Kenistudio

Natural pure pigment - Hand Mulled Oil Paint Discovering a Handmade Earth Red When I began work on Matsya, the first painting in my Dashavatara series, I found myself searching for a particular quality in the skin tones. I wanted warmth, depth, and a sense of life beneath the surface. My initial attempts using commercial colors, including mixes based on vermilion hue, did not quite produce the effect I was looking for. That search led me in an unexpected direction. I ordered a few natural earth pigments and began experimenting with hand-mulling my own oil paint. Among them was an earthy red pigment that immediately caught my attention. After mulling it into oil and testing it in my paintings, I discovered a quality I had been struggling to achieve with tube paints. Hand mulled pure pigment paints, earth red and warm yellow.  The color produces a remarkable warmth in skin tones. It seems to create the impression of blood glowing beneath the skin without requiring additional glazing....

 Before and After Glazing – An Old Master's Secret One of the most fascinating stages of an oil painting is glazing. These two images show the painting before and after several transparent glaze layers. At first glance, the difference may seem subtle, but glazing transforms a painting in ways that are difficult to achieve by simply mixing colours opaquely. The technique has a long and distinguished history. During the Renaissance, many of the great masters built their paintings in stages, allowing each layer to dry before applying thin, transparent films of colour over the surface. Artists such as Jan van Eyck, Titian, and later Rembrandt used glazing to create extraordinary depth, luminosity, and richness that became hallmarks of classical oil painting. The science behind it is just as fascinating as the history. Opaque paint reflects most of the light directly from its surface. Transparent pigments behave differently. Light passes through the transparent glaze, reflects from the ...

Capturing the Blues: A Study in Monochromatic Oil Portraiture, featuring Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones There is something uniquely challenging and incredibly rewarding about stripping away the full color spectrum and forcing yourself to see the world through a single hue. I recently finished this small oil portrait (roughly 10" x 8"), and it was an exercise in pure value, atmosphere, and light. The Foundation: Crafting the Surface Before the paint even touched the surface, this piece started as a hands-on experiment. I wanted the stability of a wooden board but the organic texture of a canvas. To achieve this, I pasted a thin cotton cloth directly onto the wood, sealing and priming it with three precise coats of gesso. The result was a beautifully textured, responsive surface that allowed the oil paint to glide smoothly while retaining a lovely, subtle grain. The Palette: The Power of Two Blues When working in a monochrome style, your choice of pigment d...

This piece is a study based on Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s famous painting, In the Meadow (Dans la prairie). Renoir was a master of color, light, and capturing soft, fleeting moments of everyday warmth. Translating an Impressionist oil painting filled with vibrant greens, soft skin tones, and golden sunlight into charcoal was both a challenge and a revelatory exercise. ​Capturing Light without Color ​Without Renoir’s rich palette, the entire focus shifts to value, texture, and line. Charcoal forces you to think purely in terms of light and shadow.  ​ Depth through Contrast : The dark, sweeping strokes of the pine tree branches framing the top and sides help push the rolling hills and distant landscape further into the background. ​Folds and Form: The heavy draping of the figures' dresses was ideal for charcoal. Layering smudged tones with firm, deep charcoal lines allowed me to build the weight and movement of the fabric as the two figures sit close together on the grassy slope...

​These are a couple of my still life studies in oil. Working on these pieces helped me immensely with understanding light logic, atmosphere, and capturing varied surface textures. ​The interplay of light, shadow, and reflections changes dramatically across different surfaces, from the smooth skin of grapes and the metallic sheen of a jug, to the soft glow of cut fruit and the gentle folds of drapery. Rather than simply rendering shapes or objects, these works served as a deep dive into light behavior. Especially how illumination interacts with translucent plum skins, a slice of butter on a plate, glossy berries, or the warm reflections across a decorative pitcher. ​Another essential aspect of this study was color harmony. Observing how a collection of varied objects responds to a shared light quality and unifies within a single atmosphere. ​Although a few of these have found homes and bought by collectors of art patrons, I will always treasure them. Studies like these built a foundati...