Stuff

I was not completely absent from this blog during the past month. I wrote up some posts but never ended up developing them to completion. Some were about specific details of my paintings, and other were thoughts on emotions such as anger and happiness. So, yeah I never finished them so they were never published.

I have to say though, I have been pretty busy with stuff. This summer I ended up taking two philosophy courses, which took up the time I usually spend on sketching and those Weeky Sketches/Paintings I would normally do. I think philosophy is just awesome, it opens up the mind, unclogs its gear, and sets it into motion. I ended up learning about western and eastern philosophies, and it gave me a whole new perspective on life, a new perspective on world religions and non-religions. We also looked at some of the famous philosophers of the west and the east, including Kant, Neitzche and Radhakrishnan. It was just wonderful!

While, I studied philosophy at university, I worked on the Guru Nanak painting at home. It's coming out nicely. In fact, its in its final stages now, and I will (most probably) be releasing it at the end of this month. Right now, I am finishing up the details and working on the critiques I got for it. Needless to say, it's not my usual style of work. It's not as dynamic and dark as my other paintings. It's more calm and cheerful. I am also going to use a wider palette, reds,greens, oranges, blues, yellows and violets. That I think raises the difficulty of any piece - having a wider palette. You have more things to manage and so it takes some experience to be able to do that. That is why my earlier work was monochromatic or used a narrow range of colours. An artist has to be able to think holistically about the parts of the painting in relation to each other, and that includes colour. The more parts there are, the harder the painting becomes. Sound like we are managing visual information... it is just that.

Akali Phula Singh and More Updates!

I released Akali Phula Singh ji's painting today (after midnight yesterday), along with a few other things. I would have blogged then but was too tired.

Akali Phula Singh was pretty big a project but not as big as Battle of Chamkaur. It was also much simpler to work with so it took less than 4 months to complete. For Akali Phula Singh, I went with a wider colour pallet than my other work. Since the subject was Nihangs (again), I decided to do a blue-orange harmony (once again). I wanted a different look from Akali Nihang General so I went with more saturated colours and lower contrast. Though, in no way should you think that I am going to ditch that 300-style, dark, gritty, rugged look that you see in Akali Nihang General. No way! I love that look but you could say I am experimenting a bit.

I think its time now for a proper non-war painting. Although I still have to decide which sketches I want to start working with, I will reveal some Works in Progress later this month, including an updated Banda Singh Bahadur.

I also gave my website a new look. This was a plan from August 2009 but wasn't required because I didn't have many paintings in August 2009. I am preparing for more paintings to pile up on that "For Sale" page. The drop down menu should make it a lot easier to navigate through them once they do. Also added a Facebook link to my website, for those who prefer one-liners over essays lol!
There are still some things to be done like the background. I will get to those later.

Lastly, I reduced the price of my paintings to make them more available for brothers and sisters outside of US. I live in Canada so I understand how costly shipping can be. There are ways around some shipping charges that occur at borders but I am not sure if they are legal so I won't go into that!

Bhagat Siya over and out! ...lol cheesy...

Really Excited!

It's 3 AM in the morning and I just painted the final touches on Akali Phula Singh! But I am not going to put it out just yet. Instead, I am going to release it this Saturday. That'll give me sometime to go over it, fix anything that needs fixing and allow me to finish Akali Phula Singh ji's info page on my website.

Weekly Sketch #13: Sherlock Holmes

Not a true Sherlock Holmes piece, this is one of th screens from the movie, starring Robert Downey as Sherlock holmes, which by the way comes out today. I'm not a fan of either; this is just for fun.

Still working on the three works in progress. I'm getting critiques for Machhiwara, detailing Hari Singh Nalwa and settled on a turban for Akali Phula Singh. They are going to be awesome!! Time to get back to work!

Back to School with Akali Phula Singh ji, again...

Well, technically I am decieving my readers with the title but I am going back to school, not my university though but my old high school. My sister invited me to introduce her music class to tabla. Her teacher loves tabla and probably had something to do with this as well. So here I am waking up the good old tabla muscles who were in hibernation for 2 years!

So what does Akali Phula Singh ji have to do with this? Well, it just so happens that I was painting another version of him. The old one reminded me too much of Baba Deep Singh, it did not have that nihang look, you know the one you'll see in wars, the one that says "Come any closer and chop I'll your God d*** head off!" hahaha. Well, I was able to show that look in this new piece. I used my Crysis Turbanhead to start me off on the basic pose, and then I worked from there. Maybe, I can continue to work o nthe old one as Baba Deep Singh ji...

Back to school with Akali Phula Singh

So its time to head back to university. GOOD! I was getting - as a friend of mine puts it - MAD LAZY! I mean I wasn't as productive as I thought I would be. I didn't even want to leave the house! I sat on my couch and watched TV most of the time. I didn't work on my other paintings enough to present an update. I got so lazy! I can't believe it!

However, today, like 20 minutes ago... I did do a speed painting of a Sikh general who I am going to call Akali Phula Singh ji. I think it took about an hour. I used the Prince of Persia concept art and my own Baba Deep Singh for reference. I wanted to loosen up a bit. I have been doing a lot of technical work lately, you know, trying to make everything accurate and all. This time I wanted to sit back and paint whatever!

I might make a good copy of this but right now I want to get back into my university mindset. Haha, I say that like it's any different from my current mindset! No seriously, I am determined to concentrate on my studies! I am going to try really hard to manage my time better. That is my goal, otherwise I put away the paintings for summer.