About My Art

Food for my soul

I don`t remember, since when I`ve been drawing, but it`s become an important part of my life, I can`t think of what would happen if I wake up someday and find out that I can`t draw anymore.

It's a passion, I always found time to draw, be it class, hostel, job, at home or while traveling. I've drawn almost every place imaginable, on walls of my hostel rooms, my note books, desks, and once even in exam answer sheet. Lately, I have taken to the digital art. It started with my son's portrait on Inkscape, learning to do special effects in GIMP and these days I make digital portraits on my PDA using Pocket Artist 3.3 on my Windows Phone.

My first interaction with paint and brush came at Sainik School Balachadi, where we had a big "Art Room",(as we used to call it) adorned with some 20 big oil paintings and thousands of smaller water color and pencil sketches done by students.

It was here at SSB that I won my first prize in painting at District level competition and one of my paintings was sent to Kanagawa Art Competition, Japan.

The art teacher would take us for walks on the sprawling 450 acre campus. Will all the buildings on hill-top and surrounded by sea on three sides, the campus was lik an island. We would draw distant clouds or sea shore or sometimes, would just get some books from Library and make copies, of old paintings, pictures etc. It was here that i got introduced to the beautiful world of OIL paintings and water colors.

I have been drawing since then. I've tried almost all the media, oil pastels, water colors, charcoal, oil paints, fountain pen..

My best sketches have been those drawn for my friends which, more often than not, they wanted for their girl friends.

I started painting en plein air in California. While trekking around Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Area, I've had a chance to do some paintings on the location using oil pastels.

Check out the links for all the paintings and for all your feedback drop me a line at sminkal@gmail.com