It is great to be back once again in your midst. I must confess I really missed all my blog friends. Friends, who are now an integral part of me and my world that is my gallery. I have been too busy with stuff at work and home. To be precise, I have been managing my time badly due to which I lost the staying power and stamina to be active online. I believe I am in a better position now, as far as my willpower goes to be active as I used to be 3-4 years ago in 360. The closing down of 360 was as predicted. Yet when the moment of truth arrives there is a soft, sweet pain of nostalgia.



Many friends have gone away and things will never be the same without them. That is life after all. Everything undergoes the natural process of change. Our backgrounds change, situations change and so are the moods and temperaments. So has it been with me. As an artist who is engaged in constant conversation with life and works, the changes around me has had its impress on my works of art as well. I have been like a researcher spending days on end in the laboratory experimenting with new compounds and formulas. I have been experimenting on the extends of possibilities on mediums that would suit my current lifestyle and available time. Acrylic on canvas has taken a back seat. So has it been with the meticulously detailed works in Gouache. I have taken up Soft pastels (dry) for several reasons. One, they are pigments in the purest form capable of imparting the original and pure colours. Two, they are dry, and can be worked with much faster than the wet paints. The result is always instantaneous. 3) the feel of the soft pastel sticks with the fingers give a direct connection with art work. Believe me, this ‘feel’ is magical which, a brush or a pallet knife can never produce. Soft pastels suit my present state of mind which is fascinated by bright and vibrant colours. It also suits my current enthusiasm to do away with too many details- to work with the bare minimum details in forms and shapes. In short I am celebrating the impact of colours in the mind more than the impact of a rigid translation of the objects in nature, with traditional mediums such as water colours and oils. However, as it always has been, I cannot stick to a style or genre for a very long time. For me it comes and goes in cycles, which means I would cycle back and forth between new styles and the old ones every now and then.



Title: 'Portrait of byegone era’

Model: Mayra

Medium : Soft Pastels on paper

Size : 21cm x 29cm



Note: Composed in the style of high renaissance portraits, yet finished in a completely contemporary fashion. Only warm colours used to define the fiery character of this beautiful young lady.



© Vinod Laxman 2009

I tried this style after a very long while. I'm not particularly fond of this because it requires a hell lot of calculations, and believe me, a minute seemingly insignificant stroke placed wrongly, destroys the reflected image completely. After having wasted several sketches, this one finally came through. I didn't have a good cylindrical mirrored reflector to capture the image without abrasion. The tiny dents and imperfections of this steel reflector have caused some distortion in the reflected image. Kindly excuse that :D