Cambodia... inspired??

Recently I just came back from Siem Reap Cambodia waiting to get inspired. But guess what, I got close to non. Well, honestly I was not very thrilled at staring at carved rocks assembled to look like a building... formally known as temples. I think I'm biased towards nature... sorry Angkor Wat. But no doubt I was able to capture the contrast of structure and nature... In my photos, the ruins were not the main focus, but the interaction of hard, cold rocks with nature through the lenses created an almost unexplainable beauty.The pic below is taken at sunrise at Angkor Wat. I'll share more in future posts.

But nonetheless, I had an awesome experience learning some of the history of Cambodia, climbing temple ruins, taking challenging photos and talking to the friendly locals. Not a place I would visit again, but ultimately unique and refreshing.

Paintings by Aisha Ramat

http://www.flickr.com/photos/artkugallery/

Click the link to see more of my older works. Peace and love!!!

Angry painting add ons...... etc

grrrrrrrrrrr

Fruitful day at class

Most adult students I teach are without any experience in art whatsoever. So instead of normal routine of developing the basic painting knowledge in them, it's refreshing to know some are keen on pushing their limits. This is part of a painting of my students have accomplished. With close guidance of using oil paints and palette knives, she had accomplished magic today. Beautiful beginning. Kudos to you Uma.

The Dark Knight, Oil on Canvas 150cm x 120 cm Framed

 

I call this painting 'The Dark Knight'. It was selected to be exhibited for the Absence and Presence Show held in my college. Completed in 2004. With imput of what I've learnt from my research on Rembrant and his techniques. Haunting painting I must say. I still have it now... and some people said that it might be haunted. Hahahaha. Oh well.... something for the ' Absence ans Presence' .... what is better than adding some paranormal essence eh?? 

Rembrant, the master

Rembrant is by far the only classical artist that truely inspires me. Through his works and techniques that I learnt in college, I gained tremendous technical knowledge. I am still using and applying certain techniques in my own works till now, and no doubt, gave me the edge at teaching my students on some academic aspect of painting.

What I've been incorporating in my works inspired by him is the importance of contrast. Balancing light and dark to create mood. His paintings are blatantly dark, almost sinister, but with contrast with his depiction of light somehow balanced the mood and made his works a compelling visual delicacy.

Another useful thing I've learnt is to create an illusion of gold. There was no gold paint during this era, so to create this, he used yellows, ochre, highlights and many other colours reflected on the gold from surrounding objects to create the illusion of shine. Believe me, even with ready gold paints, this technique is the best and the most accurate to depict gold. I've taught some of my students how to create this too. Many are amazed by the fact that with just a mixture of simple natural colours, they can depict gold that looks astoundingly realistic.

more about him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rembrandt

For experiment sake

Did this out of impulse... helped to release a lil of the anxiety from the evening class. Tried pushing the style a bit further but realized that this work kinda fossilized my crankiness. Woah, don't you feel that vibe?? I got goosebumps...

dang...