of affairs lasted for a month or two , and things reached a point where I was actually dreaming about what I'd write, and how people would react to it. Then one fine day , after trying to edit a post so that it  would remain interesting and yet not divulge too many personal details,it dawned on me that  my life though very  interesting to me , didn't need to be shared in all it's minutae with the world at large. 

Now, I have always shyed away from following, what is now advertised quite openly as a strategy to get more comments, more readers,more traffic , namely "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" , mainly because I don't see the point in getting quantity over quality . I'd rather have a few friends who drop by because they like to, than go around making the equivalent of small talk on blog posts which are of no interest to me, and most likely vice versa. So this blog, went to sleep for a few years.

Life continued, sometimes very unremarkably, and after a tough phase where we struggled with trying to have a baby, came a happy but tougher phase when we finally   became parents. Any honest parent will tell you that they've had  moments when they thought they just could not clean up any more messes , when they were ready to just run away, and they turned round and looked at that innocent face and willingly went back to being their little tyrant's slave. Any parent , who has a blog will tell you that those are the moments that they decided to blog about their child, and just how cute and perfect said child is, even if it meant that there would be some amount of eye rolling and barfing amongst the reading public who were not quite on the same page! And that is exactly why I revived this blog some two and a half years ago.

Some frenzied months of blogging, and finding a  few more good friends later, the kid began walking and I had no choice but to unplonk myself from in front of the computer and follow, catching breakables and shovelling food in one end ( and praying that it would stay in for a while) and losing myself further into mommyhood. So of course, the blog dozed fitfully, waking up every now and then when a few photographs were thrown it's way.

As things became a little less chaotic, I found that I actually got some sleep and could squeeze out some time to paint. So I did just that, and one thing led to another, here I am , the mother of an "adorably naughty" three year old, injecting some discipline into my life and doing what I knew I should have done a long time ago,namely learning how to paint and become a famous artist when I had all that time in my non slave mommy days.

However, I have been incredibly lucky to have actually sold a few watercolour paintings within a year of taking it up as a hobby, so Im going to be sharing my experiences as a learner along the way in posts to come, and if you find that Im away for a while or that the blog is sleeping, don't worry, I'll be back with a new painting or an Artimator update or just some random photos every once in a while. 

 If you're still reading this,  you know why this is such a randomly updated blog , and that you're going to have many more updaty sort of posts coming your way before I actually get time to write a real post, like this one.

And for those of you wondering, if there is a point to this post, there isn't. I felt like actually writing something for a change , but just to thank you for sticking around, here's another pretty picture for you to look at , so please forgive me for this rather rambling post .

"The Back of Beyond" Original Watercolour , (c) Monishikha Roy-Choudhury

Chase those Monday blues away

with a healthy dose of Vitamin C . 

"Glow" Original Watercolur, 7.5" x 5.5" (c) Monishikha Roy-Choudhury

 And if you want to hang this or other  original ,colourful artwork on your wall, come see my Facebook page, "The Coloured Wall"  by clicking on the link in the sidebar or leave a comment here with your email id/ blog link and I'll get in touch with you.

Banaquit Resting and Crocus

are the names of my latest attempts at watercolour painting, in an absolutely unusual streak of painting more than once in a blue moon. One of them I like, the other was a case of finishing what's on one's plate! Can you guess which is which?

"Bananaquit Resting" Watercolour on handmade paper, from a reference pic here

"Crocus" Watercolour on handmade paper,from a reference pic,here

Tropical Flower

A few days back, I came across  some water colour painting videos on you tube ,in which  they were using a technique called "masking" . Normally , in water colour painting, one paints from light to dark, but the way I understood it, masking  basically involves covering up areas that one wants to reserve as white with masking fluid, for painting in lighter colours(or leaving it white) later . As usual , watching people paint inspired me to try it out myself, which I did using a reference picture from this website. This is what I came up with after a few days of intermittent effort.

Tropical Flower - Water Colour on handmade paper

Bay View

Well, Happy New Year readers ! This year began on a bittersweet note, the hubby is out  of station for a few days, but my mother is here to stay for a few days. And that is why I could squeeze out some time for another of my attempts at teaching myself water colour painting. It's not perfect, but I've reached the point where I must stop. The original picture is not mine, but taken from a website which allows members to upload photos and also paint from photos uploaded by other members.

Source:Paint My Photo

And here's my attempt

Barn

These last few days have been, as usual, very hectic, but somehow I've managed to squeeze out some time to attempt another water colour painting for a challenge taken from this photo at a nice website for painting enthusiasts . Going by the quality of entries, I hav'nt really got any hope of winning, but the very idea of a deadline and the urge to do some thing un-mommyish for a change were the spur to paint this 

The Old Mess

Once in a  blue moon, when I go for a walk, this is my favourite spot to walk past.Also known as the "Old Mess", it is not quite that. It's the preferred venue for many a  b'day party and station parties(kids allowed) with a movie, tombola, chaat and dinner served on the breezy ,sloping lawns . All in all, a pleasant place to spend an evening, and the second of my fledgling attempts at watercolour paintings. The husband and other critics (related by blood) claim that while I have a way to go before I can actually sell stuff (if I wanted to), it's worth hanging at home. As for me, Im just happy that the folks are visiting, so that I can do something totally unrelated to baby stuff. Speaking of which, the Artimator at 8 and a half months is STANDING ON HIS OWN for a grand total of half a second!

Well, the husband came home yesterday

 and has left again just now......at almost lightening speed. Guess, why I STILL didn't get any rest in the afternoon, even though Artim very graciously slept for two hours....

Before you let your imagination run away with you