Portrait of Dasam Pita - Colouring Process 2

I finished the base colours. At this point I am going to paint on top of it, clean it up and detail it.

This is a huge painting, 5" high. Guru Sahib's larger than life personality requires a larger than life portrait!

Portrait of Dasam Pita - Colouring Process

Back when photography was in early stages, they didn't have a way to capture colour on to film. So they would take black and white photos then add colour to them later.
This painting has gone through a similar process. I painted it in black white and I am just now beginning to add some colour. Starting with Guru Sahib's face. I apply the first layer of base colours.

Portrait of Dasam Pita, 10th Master

It's a work in progress. I am still thinking about whether I should complete it, and whether I should colour it or leave it black and white.

Art in the Making - Old Art, New Art and Tons of Sketches!

Having my other projects locked away in my older hard drive gave me a chance to start up some new ones and work on the really old ones. Its because I hadn't backed up the middle ones... oh well. Let's start with the really old ones. I am talking about Mai Bhago, Banda Singh Bahadur and Udasis of Guru Nanak. I was quite certain then that I was going to complete them by now but I haven't. I once spoke about how the painting on Hari Singh Nalwa, lacked that extra punch. Well, these ones are in that position currently.
Mai Bhago one just looks mundane really. I recall Kanwar Singh from Art of Punjab making the same comment about his Mai Bhago charge. I thought I could make one that wasn't. I did several versions of Mai Bhago's cavalry charge last summer, as well as, other generic cavalry charge scenes from interesting angles. Let me know what you think of all these, leave a comment below.




With Banda Singh Bahadur, he is approaching oncoming infantry and cavalry, and that puts him into a better position. Still I thought it could use some work.

Last summer, I gave the painting that 300-style, dark and gritty look to see if it could be improved. It certainly looks interesting! But as I worked on the painting this year, I tried several things one of which was to change the perspective so more of the background warfare could be seen. This will allow me to add more depth to the painting. Also, dynamic clouds in war paintings complement the action so I'll be developing those as I work on this next year. If you're wondering why I changed his khanda to a tulwar, its because khandas don't do very well on horseback.


Speaking of war paintings, a frown is rarely seen in Sikh paintings. Even on the battlefield, one finds no frowns. I always found that strange and also this, which is even more strange: dark skin is never seen unless its to represent Mughals or Afghans, both of which are descendants of Mongols who are as pale as the Chinese! Anyhow, I intend to annihilate both norms! I'll post more about them later.

Battle of Chamkaur - Sahibzada Jujhar Singh was a sketch I did back in early 2008. As you can see, the horse is just ghastly. Essentially, what I had in mind was Jujhar Singh overwhelmed by Mughal Cavalry. I couldn't draw horses so I ended up doing Sahibzada Ajit Singh instead, and decided I would come back to this.

With Mai Bhago, Banda Singh Bahadur and now Udasis of Guru Nanak that was three paintings with side view of the main characters. I don't know why my paintings usually ended up like that. However, I ditched the side view with a rough layout of Udasis (again last summer). After laying out the side view, it became much easier to portray from a different angle.



I came up with these last summer as well, portrait shots of Guru Nanak and Mardana. After laying out the compositions, I put them aside to work on a different painting on Guru Nanak, which kind of built up on previous sketches. As I did that I thought to myself, its good that I am painting spiritually uplifting paintings now because that's an even bigger part of our history. However, I did not spend much time on them because I had a lot of other paintings ahead.




I'll end with three paintings I am working on right now. Everything except Banda Singh Bahadur was done last summer or the year before. These projects I began just a while ago. One is about Guru Amardas ji, one about Guru Gobind Singh ji and one about Guru Nanak Dev Ji. I am going to put aside Udasis for a moment, and get this painting of Guru Nanak out first. There were several scenes I went through (above), before I captured the right moment. Expressions are always important to me in a painting so let me know if you have an idea of what expressions they have, leave a comment below. Also, see if you can judge the content of the full painting from the expression alone!

Late Gurupurab Celebrations at Sikhi Art

Machhiwara was supposed to done by January, and was set to be released on Jan 5. At that point I had recieved the constructive criticism, I had asked for and I got back to work. Took a couple of weeks to straighten out the setting and composition, and so the painting was delayed.
But now that it is out... Happy late Guru purab to everyone!! :P

So, what's next? Well, I have no plans on working on any painting till summer. But when I do get started, Akali Phula Singh is next. It is a along awaited painting, and I have been aching to get to it!

So what is Machhiwara, what is it about?
Well, after being attacked several times by the Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb's army, Guru Gobind Singh ji is forced to flee from the Anandpur fort to Chamkaur. During the escape, the weather was insane, and it flooded the river, Sirsa, that Guru Sahib had to cross. In the chaos, his mother and younger sahibzaadey's are separated from him, and are eventually doomed in the false courts of Sirhind.
As Guru Sahib takes shelter in a haveli in Chamkaur, he is again attacked by the Mughal forces. This time his older sons fall in the intense battle that takes place. Odds were stacked aagainst him, Guru Sahib had to flee once again. This time he had nothing left all his devotees had been martyred, and his family was lost. The great cause he was fighting for seemed to be slipping away from his grip. However, as Guru Gobind Singh ji meditates in Machhiwara, he keeps himself in the highest of spirits. Exhausted from warfare, he rests here overnight, and is eventually saved by his Muslim devotees in the morning.

Machhiwara, undoubtly, is a symbolic painting. Everything around Guru Sahib symbolizes his chardi kala attitude, and the rise of Khalsa.

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Weekly Sketch #14: Rocket Singh

First of all, Happy Gurpurab to all! I would have loved to have finished Machhiwara by today but it's going to need more time. For those of you who don't know about Machhiwara, the painting is about the time when Guru Gobind Singh ji had just escaped from Chamkaur after suffering defeat, he had lost his younger sons during a chaotic time period just before the battle, and his older sons were martyred during the battle. The legend goes to say that even after all this, Guru Gobind Singh ji did not let his spirits down, and stayed in Chardi Kala.

This is what Rocket Singh - Salesman of the Year (this week's sketch) echoes all throughout. I totally loved the movie. After Singh is Kinng and Love Aaj Kal, which were alright... Rocket Singh is definitely another step towards getting positive Sikh models in the media.

Going Underground

Don't take my infrequent posts as a sign of death, haha, which is probably what some old school Punjabis are wondering. Kite mar tan ni geya! I just got kind of lazy these past few days plus nothing's really going on with me. I haven't done any major Sikh history work but I am definitely in the game with a bunch of other things including a Sikh related mod and a graphic novel. Anyways, since I am not going to reveal anything about those two, I have decided to do weekly sketches the keep the blog running.

This week I am going to put up a speed painting depicting Guru Gobind Singh ji in Machiwara. I dug it out of my computer mess, after organizing all my files. I wasn't too fond of it so recently I randomly started to fix some things up. I called up my youngest sister to ask for her opinion and she totally loved it. I was kind of surprized. She suggested that I should continue to work on it and finish it! I don't think I'll be doing a good version anytime soon though. Anyways, here's the painting.

The madness has ended!

... The madness had ended... um... ya... that's pretty much it. By madness I mean constant heart attacks from all the work with more to come from exams in a couple weeks, and by ended, I mean, ended temporarily! University is a lot of work and I don't know why my brain is in constant denial of that; maybe I should ask Freud...

Ah, that's life though, you gotta love it! It would be quite boring without this overdrive! By the way, I am not much of a writer really (I try hard... lol). The only thing I can write is scientific papers and even those are a big pain in the... ... hand... But I am glad that I got sometime to paint this weekend. I started working on some of the old sketches. I will eventually finish the paintings below. I like to take things slow and steady (which partly explains the constant heart attacks). If you are in my labs you should know that already!

Anyway, I was working on the Battle of Chamkaur series. Here I am trying to depict Guru Gobind Singh ji leaving Anandpur and making his way to Chamkaur di garhi (I think I got that right, it's when he is tricked into leaving the castle). He pulls out a spear and nails down every mughal in his path! So here's the basic idea. I think it feels very chaotic, which is what I want. I hope this feeling stays till the finish, although in art there is no finish, only personal satisfaction.