discussion Ganesha, hand-carved in Rajasthan

[PaulinKendal]

I got this wooden statue on a trip to India earlier this year, and was inspired to paint him by the many painted wooden icons I saw while I was there.

This proved very easy to paint - nice and big, not much shading required, and the slightly rough detail of the wood carving made precision unnecessary. So a perfect reintroduction to painting after several months' layoff.

Some might quibble over whether this should be listed under 'Fantasy' or 'Pre WW1' but I'm atheist, so for me he's strictly a figment of the collective human imagination - no offence intended.

(The original wood carving and progress pictures are in figure-related chat, not the 'under construction' section.)

As to scale, the entire icon is 27cms tall.

 

[Stefee]

Superbly done and a very unusual subject.

 

[Steven000]

Nice paintwork Paul, cheers

 

[Tim Marlow]

Love it. Great choice of colours and tones. Great stuff Paul, glad you are back on the horse

 

[Jim R]

That's a real eye catcher. Very unusual subject, great choice of colours and skillfully painted.

 

[Airborne01]

A beauty! Definitely on to be proud of Paul - bet it looks superb on the book shelves!
Steve

 

[PaulinKendal]

Gents, you're all very kind.

Airborne01 - Ganesha is the Remover of Obstacles, and his statue is often placed at the home doorway, supposedly bringing peace, positivity and wisdom to the household. As we're in the process of moving house, he'll be positioned facing the main entrance to our new home.

But he looks fine on a bookshelf, too!

 

[PaulTRose]

Wow i did not expect it to look that good...... Thats really nice work

Id love to know what someone from india thinks of it

 

[Jim R]

Just looked again at this on the big screen of my desktop monitor. Are they mice or rats? It looks like Ganesha has his trunk on a pile of nuts and the little mouse/rat is looking longingly at the food
Even blown up on the big screen your skills are very apparent, super work.

 

[flyjoe180]

Beautiful paint work Paul, very nicely done

 

[PaulinKendal]

Just looked again at this on the big screen of my desktop monitor. Are they mice or rats? It looks like Ganesha has his trunk on a pile of nuts and the little mouse/rat is looking longingly at the food
Even blown up on the big screen your skills are very apparent, super work.

The rodents are nominally rats. Ganesha has been around for about 2,000 years, so he's become associated with a massive array of signs and symbols, and the rats are just one of them. They've been mice or shrews in past incarnations, and these particular carvings look like three stripe indian palm squirrels to me (we saw loads of them in India). So I painted them as that - but I only gave them two stripes, for no good reason, tbh.

The pile of nuts are a pile of Indian sweets, which Ganesha is very fond of (hence the big belly).

What's he got in his other hands? On one he has the symbol 'Om' painted. The other two could be holding an axe, a noose, a conch shell, a goad, a spray of rice, a lute, a thunderbolt, a lotus flower, and on and on (and on).

I couldn't decide what they looked like so I've just painted them as gilded symbolic versions of whatever they are actually supposed to be, and hoped for the best.

Hinduism seems to me to be an amazingly inclusive religion - I was amazed to discover that Hinduism had incorporated both Jesus and Mohammed into their pantheon of gods, and that it even had a branch that is atheist! How does THAT work?!

Whatever, the relaxed nature of Hinduism (compared to my strict Catholic upbringing, anyway) makes me confident my interpretation of the statue would be well-received by the faithful.

 

[PaulinKendal]

Oh, and his beads are painted in the colours of the Indian tricolour - saffron (for Hinduism), green (for Islam), and white (for peace), which is rather nice, isn't it?

 

[Jim R]

That's very interesting. Thanks Paul.

 

[Gern]

Unusual subject beautifully done.

 

[yak face]

I missed the finishing of this paul as I was away and have been looking out for it since , finally had to use the search bar and here we are! Absolutely love this ,a brilliant bit of painting skill and a fascinating subject . You should be well pleased , cheers tony

 

[PaulinKendal]

That's very kind, Tony. I'm well pleased with it - to me it justifies painting over what was a very nice piece of woodcarving, that could've been left in its original form perfectly well: