Joyful by Kay Wyne

Joyful

20" x 20" Oil on RayMar Cotton Panel

Contemporary Palette Knife Painting

This painting is still on my easel, but I signed it and it needs to dry.  I put out greens, whites and grays and mixed piles and piles of paint on my palette, grabbed the palette knife and started with my darks first.  I pushed and pulled the paint, added a small amount of raw umber and cad red to the palette.  I had not planned on going this far with the painting, but once I started, I couldn't stop.  I have a beautiful frame to put on it...will post it framed up when it dries.  Contact Kay for purchasing information.

Thanks for looking.  KMW

So Many Books, So Little Time by Pamela Blaies

Stacked Books
20" x 16"
Oil on Canvas

I enjoy reading hardcover books, because I like to collect them. Now I have more books than shelves and I have to keep some in closed cabinets, which I think is a shame. I received a Kindle as a gift this year. I guess I'll have less trouble with storage, but I might keep buying hardcover books anyway, just because I like them. This painting features some of my favorite books stacked on a chair. Filtered light is coming in through the window and highlighting the interesting spines.

I love to share stories and the inspiration behind my paintings. Sign up to become a VIP Member and you will receive my email newsletter twice a month.

Still life with Hydrangeas - Original Painting by Nithya Swaminathan

I started this painting nearly a year ago, and it was lying unfinished for such a long time. Just got around to it. The set up is my own, with a couple of stalks of plastic hydrangeas that I picked up from IKEA. I liked the flowers and this vase too a lot and wanted to paint them. Set them up in the middle of some plums and pulled down my curtain to double up as a laced fabric :) 

Still life with Hydrangeas

12 by 16 inches, Acrylics on Canvas

Nithya Swaminathan

I was not going after a realistic feel at all, as has been the case these days what with my knife taking over! How it turned out though is quite different from what I had visualized. I think this painting is much more loose in style compared to all my recent work. I kind of let it paint itself so to say. I like the end result, and I am glad I stopped it without ruining the painting. I was not at all happy with the painting when I decided to pause and take a WIP photo. When I saw the painting through the lens though, I felt it was much closer to completion than what I thought. It looked better through the lens than through my eyes   Then I decided not to mess any further and keep it as it was, flaws and all. 

Your comments are most welcome.

Summer Tea - Original Palette Knife painting by Nithya Swaminathan

This still life is a part of a monthly challenge in the Floral and Botanical forum in WetCanvas. It is done entirely with a knife, with some highlights finally tweaked with the brush. Most of the times I do not get the confidence to just stop it after working with the knife alone, I get this obsession to tweak something or the other with the brush too. I am slowly getting there to just call it done when my gut says it's done.

This 8 by 10 canvas was one I had discarded, after an unsuccessful attempt at one of my snow scenes. It did not turn out as I had visualized and I decided to paint over it. This month’s theme in the Plant Parade challenge is Sun flowers. It was a revelation to me last year that sunflowers are seen during fall than in summer. I did not know that. Near where I live, we even saw a sunflower field last year, so beautiful! And I was quite surprised seeing the huge size to which they grow, quite astounding! Some of them are taller than I am!

Summer Tea
Acrylics on canvas, 8 by 10 inches
© Nithya Swaminathan
$100.00 + $20.00 shipping worldwide

I loved all those blues in this image, as I am in general a sucker for blue and yellow. And given that I had never done a sunflower before, I just had to paint this one. The other references were those of the flowers in fields, or flowers up close. I liked this one better than the others, coz I’ve been meaning to do a floral arrangement still life for a while now.  Let me know what you think of this one.

I have done this still life from someone else's reference after a very long time. All my still lifes are from my own set ups, though I did enjoy this one immensely. Looking forward to doing more.