Sudha's Creative Journey

A note on this painting

While many of my paintings take 4-8 months to complete, this one was made in just three weeks and is one of my absolute favourites. I could, in the first couple of hours of sitting, transfer the absorption of the subject in her book onto the canvas. In painting portraits, facial expressions are perhaps the most difficult to capture. And when that falls into place, the rest is easy.

The subject for the painting, incidentally, is my mother (then 86), who is a voracious reader. 

She did keep changing positions, falling asleep every now and then, etc. But I had got what I wanted by then, having put the vital factors in place.