Nature – the beauty which is unique, an expression which generates boundless serenity that would kindle the interest within me to draw and paint. Brought up in a concrete world, living in the confines of buildings left me with an emptiness of not being able to live closer to nature. During my early days, I made intermittent trips to visit my granddad, a self-taught artist, who lived in a tranquil village in the southern part of Tamilnadu. The distinct sound and sight of nature fascinated me, enhanced much more in watching him work on his watercolour paintings of the rustic village scenes and nature surrounding him. I longed to move to such a tranquil locality but unfortunately, circumstances left me without many options and with no way of getting closer to nature, I first started to sketch my granddad’s house and the ambience around it from my reminiscing. The pencil and pen illustrations of various imaginary landscapes transformed gradually into colourful representations done using a small collection of paints and brushes, presented by my granddad.

Development – During the initial stages, I tried out many techniques of brush strokes which I had observed from my granddad. Time and time again I was left with disappointment and frustration of not being able to produce the exact scenes the way I wanted to. Eventually, I moved to copy the paintings of other artists to get to an understanding of lighting and the proportion of their subjects. English countrysides were equally captivating to me and I was even more inspired by the great British landscape artists John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough for their spectacular capture of lights and detail in their work.

My research on other artists and reference material aided me in broadening my understanding of material used which helped me shift from watercolours to poster colours and to basic oil tubes. Moving away from copying other artists and their work, I decided to go ahead to painting subjects from photographs, the first-ever challenge being the production of the exact details in the right proportion. With time and perseverance, I discovered that patience and concentration plays a very critical role in painting, especially detailed landscapes.

In 2003, I decided to shift to professional oils paints which proved very successful to my techniques and styles to bring nature to the canvas. Though my time spent in front of my easel was very irregular, I still managed to bring out a few canvases as and when time permitted. It was after 2012, I began to concentrate more on working on my art, which involved further experimentation with other types of paints, mediums, boards and art material which led me to complete paintings faster and also paved way for the successful sale of my artwork.

Though I enjoy painting portraits, seascapes and cityscapes, drawing, painting and capturing nature in all its glory has always been my ever pursuing passion, leaving me with a sense of fulfilment as I witness nature coming alive, an outcome of a beautiful association that takes place just between the brush and the canvas.