We all keep walking towards our goals in life. That’s what gives our life momentum. There is something about movement which is quite liberating. When you start moving, taking actions or even exercising, you take control of your constant thoughts. As every painting has a story, allow me to share the story of making of the painting “Night and Day”.

The best way to take inspiration for being disciplined is to take inspiration from nature. No matter what, every day sun rises and sets punctually. During night, moons and stars fill up the sky indicating the time to relax and calling it a day. And then again, a new day starts and this continuous cycle of day and night goes on. You might be in a troublesome situation in your life but you always get a fresh day to start things over.

This phenomenon of constant night and day inspired me to make an oil painting dedicated entirely to this process. I tried making an abstract figure which is in motion and used colors that are found in day and night in the foreground as well as background.

My initial layout of “Night and Day” in water colors:

For Night and Day blog 1 - Making of the painting – “Night and Day”
Initial layout of “Night and Day”

As can be seen from the colors used, I intended to use colors of day and night. Sky is blue during day and black during night. Hence, I have used various shades of blue and black in the foreground and background respectively.

Next step was to convert above initial layout in water colors into oil painting. I used a canvas of 36 x 24 inches for the same.

For Night and Day blog 2 - Making of the painting – “Night and Day”
Initial coating of oil paint

As can be seen from the above initial coloring, I colored the foreground in blue first in making of the painting. You can also observe that the canvas was not stretched and hence I used masking tape at the borders.

Next I colored the foreground in shades of black and grey and the canvas looked like this:

For Night and Day blog 3 - Making of the painting – “Night and Day”
Initial coloring of the foreground

With the initial blocking of colors, I had to continue shading with more layers of oil paint. It took a lot of sittings and refining to finally get the look that I was looking for. The final painting; stretched and finished look like this:

Oil painting entitled Night and Day - Making of the painting – “Night and Day”
Night and Day
What this painting stands for?

This painting depicts the continuous flow of day and night in our lives. End of each day results in the commencement of night and vice versa. Using the various shades of day and night in making of the painting, this painting is meant to inspire to continue moving and embrace the flow of life!

What happened next?

This painting got lots of appreciation even before it got finished. I went on to display this painting in my exhibition – “Colors of Life” in the year 2013. Eventually, this painting got sold.


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