Dharshana Bajaj

To find one’s own voice in the work that one creates is in many ways to have finally arrived... To have your work be its own signature, to have people look at a painting, and to recognize the ‘style’ as yours is a sure indication that you have finally found your place in the scheme of things... One such happy artist is the man who’s bringing rural India to the urbane world very stylishly...Thota Laxminarayana. Having spent a good part of his childhood in the villages of Andhra Pradesh, Thota brings to us the brilliant, steamy summers of rural India, with its vibrant colours and the idyllic innocence all wrapped up in a fresh personal idiom. A self-taught artist, Thota has been creating art since the age of eight, inspired by the Nirmal folk art that was all around him.   “I used to paint as a child but I was mostly active with other art forms. I used to act in dramas, make paper jewellery, make clay idols and got into paintings ver

The Internet is a great place to come across some great art, be it on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, or the million other websites, online galleries and blogs. Among this swarming myriad, Andrey Aranyshev’s paintings hold their own, very gracefully. Born in 1956, Aranyshev comes from a family of creative achievers. Inclined towards drawing ever since a child, this Russian artist includes among his teachers Andrei Rublev ,  Alexi Savrasov ,  Ilya Repin ,  Rembrandt ,  VanGogh ,  Paul Cézanne ,  Pablo Picasso ,  Wassily Kandinsky ,  and Henri Matisse . Sure enough, their influence can be felt in Andrey’s work. There’s a dreamy quality to most of Andrey Aranyshev’s paintings. Imbued with an ethereal, soulful air, they often j uxtapose smooth areas with textures. The graceful bodies, with their gentle curves, sometimes languid, almost always calm, are all softly defined, with edges merging not only with the objects and people sharing the canvas space, but also with the

If I had a chance to meet or get to know the insanely passionate Vincent van Gogh, or any of the other masters, I'd take it up in a trice. But I'm happy I'm at least able to get to know some of the artists of the day better, including the landscape artist Brad Teare, with his thick impastos akin to van Gogh's. Brad is also an illustrator and a wood cut artist, who lives in Utah.  Q. Describe your typical working day. A. I wake up around 7:30. I check email messages on my phone while in bed allowing myself to get ready for the day. I'm up before 8:00 and join my wife in our sunroom for breakfast. We talk or read for about a half hour, and then I retreat to the studio where I draw or paint for about three hours. I then take an hour lunch. After lunch, I paint for three more hours or so and take an hour nap around 4:00. I then work for a few more hours until dinner. About half the time I continue work after dinner working to 9 or 10:00. I then join my wife

She makes the mundane come alive. With bright colours, and broad, loose brush strokes, precisely applied. And by her choice of titles, she makes the cups, the tomatoes, the shoes and other “still lives” that she paints the heroes and heroines of the moment. Carol Jean Marine of the Daily Paintworks fame paints every day. Little paintings, on boards 6” x 6” or thereabouts. And yet, little drops of water make the mighty ocean...And a successful career as a professional artist. Truly one of the tech-savvy artists of the times, Carol sells most of her paintings online, from her blog. Carol has written several books on her art, and lives in Oregon. Besides her delectable still lives, she also paints landscapes, cityscapes, people, and even some 'therapeutic' abstracts. Q.   Describe your typical working day.  A. My days are all very different. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I ask myself is – am I excited to paint? If no, then I ask myself w