Ruby-throated Hummingbird & Trumpet Vine

Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) and Trumpet Vine (Campsis radicans)

This painting got auctioned in the US just last month!

Its been a year since i made this painting. And i must say, i spent sooo much time on this one. I was trying to get a different background effect, only later, to learn that the effect is possible with an Airbrush!

This painting was a donation to the Ocelot Festival, as they were raising funds for the conservation of Ocelots. However, am excited coz it's the first auction of my painting !! :) I believe they got it framed and it was looking pretty !! Now, i sit here and wonder on which wall it is hanging!

Eravikulam National Park... my journal pages

THE ROLLING GRASSLANDS - AN ISLAND OF THEIR OWN
25th - 31st December, 2007

I was quite fortunate enough to tag along with my brother to Eravikulam National Park. Sure enough, i had seen pictures, video clippings and heard about all the words of praise about this place i was going to visit. But i can say -nothing,absolutely nothing- can come close to *just being there* and seeing the beauty that stands in front of you! The Landscape only got better and better... mountains and valleys that run along till as faaaaar as your eyes can see; and nestled in between some of the valleys are dense Sholas or mini-rainforests, if you can call it! Being the month of December, the grassland was ochreish-greenish-brown. So untouched, so pristine! I so consider myself one of the luckiest!
I hiked deeper into the national park with Sandesh, Mandi, Sara and 15 other porters, who were carrying all the filming equipment and ration for the week.Not to mention,i would be the first person to start the hike and no sooner all the porters carrying much heavier baggage than me would run along next to me, leaving me trotting behind at the end of the trail!! I sure did make it to the hut with a smile though! You don't tend to know the meaning of a 'frown' in that landscape. Also, i must confess, except for the beginning uphill, the later part of the hike is not too bad (thankfully) ! :)

I was so mesmerised by the place that i was smiling throughout and soon sat to do a quick pen & ink sketch of the landscape in front of me in my journal. This is the view from the Eravikulam hut which faces a stream and the 'kathu-malai' mountain in front of us. To the left is a quick pencil sketch of the skull of a Sambar deer.

The next day early morning, went up to see the morning light and the spell of shadows as the sun came up, on the mighty Anaimudi and its valleys around. It was beautiful! Anaimudi is known to be the highest mountain peak in the south of the Himalayas.. about 2695 meters! The name 'Anaimudi', refers to 'the Elephant's head'. Sadly, i could not make time to sketch this.

Above, is a quick sketch of the 'Eravikulam hut', where we stayed. Below, just a quick landscape sketch of the mountains, valleys, sholas and the swifts i saw flying about the place! Next to these sketches are the birds i got to see during my stay!

The bird highlights for me on this trip were the Nilgiri Wood Pigeon, Pacific swallow, White-bellied Shortwing, Nilgiri Pipit, Indian Schimitar Babbler, Black eagle and with all probability a Fork-tailed Swift! To add to this... allll these birds,except for the Black eagle, were my lifers (seeing them for the first time!)

I have come back now,but have left many things undone. I still need to see those lush green grasslands in the monsoons,need to hike up to the top of Anaimudi, explore more of the sholas and see more of its wildlife. One cannot ask for a better landscape to learn how to sketch and paint. I so wish i get to go back!

Calotes T-shirt

Well.. here's the T-shirt i painted for my brother's birthday just last month. A Calotes lizard !

This is the second T-shirt painting i have done. Did the first one for a dear friend of mine, about more than a year back. But, I dont even have a proper picture of the first one and now its all faded off i heard :( . Last time, i had used acrylic paints to do it. But this time did it with Fabric colours, so hopefully it should stay.

Spider Lily

Hymencallis speciosa

One of the most prettiest flowers in my garden. Wish it could bloom all year round. Did this painting in September, i guess.
Have u ever seen this flower when it -just- opens?? Gosh! its amazing ! Its like a loose bud.. the tips are all attached and *suddenly* it breaks free and those spider-like long petals spread out. The 6 long greenish stamens with yellowish-orange pollen heads, stand upright, making it look prettier !

Next time u see a Spider Lily in a loose bud.... wait and watch it release itself. You just cannot hold back your smile!

.... a watery sunbird wash!

For sometime now, the sunbirds have been on my mind. Dipped my brush to do some small paintings of these tiny jewels. Hoping to capture them at their best, very soon. Over a hundred species of sunbirds have been recorded around the world, out of which India has just about 12 species.

These are the Purple sunbirds. One, amongst the 4 known species recorded in South India. Their long slender down curved bills are well adept to taking nectar from flowers, thus putting them in an exclusive nectar-feeding family called the 'Nectariniidae' .

True to their name, the males have a brilliant glittering iridescent plumage, which is best seen when the sunlight falls on the birds.

Out of the Sketchbook - 2

Some doodles in my sketchbook, out in the field...

Out of the Sketchbook!

Back from my most recent trip to Coorg! I stayed at honeyvalley and also hiked up Tadiandamol, which had been on my wish-list for 4 years now, from when i started with the idiscoveri programmes! This has been the only exciting adventure -all by myself- so far! Suresh and Susheela Chengappa have always been lovely hosts with their most generous smiles and delicious home-cooked food.

Met some other wonderful backpackers there and every now and then, had some time to get my sketch book out. Of everything that i saw, I guess i formed a more special bond with the moths at honeyvalley! They loved to be sketched and i loved to sketch them too. They sat ever so patiently until i sketched them.. and heh! they kept sitting even after that!!
The trek up Tadiandamol was just amazing, but tiring as hell! From honeyvalley to the peak its about 9 kms and the last part of it is steep and uphill all the way. It was so misty and cloudy when i reached the top and i couldnt see more than 30-40ft from where i stood. to make it more memorable, it showered just so much to refresh me from the hike to the top. Between the showers, i just made a quick sketch of the Ground-Orchid on top, which left me smiling as i had something to take back from there, other than some pictures! As i was heading back, decided to take the other path which is longer but would pass through the Nalkunad palace...It was 14 kms from the peak to honeyvalley! Most of the path in the beginning was downhill or either flatish.. but the last 4 kms were kind of uphill and gosh it seemed to take forever! My legs had almost started giving up on me, i trotted along so slowly at my own pace and finally reached honeyvalley at 6:30pm. Exhausted like never, hungry and wanting to hit the bed as soon as i could.................but if only the Wolf Snake in my room let me! :)

The 7 Chakra's...

The 7 chakra's in the human body!

Well...unlike the wildlife & nature paintings i have posted on this blog earlier, every once in a while i need to accept other commission works too, to keep myself going ! These are the most recent set of paintings that i have worked on. I was not aware about these chakra's at all, until i started painting them. Though its nowhere close to wildlife, i really enjoyed working on this set mainly coz of their design and the colours! I learnt a little more about them as i painted.. i believe, the Chakra system orginated more than 4,000 years ago and are referred to in the ancient litratures of Vedas, Upanishads and in the Yoga sutra's of Patanjali. Each of these 7 main Chakra's in the body have been symbolised by the paintings and their respective sanskrit alphabets, to add to their meaning.
Here are the names of the 7 Chakra's in thier respective order...
1) Muladhara, symbolised by a lotus with four petals.
2) Swadhisthana, symbolised by a lotus with six petals.
3) Manipura, symbolised by a lotus with ten petals.
4) Anahata, lotus with twelve petals.
5) Vishuddha, lotus with sixteen petals.
6) Ajna, in the form of an eye, held as a chakra of time, awareness and light. On the two corners you see the 'sun' and the 'moon'.
7) Saharara, is generally considered to be the chakra of consciousness with thousands of petals.

Fibreglass mural - finally complete !

4'X6' fibreglass mural
(click on the image to see a bigger version)

This started of as a terracotta mural 2 yrs back.......
completed as a fibreglass mural..... just yesterday!

Right after the 5 academic years in college, a bunch of us... Swetha, Manju and i started a mural for our freind SL... for his new house ! What we had done in terracotta looked great.. its quite time consuming and it takes days and days to dry. As we had started doing it right in the monsoon season.. it took about 2 months to dry. Finally gave it for baking and about 5 peices of the Terracotta mural maze had to break down while firing. This was our first terracotta mural and we amatuers must have let some air-bubbles seap in, which gave way to the cracks. Though we were aware of the possibility of breaking while firing.. we wanted to take our big chance and try it out. This was a great learning for all of us. By the time this dried and got fired, each one of us had moved into doing different things in our lives and we could not get back to finishing the mural. All thanks to our freind SL who waited patiently. I guess he had almost lost hope that we would ever complete his mural.... but we suddenly came back to the enthu spirit to finally complete it. This time it was Swetha, Nandini and i. Our dear freind Manju is busy getting prepared to step into a wedlock. We missed her as much as she missed working on this mural together. This time, we didnt want to take a chance with terracotta as it will shrink, take time to dry (its the monsoon season again) and still there is a big chance while firing it. So we decided to try our hands on doing it in Fiber. We need to specially thank Mr.Basu who guided us 2 yrs back when we were trying our hands with clay. Now a special thanks to Mr.Chalapathy (Swetha's dad who is a well renouned sculptor of Bangalore) and Rangaswamy who guided and helped us through the fibre process ! 10 days of work-work-work and today.. its finally complete!

I will soon put up the whole sequence and step-by-step procedure of the 'making' of this mural !
Its been a great learning and a great experience !! :)

The Pondy ponderer ..

Dono why i chose to paint the Pond Heron a couple of days back. But i just left like doing some quick water colour paintings. I had been to Lalbagh last week and sat there sketching all the birds i saw, and i guess the -Pondy ponderer- stuck to my mind! Came home, used some photographs for reference and brushed around a little bit!

The Indian Pond Heron (Ardeola grayii) is found throughout the Indain Sub-continent. One of our most common wading birds in shallow waters and marshy wetland habitats. The Paddy fields are amongst their most preferred habitats too, and so they are well known as 'Paddy Birds'. In flight, the underwings of this bird is striking white, when compared to the bird at rest, which is drab brown and streaky with not much white showing at all. Makes a great camouflage in a marshy area.

Waits so still and patiently to strike at its meal.
Well here's the pondy ponderer pondering patiently... as always!

"JaydimaNnina Kale"

I LOVE working with JedimaNnu !!! Well.. JaydimaNnu in Kannada just refers to Clay ! Once the clay items are baked /fired in the kiln, they are called TERRA-COTTA ! so... Here are a few of my Terra-cotta works i did a few years back. Its so much fun getting your hands all messy with a brown sticky stuff all over your hands! :)


My Cute lil' Terracotta Elephant all set to go for the Dassera prosession!!


Enjoyed working on this box so much... Etching each of those desings when the clay was Leather-hard and then filling up everything with a white paste called 'Engo'. I love it !


Am so crazy about diya's. I love seeing a LOT of diya's lit together. Made four lil' diya's and put them all together like this! It looks very pretty when lit!!


Another lil' Diya with the form of the parrot. I love birds as most of you already know looking at my paintings. As soon as i saw this piece.. i wanted to make it for myself too !! :)

*GuLakMale*

Well... *GuLakMale* happens to be a small village near Kagglipura, on the road connecting Kanakpura and Bannerghatta Road. A lot of fields and floriculture around the place...a high raised bund and as we climbed up on it, a big lake was right in front of us!!

Yup! Nanditha, Shilpa, Joyshree, Geetha and myself set out birding today. We had absolutely no clue that we were going to such a Beautiful place. The cloudy weather made it even better!! There were birds everywhere!!! Starting the day with Indian Robins, Pied Bushchats, Cormorants, all the three kinds of common Bulbuls - Red whiskered, Red vented and the White browed Bulbul, and ,Rose-ringed Parakeets. The day was more promising with the sightings of the Small blue Kingfisher, plenty of Black headed Munias, Ioras, White eyes, a Green billed Malkoha,White breasted Waterhen and not to forget the juvenile Short toed Snake Eagle!!!! Ofcourse, the Jungle Myna's, Ashy Prinias, Tailor birds, sunbirds,Doves, White browed Wagtails, a Lapwing, Spot billed Ducks, Grebes, Swallows,Small Green Bee-eaters, Kites, Egrets and Crows added to the day! Saw about 3-4 sunbirds in Eclipse plumage too!!!

A good number of butterflies too... Baronet, Nigger, Common Bushbrown, Crimson Rose, Tawny Coaster, Common Indian Crow, Emigrants, Grass yellows and Grass Jewels all around!! A pleasant and wonderful day all together! Waiting to see what more this place has in store! Hoping to visit soon! :)

More painted birds.....

Malabar Pied Hornbill (Anthracoceros coronatus)

Well... posting just a few more of my bird paintings done a few years back... These are mainly watercolour paintings.

Cattle Egret ( Bubulcus ibis)

Indian Pitta ( Pitta brachyura)

Mural at the Montessori !

Well....My friend Shilpa and i, worked on this mural at a montessori "Learning Tree" in Jayanagar. The garage has been converted into a play area with a sand-pit, a small wooden house and a slide for the kids. And ofcourse the painting on either sides. The owner of the montessori was very much willing to make it educative for the kids and was happy to include bugs, butterflies, birds, plants and other creatures in the mural! She wanted it realistic and that's exactly what we had in mind too! By the end of 20-25 days.... this is what we gave her!!

Birds abstract !

One of my friend gifted me a really nice book on wildlife paintings- "Tigers-Artists for nature in India" by Nicholas Hammond! I love the book and at the same time was so inspired that i tried out something myself.... using a kinda similar style!

I guess i got to get rid of my laziness these days.. and try out some more !!

KAYAKING over the weekend !!

I had been wanting to do some kayaking sometime... and especially after KK (Kiran) got a kayak from the US, i had even more wanting to do it. Out of the blue, friday night KK asked me if i would like to do some kayaking saturday morning... how could i deny! :) We reached manchanbele dam by 7:30am... inflated the kayak and set out !! The weather was amazing... breezy, cloudy and *Grreeennn* ALL around! This was my first time Kayaking and we went on and on and on.... I guess i was sooo excited, i never got tired of rowing at all! It was so peaceful out there... cormorants, Grey herons, kingfishers, bulbuls, sunbirds, peafowls and raptors above! A wonderful way to spend your weekend, no doubt! We were back where we started around 12. Deflated the kayak and headed back home...right in time for lunch!

Hummingbird series...

The above image of the 'Bumblebee Hummingbird' has been the best out of the three i have done so far. Both the birds are from my brother's photographs but with a lil' modification to make it a nice composition. As i started working on the branch, i got excited myself! Though i was still not sure how i will bring about the fluffyness of the bird captured in the photograph.. Am really happy with this one and i know, the more i practise its only gonna get better!!
Below, are the two other hummingbird paintings i have done - Buff bellied Hummingbird (my first attempt with the hummingbird painting a couple of months back) and the Purple Throated Mountain Gem Hummingbird (not all that satisfied with the composition), respectively.

Mural at Bandipur, JLR.

This surely is one of my favrouites... as its my first really *BIG* individual work! I painted this mural in one of the rooms of Bandipur Jungle lodges and resorts! Its about 10 ft x 15 ft. It was an amazing learning experience for me at every step - every thought i thought, every colour i mixed, every stroke i painted and more...
Every moment from waking up early to catch the sunrise... a whole day for painting... various yummy dishes to choose from... really -friendly-cheerful- staff... a chance to go on the jeep safari's every once in a while... sighting my first leopard and my first sloth bear... amazing sunsets over the Gopalswamy betta... interesting discussions over the campfire... watching wildlife documetaries... walking up and down the path several times... sitting thru the long silent nights... waiting to hear the call of the 'bubo bubo' every night... after all that, a peaceful sleep! Whatmore can one ask for !!

*MEROPS* it is !!

**MEROPS** i have always been fascinated by this word. i like the way it -sounds-! The first time i took interest in learning about the scientific names of birds was on one of my most amazing birding trips to Point Calimere, more than about 2 years back!
*Merops* is just a genus of the really pretty 'Bee-eaters'! But well of about 26 Bee-eater species found all around the world, i have just seen about 4 species..... LOTS more to see.. and that's why my journey goes on.... and on.......