Paintings of 2016

2016 has been busy. I have not painted as much as last year or as much as I wanted. But  here are some of the paintings that have been painted this year.

Oil portrait of girls

I can finally reveal this portrait of my sisters girls. I painted it for our parents as a Xmas gift. Although it was posted from South Africa to Europe on 14th December, may parents received the painting only the beginning of March. I am unsure who to blame- the SA post office or holiday season for the delay, but clearly am happy that the painting reached the target unharmed:)

Here they are:

The process of painting them was somewhat challenging since it is hard to get two kids of that age to look into the camera and pose at the same time. So I had to do some adjustments to the final setup, putting the parts of the different pictures into one. I am quite happy with the result.

Here are some progress photos:

Horse & human portrait

I am happy to announce that another of my paintings is making his owner happy. This was commissioned by Daiga as a birthday gift for a friend. Since then I have received a email from the birthday girl with loads of happy emotions:)

Oil on canvas board, 12x16 inch

Colorful dog portraits in Cape Town

I was contacted by Michelle to do commission paintings of her beautiful dogs. Since I love painting any living being, of course I agreed:)

These are the pictures that were sent to me.

Initially we were thinking of ding the portraits in mild colors using mostly, white, grey, blue, brown. And this is what it looked like:

Although I loved this look and had tremendous fun painting these boys. Michelle sent me this picture and asked if I could make the portraits look like this, since she loves everything of this painting:

I will admit that it was very hard for me to actually change the look of the paintings- as I really loved it. The next challenge was to understand how to get the feel that comes out of this painting. I tried different brushes and palette knife- but it just did not work. And then it stroked me - I had to use my fingers!!! It was a extremely messy stile for me, but extremely fun too:)

And here is the result!

We are very pleased with the result:) Happy ending!

The portraits are acrylic on canvas, 56 x 71cm each.

Cheers, Ritma

Alla Prima whale painting

I had some oil paint left after finishing the latest portrait painting. There was some paint left on my palette. I am generally a stingy person and could not let the paint go to waste.

One of my friends really loves whales and I had a small, plain canvas that I keep at home for those "just in case" moments.

So this is the result 10x10inch Alla Prima (wet-on-wet) oil painting of a Southern Right Whale.

Family portrait commission in oil

This beautiful family commissioned a portrait for Christmas. It was delivered to them on 23.December, 2015 :)

I was smiling through the whole process of painting... well most of it:)

Size: 70x91cm (30x36inch)