With our busy lives and plethora of stimulation from innumerable sources its normal to skim the surface. I wanted to paint something that’s about taking a pause and looking deeper. To that effect picked this composition from my imagination.
On the surface are some water lilies floating, below them are some koi fishes and they are swimming towards the upper left corner directing the eye to a statue at the base of the pond. It could even be a reflection.
What you see is a finished painting but this is how it started.
No photo reference, just imagination. I dropped some phthalo blue, phthalo crimson and sap green on the wet Canson watercolor board. For the koi fishes I used masking fluid to preserve the white of the paper.
While the colors were still like a puddle I used a few drops of isopropyl alcohol to get those concentric circles. Now I had the backdrop and I created water lilies where the crimson concentrated and the leaves where the sap green settle down.
Water, color and isopropyl did most of the work and I added some details to enhance the colors and shapes.
For the statue, I debated between Krishna and Nataraja, but the color scheme lended itself to the former.
Some of my friends like the detailed version, while others like the original. Let me know which one you like.
Artistory - Art that tells a story 