A Dream come true...

Nātyānjali - My Tribute to Indian Classical Dance
Oil on Canvas, 22" x 28" (56 cm x 71 cm)

Oil Painting had been the longest dream of my life. It had begun in my high school with the good collection of Art books and magazines that we had access to in our School Library. Also, there were quite a few wonderful Oil Paintings seen on the walls of classrooms and dormitories in the school campus done by our then Art Teacher Sri. M. Venkateswar Rao. Once an year, we would get bookshop on the truck into our school campus and we would get class wide turns to step inside, explore and buy books of our interest. Much of the books were of Soviet Union, Moscow publications/prints with top-notch paper and some were with full of amazing Oil Paintings.

My dream of Oil Painting continued through my Engineering college-years in Vijayawada, India, wherein the college library had a good collection of foreign Art Books and Magazines exclusively on Oil Painting. I was probably one of very few Engineering Students to flip all pages of every single Art book found in that library. I even bought a Soviet publication book of Russian Artists Oil Paintings, the one and only one book I could find in a book shop which was as expensive as our Singapore edition of Computer Programming books priced in Dollars but sold in converted Indian currency. My search for Oil Painting books & magazines even went on and on along the foot-paths(side-walks) in front of Alankar Theatre in Vijayawada on Sunday evening book sales. I could hardly find any though. My search for Oil Painting Books continued in Sunday book market on the side walks in Koti, Hyderabad after I graduated and started working. There I found several small 20 page Art Magazines on Oil Painting and bought several of those.

Salarjung Museum, Hyderabad probably was the very first place where I had seen any framed original Oil Paintings the very first time in my life. I visited this museum few times when I was working in Hyderabad exclusively for Painting & Sculpture Galleries.

I still remember the day I went straight from the Railway station to and spent few hours of my time at Raja Ravi Varma Art Gallery in Mysore, India when I reached Mysore about 8 hours before the scheduled pickup time for my very first job interview for Air Force, India. That is still one of my sweetest memories to recover on any given day.

My first overseas visit on my professional job to London, UK, left me with few full-weekends of unforgettable memories filled with just me staring in front of wonderful original Oil Paintings by renowned Artists fount at Tate Gallery, National Gallery and British Museum in London. The countless hours that I spent at the The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago downtown are still fresh in my heart where I used to go every Tuesday evening after office-hours to spend my time sketching & studying by sitting on the floor in front of selected paintings and sculptures. My quest for Oil Painting continued in Chicago and pushed me into an Oil Painting course at a Community College which helped me more on learning how to study Paintings of Masters rather than Oil Painting itself. I attempted few oil paintings during this course but none of them I claim that I finished.

My dream of Oil Painting continued to haunt me from time-to-time and finally in 2015 I made it come true with this very first painting that I claim as my very first-ever finished Oil Painting forever. As my dream took such a long time to come true, framing it took quite sometime and finally I think I found a perfect frame for it. It now appears in our family traditional Dining room and makes me feel proud every single day.

"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them." - Walt Disney

Put your Heart into work and get it done which should make you feel proud of yourself when you look back!
Happy Painting!!

Details
Mediums: Oil on Canvas
Title: Nātyānjali - My Tribute to Indian Classical Dance
Category: Portraits
Inspiration: My dream wish-list and random pictures

Size: 22" x 28" (56 cm x 71 cm)

Toolkit
Surface: Artist's Loft Gallery Wrapped Traditional Canvas
Paints: Rembrandt Artist's quality Oil Paints
Brushes: No 1, 5 and 8 filbert, No. 1 rounded
Other Media: Winsor & Newton Liquin Original