“Tath-agata Tatha-gata” (painting)

“Tath-agata Tatha-gata”
(Thus come, Thus gone)

I started working with oils on mother’s day - 8th may. Mom used to do oils so I thought of giving her a homage by doing something with oils.

I am using oils for the first time and I had no idea how to use them. I browsed lots of videos and referred to dummies book and finally thought of working on something simple. I started with buddha.. jus like that!! And I called her at night with some doubts (complicated at least for me): “I have turpentine, I have linseed and I have tube colors. How shall I start painting? Am I suppose to use oil with colors just like we use water with water colors?” We had pretty interesting discussion. And I started with background shade with blue.

Initial Buddha in painting appeared more like “Avatar”. It was all blue. Next layer I managed to fix the skin shade. Added yellow halo at back. I used more oil with color so it took 4 days to dry up completely. Third layer I added some highlighting shades of white. Day before yesterday I came to know that on Tuesday its Buddha Poornima and we have a holiday. So I thought of finishing it by tonight. Its actually morning now, 4:35 AM. The paint is still wet and will take some more days to dry up.

Check out the attached pic !

This is somewhat depicting buddha + poornima (full moon) .. I realized when I completed :D

Got next canvas of double size .. lets see what comes up next … I dunno what but it will be something different am sure :D

And yes I wont be continuing with oils for long I am catching headache with smell of turpentine and linseed :(


Happy Buddha Poornima (17th May ‘11)