Three of us...

I had seen online somewhere, a batik print painting of a mother and daughter inspired by Jamini Roy’s famous painting ‘Mother and Child’. It gave me an idea and I was frantically looking for an artist that can paint something in similar styles with two daughters and a mother.

While I was looking and asking around for an artist that can capture the essence of what I was feeling, I started studying Jamini Roy’s style, his color palette; his crisp and clean lines inspired me to doodle and makes faces using simple shapes. After about a zillion posts it notes, it occurred to me that I should fill colors in my sketches and see how they pan out.

That is exactly what I did; my first attempt at trying acrylic color medium. I stuck to the seven naturalistic colors from Jamini Roy’s palette, Indian red, yellow ochre, cadmium green, vermillion, grey, blue and white. And despite the similar subject material as the inspiration I think my piece turned out very different from the original and I like it that way. It’s funny and heartening to hear friends comment when they see the painting, “oh! It’s the three of you” instead of “It’s inspired by such and such famous artist”.

Original Jamini Roy Painting
Photo Courtesy: http://www.christies.com 

I guess, the learning process of using a medium that dries too fast and doesn’t give you an opportunity to correct your mistakes was too over whelming. I think I’ll just stick to oil paints for now unless I have more time to experiment and get used to the material. That said I am happy with the final product.

I’ll certainly try to paint more in similar technique and will share as I progress.