Magunta Dayakar - My Paintings of Abstract Realism

I paint my abstract realisticpaintings with the material shown in the above figure.
500 ml acrylic paint bottles, a large painting knife, a one and half inch shorthandle brush, a one inch long handle bristle brush, a one fourth inch longhandle bristle brush and a long handle round brush.
That's all. No more no less.
I mix paint directly on canvas rather than using a pallet. Only very rarely Iactually use the pallet.
I use white very less in color mixing to keep colors close to their chroma.
I paint only from imagination; I don't like to work from Nature or from photographsbecause I believe imagination is more powerful than any other sources.
You can see my painting approach in my other books, LearnComposition And Create Beautiful Paintings or SimplifiedColor Schemes for Art Students
Ninety nine percent of my paintings are done with painting knife. Working withknife will help me to create intriguing shapes and interesting textures.Textures will bring the pictures to life.
Whenever I paint with knife I never think that I am using a knife. To me it isonly a tool to apply paint on my picture space.
When painting is in progress, moment to moment I will analyse the shapes,values, colors and composition aspects. I will continue that analysis andapplications till I captured what I want on the canvas. I try to get realisticillusion through establishing value relations between elements by usingcomposition.
To understandvalue relations you must understand about TONE without any confusion. I amgiving an excerpt from my book ' STRAIGHT TALK ON PAINTING AND PAINTER'SPROBLEMS' which explains on this topic below.

Q. I heard in all color applications understanding ' Tone ' is very difficult.Is it true?
A. Yes. Truly it's difficult.
Q. Interesting. First I would like to know clearly about it. Can you explain?
A. Sure. Tone is related to color. When you mix grey with color it will becomeTone. You also call it tonal color. To explain more about it, for example takethe word skin tones. Skin tone means skin color. But we won't use the word skincolor, instead of it we use the word skin tone. The reason ... we won't see anyparticular color there to define. We may call it white, brown, black but it'snot true. It's only our feeling.
Q. Just a moment. Are you saying skin has no color?
A. Yes. Skin has no color. Not only skin, whatever we are seeing in Nature hasno color. What we are seeing is tonal color.
Q. Interesting what you are saying. We are used to see so many colors in thenature. That's why we say colorful Nature but you are saying there is no color
A. It's true. Every color what we see in nature is tone or tonal color. Youwon't see any pure colors in nature. Even you see some of the things likeflowers they are also affected by light and atmosphere. Result we seeeverything in tonal color, To do successful painting every art student has tounderstand tonal color.
Q. What you are saying is surprising. Please tell me about this tonal color...
A. Sure. Already I explained to you about greys. Those greys will playimportant role in making a tone. There are two kinds of greys. One is, whenyou mix white with black the result is Grey. You call this one, achromaticgrey. And next one is complementary grey. If you mix a color with itscomplementary co lor , the outcome is Complementary grey. If you mix anyone of these greys with any color that willbe a Tone. This you can also call Tonal Color. Tone is related to color. It'svery important to understand this. In painting applications you can also callit as tonal value.
Q. Tonal value ...
A. Yes. Like color every tonal color also has some value. That value ismeasured through value scale or grey scale whatever name you may call it by.You call that value 'Tonal Value'. We paint most of the pictures in tonalcolors so you should know the value of those colors in value scale. If you knowthis you will have a strong foundation to do a successful painting.