Sunday, February 14, 2016

Lake in Mountain range..

Calm lake in mountains..

Just few weeks back, we lost our mighty soldiers for a natural disaster in Siachen, Our soldiers were guarding the highest battleground in the world and nature struck.. brought a big avalanche which caused martyrdom for 10 Indian soldiers, One of them fought well but finally gave up after reaching hospital.. 


Since that incident, I wanted to paint one as a tribute to them (best I could do apart from some donations to those families which I am still searching how to do) who guard our boarders and provide a safe country to live in.. 


Thus thought of painting the glaciers and an Indian flag with some soldiers, Picked up a large canvas board and set off to paint it on a valentine's day ;)

While I have watched many videos of painting snow-clad mountains with palate knife, they all have been Oil paintings and they weren't Acrylic, As I said earlier.. I have not yet started Oil as it requires a separate room to paint and I aint have one yet ! Thought I can do the same technique with acrylic and started off with a lazy background, Now when I look at the painting, I feel bit sad that I did not pay much attention to those clouds.. It looks like a small child has painted it.. However my all concentration was on mountains and may be I need to think more towards background in next paintings.. 

However I set off with greyish mountains and then with my cheap palate knife (which is plastic yet..) tried to get the feel of snowclad mountains, tried multiple times with different textures etc but it wasnt coming.. may be I spent over 2 hours just on mountains and it wont come good for some reason, I lost count of how many times I tried those same damn knife techniques.. but it aint come man !!! Finally picked up my brush.. smoothened the whole surface back to greyish and then using a normal acrylic brush tried to paint the snow as best I can.. 

Once mountains were in some shape (I had lost my patience by then to make it any better), realized that good half of canvas was still empty and I had no clue how to get so much snowy terrain where I can depict soldiers and camp etc.. So decided to make a lake instead :) and then pine trees and so on and so forth.. Went on with and enjoyed every bit of lake and trees so much that I literally forgot that I wanted to make a painting which looks harsh climate and not a serene lake view :(



Once It reached condition, I decided not to go for soldiers and flag as it wont make justice to the real harsh condition where they live in Siachen.. It may look like they are living in a Hakuna Matata paradise! So left it there and signed the canvas.. 

I am satisfied with the lake and trees etc, however mountains could have been better and my search for better painting techniques for snowclad mountains in acrylics continues.. May be now its time for me to search for a teacher who can get me on right track :) Youtube cant get you everything !! 

Hope you like it... 

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