Playing with Pigments

I had a bit of extra fun in the studio today! I had recently ordered some samples of chromogenic pigments - pigments that change color - either based on sunlight or temperature. I got to play with one that changed color from coral to purple in sunlight today. I was only going to use them on small items like stones and mini-mandalas, but the recommendation was to use them on white or light colored backgrounds. With all the canvas prepped for my owl series with lighter backgrounds just sitting on the table, I couldn't help myself :) I am sure this barred owl piece is going to be very exciting when finished!

On the left is the coral color in shade and it turns to purple in sunlight!

I applied the coral to purple chromogenic pigment to a bunch of stones also, hence they are all lined up with the sunlight on the table. I didn't use as much pigment as I should have - didn't measure the ratio of pigment to medium - so the color change on the stones is not dramatic like the owl piece. Also I didn't start with a lighter background on these stones.

And to round out the day, I spent most of pre- & post-dinner hours working on this piece - in my Rising series. It's a 3' x 4' canvas, so its going to be a while before it is done, but my hope is to take it with us to the Deep Ellum Arts Festival next month. 

2018 Calendars

I can't believe it is already time to start planning for the next year! my first step in thinking about the next year is always in planning for the calendar. I got it designed and printed last week and it feels like a bit later than usual! Based on feedback from fans, the 2018 calendar features a mix of florals and mandala paintings from this year. I also redesigned my website a bit, set-up a new subdomain for my square marketplace and linked them all together. It's now easy to shop for calendars & prints from my website!

 

East Lansing Art Festival

East Lansing Art Festival was my first out of state show this season - on May 20, 21, 2017. I was invited back to this show as an award winner from last year. I decided to go back to this show in spite of the really traumatic experience of having a bunch of my paintings stolen last year. I was overwhelmed by the support of the community, the sheer number of people who reached out to me, shared the stolen pieces on social media, the efforts of the ELPD to recover them and the art fest. I was really hoping for a more positive experience this year. 

I had sent out 20 postcards to collectors & fans from last year to promote the show. I was also a featured artist on their social media & one of my pieces was shown on a TV ad airing in the area. I was excited to show off my new style of mandala paintings & I was also bringing another large elephant piece! I have a new line of florals I started creating in 2017 I was excited about showing in East Lansing.

We got there around 7 pm on Friday night for set-up. I had paid for a corner booth, way back in January. But on arriving we found that we did not have a corner as planned. It was very disappointing as I had brought inventory & planned for the lay out of my booth based on having a corner. Similar to Elmhurst, we were able to set up only the tent on Friday. We didn't want to leave any inventory in the booth overnight. We stayed in a nearby airbnb for the weekend and it was ok. 

The weather was also iffy this weekend with a little bit of rain on both days. However people came out and bought! My biggest sellers were the prints on Michigan state & the Spartans logo. I also sold quite a bit of the Block M prints :) I was thrilled to see so many people remembering us from last year & more than 5 people who signed up for my email list were already on it! 

There was an awards session along with dinner on Saturday evening. We were so exhausted from the drive, set-up & long day in the wind & rain that we went to bed at 8.30 and slept for a solid 10 hours. The take-down on Sunday went by quick & the load out was easy. I was also able to drive the van to my booth on Saturday & Sunday mornings to hang the paintings. 

We only sold a single original small 6"x6" painting, while we were closing up on Sunday. It was a little disappointing to not sell any originals, but at least we sold enough small items to make it a decent show. 

The director was apologetic about messing my corner location & I am not sure if having a corner would have made any difference in sales. We were home by 10pm on Sunday and though I wish we had done better, I don't have any complaints. Only regret was not being able to purchase an art piece from another artist that I liked - hopefully I will see them in another show where I make enough sales so I can choose to buy art too!

Elmhurst Art in Wilder Park

Elmhurst Art in Wilder Park, on May 6, 7 was my first outdoor show of the season for 2017! This is the third year I am doing the show & it is always an exciting one as we get to see so many of our artist friends after the winter break. This year we had the added bonus of having Miranda (http://www.mirandameyer.com/) & Stephen stay with us for the show. 

Our plan was to do the set-up for the show on Friday evening, we got to the venue around 5.30pm. Finding parking was not an issue, but my booth location had moved from the previous years due to rain & the ground being soggy in some places. We had to move the van again to get to a closer parking and dolly everything to our booth.

It's amazing how rusty we had gotten over the winter & it took forever, with a slew of amateur mistakes before we could set up the booth. Luckily we hadn't forgotten any part for the set-up like last year. It was also super-cold. Weather is always iffy at this show, given it is very early in the season. This year I had to pack all my winter gear including hand warmers for the show. We only managed to put the booth up & decided to hang the paintings the next morning. Just the tent & walls took more than 2.5 hours to get done!

We got there early around 8.30 on Saturday morning to finish the booth. I love having a corner booth at this show and it allows me to have more of my work out. Saturday was painfully slow and I had only 7 sales, not even making what I paid for the booth fee in sales. I had even run a facebook ad for the past 4 days promoting the show & my works. Shankar had taken back the front wall to close the booth home by mistake, so, I had to make an extra trip home before we could close up for the day. The highlight of the day was going to a nice Indian restaurant for dinner with friends & family!

Sales on Sunday was even worse than Saturday. The sun started coming out later in the day, though the temperature did not rise. Highlight of the day was quite a few friends stopping by & it was also nice to see a few of my collectors from the years before.

I didn't sell any original paintings & the sales of prints hardly made up for my expenses. A few other artist friends did not even make what I did. This show is the closest in distance & time to where we live. The location is great & so is the promoter. Unfortunately this is the second year I am not making any money doing this show & we have to seriously think about it for next year. I had such a great show the first year I was here and the weather is the biggest factor in determining the crowd & sales. Hoping the upcoming shows make up for this one!

Arts Alive

Last week I did a workshop for kids through a program called Arts Alive, funded by the Addison Center for the Arts. The class was at the local Junior High School and 5 students had signed up for my Mandala Designs class. I had three 6th graders and a couple of 8th graders. The class was in 2 sessions for about 2 hours each.

On the first day, all the kids prepared 2 canvases with the background colors they liked. The time went by really fast! It was a little surprising for me to learn that middle school kids have not used a compass to draw circles before. So it was interesting to teach them basic geometry before starting  to paint.

In the second session, they got to play with 3 dimensional fabric paint - a.k.a. puffy paint. They were painting mandalas similar to how I paint them and it was fun to teach this way of playing with paint to the kids.

One of the kids might soon get much better at this than me :) 

Check out how she is free-handing the pattern with fabric paint. 

There were a couple of times when I had to remind some of the kids to be respectful of the class & focus, but overall it was a fun and satisfying experience, and may be, I think I would be more open to working with kids again than I have been in the past. of course, it was also great to be part of a program that brings more art opportunities to kids who wouldn't otherwise get to explore things outside their regular class stuff. So proud of these budding artists :) 

Puppy Woes

I haven't worked on a floral in a long time and inspired by a couple of artists on social media, decided to give it a try for a new series for 2017. I also wanted the flowers to be based on my mandalas, but more organic. So, I started this piece on a nice, large 24" x 30" canvas on the beginning of this month. The first image below is the progress I had made on the end of day 2. Most of day 1 was working on the background and getting an idea of the layout & the colors. I had to take a day in between to travel for family stuff, but got back to the painting skipping doing fun stuff with the family. Second image below was end of progress on day 3 on working on this piece. 

Decided to take a break and go out for dinner with the visiting family and when I got back to the studio, the painting which was drying on top of my table, was half on the chair, covered in paint! Cue our adorable & anxiety laden puppy Kalai! She decided having mommy home for almost all day and having me step outside a bit was too much to handle. She had jumped all over the studio, unscrewed a bottle of paint and emptied on top of the painting and in jumping off sent the whole thing down to the chair and dripping paint on the floor. She also destroyed a pin cushion and managed to get all the pins out without hurting herself. I attempted to wash the excess paint off the piece in the bath tub and managed to get most of it out, but also some of what I wanted to stay.

I had to have my husband hide the piece, given how angry it made me and the frustration of not being able to do anything about it. After 2 days I started a very similar piece (below) and worked on it for another 3 days. I took it to get critiqued at one of my local art leagues and everyone loved it. Given the positive feedback, I finished another one for my show Dots & Lines at the Addison Center for the Arts.

This week, after a friend suggested it was a collaborative piece with Kalai, I finally managed to go back to the damaged one and work on it. Here is the finished piece, completing a series of 5 floral paintings. Two of them are already in a show and I am hanging another one in a new show starting tomorrow. I will be entering the fourth piece in a member show at an art league later this month. The story of a series 😏

Prepping Canvas

Trying to fight off symptoms of a cold & cough, today was mostly spent in resting. However, the one thing I managed to do in the studio is to unpack all 10 of the 12x16 canvas I got yesterday & prep them. My first step in prepping the canvas is doing a colored background. usually using lemon yellow or shades of yellow, I create the toned background before even thinking about what I am going to paint on them. I do know some of these are going to be Festival Elephants & some of these are going to be Sugar Skulls. Yellow toned backgrounds work best for me as the colors I start on these are usually bright. Here is a good introduction on toned backgrounds for those interested. I also managed to use up the last of four(!) different tubes of yellow & was glad to chuck them out. New Year, New Paints :)

Stocking Up

Happy New Year! It's that time when I am taking stock of what's left over & ordering new stuff. I already took advantage of all the holiday sales / free shipping and got almost all of my paint supplies for next year. I also got a whole bunch of new canvases & after making a list of potential paintings I want to work on this year, ordered a bunch more. 

And the good guys from Fedex just dropped off these 6 boxes, ordered over the weekend!

One of my goals this year is to standardize the sizes in which I paint. Though it seems a little hard to eliminate a few sizes, I am not going to be working on 9x9, 9x12, 12x12 & 11x14 anymore. I am adding a couple of large sizes instead - like 36x36 & 36x48. 

Again, in 2016, I want to finish 100 titled pieces! May be more if I keep working diligently over this winter 'break'.  Off to prep & paint now!

Paints Galore

At least once every couple of weeks or so I get an email or facebook message from someone asking what kinds of paint I use for the paintings I create. I just counted the number of different paints I have in my studio - I have at least 20 brands of paint I use on a regular basis and another 5 or so that I have around. That is a lot of paint! Sometimes I have 1 or 2 colors in a specific brand and in others I might have their entire range. I also have about  8 - 10 different mediums I can use to thicken or thin my paints & add various types of textures to my works. What one has to realize when they start painting and want to ask other artists what they use is, not everyone they come across is a hobby artist. I am also a business woman and I keep investing in my business. 

                                

Since my paintings are created for sale, I make sure I use the best & high quality paint for the job. The paints I use do not fade or yellow or change color over time. They are also ones I love working with. The paints on the palette above are my recent discovery and I am in love with them! I use at least one of these colors in all the works I have been doing recently. I am constantly experimenting with my technique & working on improving my art. That means investing time & money to get quality products and learning to use them properly. To answer the question of what brand of paint I would recommend - my only advice would be to experiment for yourself to see which paints you like & which ones are best for what you want to do. Spend time talking to people working in your art supply store and they will provide recommendations on the kind of work you want to create. Be patient and take time playing with the paints till you are comfortable with their characteristics. I have been painting for a little more than 3 years now and I am always learning & discovering something new with my paints all the time!

FAQ - How long

One of the most frequently asked questions to me at Art Fairs is How long it takes me to do a particular piece / any of my paintings. It is also one of the most difficult questions to answer. Just to illustrate, this week from Monday through yesterday, here is everything I have been working on in the studio -

1, 2. Peacock on 24" x 36" canvas - started with prepping the canvas to quite a bit of progress! Thats from working almost 10 hour days

3. Dragonfly canvas made it back to my table to start the textured lines

4. A new flying owl piece on 24" x 30" canvas - prepped the background, drew the outline & added the eyes

5, 6. A new version of the Chicago flag - prepped 3 backgrounds in silver with interference green / red/ violet mixed in and started painting one.

7. Added one more circular layer on the red 24" x 36" diptych mandala

8, 12. Two new 20" x 24" Tree of Life paintings - did the background work last week and started with the trunks and shoots this week

9. Another peacock on 20" x 24" canvas - started from prepping the background on Monday

10. A set of 4 18" x 18" canvas prepped for mandala paintings

11. One more 24" x 36 background prep for another peacock!

When I am working on so many projects in parallel, it is really hard to think of time spent on just one piece. In fact a few years back I did estimate the time I spent on a 16" x 20" piece - turned out to be 38 hours from opening the canvas to the signing off on the piece. Well, when I also calculated what I actually made per hour on piece after selling it for $200 minus the cost of supplies, it got too depressing to think further about time spent on painting single pieces. 

So, please don't roll your eyes at me when I tell you I don't keep track of time spent on a painting, because I really don't and I can't think of a way when I can either. I hardly ever have just one project going on in the studio and given how easily I get distracted - from moving from one work to another, or starting something else when waiting for another to dry, estimating time is the last thing on my mind!

Floral Mandalas

A new series I have started recently are a different style of mandala paintings on canvas. My usual paintings all have concentric circles, but this series is more of a floral style, with next layers of the circle forming out of the previous layers. The canvas are also 16" x 20"  - not a square and with only the floral mandala and my signature, curved in a corner. These canvas can be hung in either orientation! The first two below - Blossom & Elegance, 2015 have already found wonderful collectors their second week on show. I painted the other two - Patience & Growth in the last two weeks and really liking how the series is turning out. 

These paintings are all done with 3-4 colors in the background and 1-2 colors in the textured layers. The textured dots & lines are done in dark & light shades of either gold or silver with one other accent iridescent color. By varying the shade and the thickness of the lines, the mandalas are more dramatic. If you are in the Chicago area, please come see these and my other paintings in person at one of my shows this summer.

 Blossom & Elegance, 2015. 16" x 20"

Textured henna style acrylic floral mandala painting on canvas with mirrors. 

© Bala Thiagarajan, 2015

 Patience, 2015. 16" x 20" 

Textured henna style acrylic floral mandala painting on canvas with mirrors. 

© Bala Thiagarajan, 2015

 Growth, 2015. 16" x 20" 

Textured henna style acrylic floral mandala painting on canvas with mirrors. 

© Bala Thiagarajan, 2015

Painting on a Whim

I painted this Mandala last Thursday night as I was waiting for one of my other paintings to dry. I got a little restless just waiting and pulled out this canvas that was already prepped with the brown earthy background. This is one of my favorite color combinations to paint - brown, gold, white, silver & turquoise. Sometimes creativity flows - fast :)

Earth Mandala, 2014. 12" x 12", 

Textured henna style acrylics mandala painting on canvas with mirror. 

© Bala Thiagarajan, 2014. www.artbybala.com

www.facebook.com/artbybala

Feeling Accomplished

Golden Tree, 2014 was the 200th painting I have sent to a new home (including everything sold / donated / gifted) since February, 2012. The painting sold at the Holiday Sampler Fair in Elk Grove Village on Sunday. A big thank you to all my friends and fans for being a part of this incredible journey! 

Golden Tree, 2014. 12" x 16", Henna style textured acrylics abstract painting on canvas. 

(c) Bala Thiagarajan, 2014. www.artbybala.com 

Latest Painting: Goldfinch

The Goldfinch painting I have been working on this week is all finished and is available for purchase.

Waiting, 2014. 11" x 14", Textured henna style acrylic animal painting on canvas. 

© Bala Thiagarajan, 2014 www.ArtbyBala.com

This is a painting I have re-worked from an earlier version I did when I first started playing with acrylics about 4 years back. I have always felt that the initial one lacked the sparkle, though I liked the composition and the background color. 

The first step in the re-work was to outline the new finch, showing its back with more colors. Then I worked on the branches, adding textured lines in burnt sienna and metallic copper. The buds were updated with a shade of fuchsia & deep rose, and with bright green. I added a lot of molding paste to the finch outline to build up the texture. I want to work more on this line and create more depth in later works. 

Next came the colors and the textures. I left part of the original finch in the painting and thought it would be nice to show the two males as competing (establishing territories) - I am a bio geek, what can I say! But the hubby insisted he needs to go & a couple of friends on facebook suggested the same. So away he flew, leaving the entire tree to the new comer :)

2015 Calendars

2015 Art by Bala calendars are almost here and will be shipped starting Nov 4! It is Animal Paintings themed, with high resolution images of 14 of my henna style textured animal paintings. Printed on high quality premium glossy card stock paper and measures 8.5" x 11". There is also room to write on the dates. Only $15 + $3 shipping within US. Get yours today!

You can now purchase them directly from my website!

Click the link here: http://www.artbybala.com/calendar

Unexpected Award

It is not often that I paint on a theme that is given to me. I suppose the only time I do that is for commissioned paintings. After the big move however, I joined my local artists association and they had a show on 'Trees' starting in two weeks. I wanted to use that opportunity to show my work to this group and started working on a tree painting in my henna-style with lots of texture. 

Native Roots, 2014. Henna-style textured acrylic painting on canvas.
12" x 16". (c) Bala Thiagarajan, 2014

I was pleasantly surprised to find out a week after the show opened, on a random trip to the library, that the painting got a honorable mention. I am thrilled and looking forward to the next show with a Spring theme!

Progress on a Painting

In my last post I wrote about the steps in starting a painting. Today, its about the progress on the piece. 

Step 5: Filling in the outline. Usually I prefer to do this with one solid color if its an animal I am working on. I do dab on the paint thick in this step as I don't want to do multiple coats in small areas.

Step 6: The most tedious and fun step in the painting. Doing the textured lines. I love to use metallic gold and silver for the texture and use them as much as I can. I bring in more variety to the patterns here and also get to play with the thickness of the textured lines. I start in the middle and move my way out on the subject.

Step 6: Accents - in the octopus I used white dots around the animal to sort of give a relief and also used some metallic green dots in the background. 

Step 7: One of the most satisfying steps - signing my name! I actually write my name in Tamil, my mother tongue in the front. 

Step 8: Remove all pencil marks, correct mistakes. 

Step 9: Seal: I use a gloss or high gloss varnish to seal the painting. I usually do just one coat.

Step 10: Paint the sides black with black gesso. Steps 9 & 10 are something I learnt from people selling paintings on Etsy. I am so glad to have found these two steps that make my paintings look well finished and ready to hang. 

Step 11: After its completely dry, I put a hanger in the back, and with a sharpie write my name& website, sign in english with the year.

Now, its ready to go on FB and list for sale on my website :)

Starting a Painting

Over the last three years, I have been learning a lot about painting. As a self-taught artist, its been a steep learning curve starting with the most basic stuff on mixing colors to refining my techniques. And to top it all off, I had to learn how to properly finish a painting from Etsy! (more on this later).

Most of my paintings are done with acrylics on canvas and here is a quick look on how I do it and how I learned to do what I do. 

• Step one is do a ground layer on the canvas. I prefer a very light yellow as the grounding background on my paintings. There has been times when I have skipped this step, started out with the colors I want for the background and regretted it. Using this grounding layer helps cover up missed spots later on, especially when there is only a thin layer of paint. In many instances, the ground layer would still show through, but be part of the background and add more depth to it.

• Step 2 is doing the actual background. I have started to play more with my background colors than doing my basic stuff. My usual basics is doing a blend of tones of the same color with a mottled look (that might disappear once the painting is complete).

An octopus I am just starting today 

• Step 3 is sketching out the subject. I start with a charcoal pencil for the initial sketch. I have learned the hard way about erasing the sketch lines after the painting is complete. Charcoal seems to be the most easiest to get rid off. 

• Step 4 for me is to sort-of finalize the outline using a marker, usually black or brown. It is ok if there are small errors here, as the next step of filling in the subject can correct those. 

In my next post, I will write more progress steps and photos, as I work through this octopus!

Ready to Fly

Fawkes, the Phoenix is one of my latest paintings, completed just 3 weeks back for my show at the Yahara Bay Distillery. And with this show, I reached another milestone in my art career - I have sold 100+ paintings since Feb 2012. It feels such an accomplishment for someone who is not trained as an artist. It was also great to see all my friends who have been encouraging me down this career path since day 1 at the reception. It was a great evening. The show runs for two more week at The Gallery at Yahara Bay.

 

New Anniversary Show

It has been one year since I started showing my art in public in WI. Its been an amazing one year with 16+ shows, 60+ paintings sold. I am now booked to show my works at different venues all the way till August 2013 (well, except in June!). For this month I have a 35 pieces showing in 5 different venues. The most recent being at Art and Soul Tattoo & Gallery in New Glarus, WI. I also have 2 pieces for a group show at the UW hospital, 2 pieces at a salon/gallery in Chicago, 2 pieces at another group show at Sauk City and a few more pieces in a coffee shop on State Street in Madison. If you are in the neighborhood, stop by any of these places and check out my work in person!