Today I painted the same house for the third time and finally got it right

There's this old bungalow on Nandi Durga Road, one of those Art Deco ones with the curved verandah and the beautiful terrible paint job, salmon pink over original white, peeling everywhere. I've sketched it maybe five times, painted it twice before, and both times it came out technically fine but completely dead. No life in it. Like a photograph but worse.

Today I went back with just my travel kit, small palette, one brush, no pencil underdrawing. Sat on the compound wall for about 45 minutes in that late-morning heat that makes you regret every life choice. And something just… unlocked. I let the watercolour bleed into the sketchy ink lines. Didn't try to fix the wonky bits. Left the verandah half-raw. It's not my most accurate piece by a long shot but it's the first one that feels like the house, not like my anxiety about drawing the house properly.

Anyway I'm still riding that high. Chai and Marie biscuits kind of celebration tonight. 🙏

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8 comments

Giulia Bruno·1w

This is the thing about working something to death until it comes back alive. I know it in printmaking, you pull a plate ten times, fifteen, and somewhere around pull eight you stop thinking about what you're supposed to be doing and the image finally tells you what it is. The underdrawing being gone matters, I think. You stopped mediating through your own planning.

Also, salmon pink over white on an Art Deco bungalow, that's the exact kind of wrong that makes something worth looking at. Hope you post it.

Dani Okafor·1w

The underdrawing thing is SO real and it's one of those things I think non-painters don't totally get, like how is removing a step making it BETTER, shouldn't more planning = better result?? But no, because the underdrawing is you telling the painting what it's supposed to be before it's had a chance to tell YOU. I've started doing that more, just skipping the pencil and going straight in with a really diluted wash to block things in instead. Scary as hell every time but the paintings that come out of it have this looseness I can't get any other way.

Also fully agree about the salmon pink. Bad paint jobs on good architecture are my favorite thing to paint honestly, they've got so much more character than a fresh coat.

Ananya IyerOP·1w

The diluted wash to block in, that's smart. I keep thinking I need to try that but then I'm at the location and old habits take over and I'm reaching for the pencil before I've even decided what I'm doing. Next time I'm going to force myself. Just sit on my hands for the first five minutes if I have to.

And yes, the salmon pink. It's so bad it's almost intentional, you know? Like someone looked at that house and thought yes, this is the colour. I kind of love it. Wouldn't want it any other way.

Ananya IyerOP·1w

The printmaking comparison is really good, I never thought of it that way but it's exactly that, isn't it? You work through the stiffness and the trying-too-hard and at some point you're just in it. Pull eight. I'm going to remember that.

And ha, the salmon pink. I keep thinking someone's going to show up with a colour chart one day and repaint it "correctly" and I'll be glad and mournful at the same time.

Lukas Brandt·1w

This resonates. The third time, that's usually where it lives, isn't it. First time you're still painting what you think you see, second time you're correcting mistakes, third time you've stopped trying and the thing finally gets to be itself.

I know the feeling in the studio, but it's different when you're outside, working small and fast, no safety net of the underdrawing. You said no pencil, I think that's the real unlock. Drawing locks you into something before you've had the chance to feel it. Painting direct, you're working with the uncertainty, not against it.

45 minutes in that heat, one brush, salmon pink peeling over white, sounds right. Sometimes the limitation is the thing that lets it happen.

Dani Okafor·1w

The third time thing, yeah. And you're right about the underdrawing locking you in, I think that's what I was circling but couldn't quite name. There's something about committing to the first wash with nothing underneath that forces you to actually look instead of just tracing what you already decided was there.

Also 45 minutes in that heat, I felt that in my bones haha. There's a specific kind of desperate focus you get when you're sweating through your shirt and the paper's drying faster than you can lay down color. Makes you work fast and mean it.

Ananya IyerOP·1w

The heat is honestly part of the process at this point, isn't it? Like you can't get that particular intensity sitting in an airconditioned room with a reference photo. Something about the physical discomfort keeps you honest. Or maybe that's just what I tell myself when I'm standing there wondering why I didn't pick something easier, like stamp collecting.

And yeah, no pencil, I think I've done maybe four or five sketches since that day without any underdrawing and every single one has something the others didn't. Not always good, exactly, but alive. Which I'll take over technically correct any day now.

Ananya IyerOP·1w

You're bang on about the no-pencil thing. I was so nervous doing it, felt like walking without a cane. But that first wash hitting the paper with nothing underneath, there's no going back, you just have to commit. And that commitment itself is what makes it alive, I think. The heat was something else though, I'm still not used to how fast the paint dries when you're out in it. Had to work wetter than I normally would, which probably helped too. Where do you usually paint, studio or on location?