July 9th 2013: Painting the Taj Mahal at the Urban Art Bar, Boston

Today after work, my friend and I headed to the Urban Art Bar in Boston to learn how to paint the Taj Mahal, which is supposed to look somewhat like what is shown below.

This place is pretty much an art studio, with a bar area on the side where one can order drinks to partake of while painting for 2 over hours.

There are past paintings hung all over the place as well.

After putting on an apron and getting settled down before my blank easel,

it was time to start painting, after getting introduced to all our brushes, with guidance from an artist of course.

First, we split the canvas into 5 distinct regions like shown below.

Next, we basically started painting the horizon, which depicts an evening atmosphere, to cover the entire canvas, using different colors for each region and allowing them to blend together, which I wasn't really doing a good job of.

The next part was putting the foundations of the Taj Mahal up, drawing the outlines of rectangles and rods before filling them in, and drawing the onion shaped dome of the palace, which was actually pretty easy, although I drew my structure way too high and had little room for the dome.

After putting in windows and other decorations on the building, the next part was making a reflection in the "water" that looked convincing, which was pretty much a few strokes of the brush with random "breaks" due to the "motion" of the water. Next it was painting in the grass and the trees, with corresponding reflections in the water. The hard part was actually getting the shading right, with the sun shining from one side of the Taj Mahal, making the other side darker, but somehow I managed to do it convincingly. With that, my masterpiece was pretty much completed.

I still can't believe that I was able to paint so nicely, when I pretty much failed art when I was still in school. My friend did a pretty good job too, and he felt his trees were better painted than mine. My shadow was definitely better than his though.

Overall, an extremely fun experience when painting with friends, and it does bring your spirits up knowing that a non-painter can come up with a pretty good piece of artwork.