FIREWOOD COLLECTORS IN INDIA

Wanting another image to go with the Indian water carriers painting, previously posted on flickr and this blog, I remembered that on a trip through India by car we had stopped off by a lake in the mountains, only to see a few minutes later a line of ladies in coloured saris coming down from the hills carrying firewood on their heads they had collected. I put on the video of our trip and enjoyed time going down memory lane.

This acrylic ink painting is the result. Don't know if you can see the texture I used for the treeline and the stones on the roadway - but they certainly add to the effect in this acrylic painting 20" x 15" on canvas, which will be mounted and framed as the previous Indian painting of water carriers. 

(I am playing with my new google Chrome blogger browser and seem to have a little problem with this image - ie the repeat on the left side of a fraction of the right side!! )

I now understand that it is even harder since our trip for the village people out in the countryside of India to collect firewood, their only source of heat for cooking and light.

WATER CARRIERS IN INDIA

Spent time over at Laura's last week whilst our grand daughter was being born, but since being back have worked on my latest piece using as a reference an archive photo of an acrylic I did a number of years ago of water carriers we met during a visit to Fatipur Sikri in India.

This latest version is mixed media, using acrylic inks on Lana Vanguard, plus oil pastels and soft pastels with addition of gold and torquoise glitter on two of the saris. I had fun creating their shadows onto each other rather than just on the road and, as you see, changed the format and colours of the saris and made the road and background much softer. I do enjoy making things up as I go along!

This is the original framed acrylic piece sold at a gallery in Holt during 2004:

Now I am searching for some photos I took of ladies in coloured saris carrying firewood on their heads beside a lake in the mountains. Think I'll have to resort to getting out the DVD we took and using a still from that for my reference plus my memory of this magical 'happenstance' as we were driving through.