March 2024 Demo by Anupama Ralegaonkar 

During Anupama’s demo we got to see a lot of her artworks, while she talked about her journey as an artist, her process and inspiration. She started studio Amoli as a vision to bring to the general public the various indigenous artforms of India & create a platform that is sensitive towards the artists. Most of the work through the studio involves teaching, organizing workshops and classes. During the process of running the studio, Anupama practiced a lot of the art on her own too and realized that she had a lot to express through art, and hence her own journey as an artist started.

Talking about the art process, Anupama mentioned that her artworks are nature inspired where she plays around with the patterns and colors to create something unique. She also has a strong inclination towards women and tries to bring out the gentleness, care and love associated with them through her paintings. Most of her artworks are very time consuming, taking anywhere from 2-3 months for a piece to finish depending on the size and intricacies. She works with acrylic paint & pen while creating intricate refined artworks on recycled cotton paper but using canvas to create bold artworks. She uses the technique of drawing thin lines using a rotring pen to fill up the art while also using a traditional nib pen dipped in diluted acrylic paint to make thicker lines. She emphasized on practicing simple geometric shapes and doing it in repetition to build confidence and attain a steady hand. She showed how to work with acrylic colors in the background to create a wash, going from light to dark saturation by building layers. She used already diluted acrylics to paint and talked about how it was easier to have these ready in bottles to avoid running out of a specific color and also preventing it from drying very fast on the palette.

Watch a recording of her demo here.