Mohamed  Hirji

Fine Art

Blogs Page 2

The Iris - Watercolour 1

Jun 11, 2018



While the weather was decent, I traded the treadmill for my daily walks outdoors. I notice flowers starting to bloom in my neighbours gardens.


I think I am going to try and paint it.

Jun 13, 2018

The Iris - Watercolour 2

Initially, I thought of painting the iris in acrylic. But acrylic although much easier to handle and paint with is not as luminous as watercolor, moreover I realized there is a lot of colour blending and therefore settled on watercolors.


I have an Arches watercolour block with the paper size of 11inX14in. So I chose to paint it on the block (No stretching of paper required)

The Iris - Watercolour 3

Jun 16, 2018

In the progression of the watercolor painting of the Iris, after the faint pencil drawing, I went ahead with the "block in" of the shadows on the flower. It is a little tricky, I did not want to go too dark too fast in values but

Jul 17, 2018

The Iris - Watercolour 4 - Conclusion

These are the final stages of the painting of the Iris In Watercolor:


All the shadows of the petals were blocked in and let to dry.

Jul 3, 2018

The Iris - Acrylic 1

For the Acrylic version, I need to prepare my birch panels (5 ply birch) anything less than 0.5in thick has a tendency to warp, so I use 0.5" thick panels.

The Iris - Acrylic 2

Jul 14, 2018

Following the Canvas preparation and the drawing, I blocked in a variegated green and yellow colours for the background.

The Iris - Acrylic 3 - Conclusion

Jul 17, 2018

Subsequently, I painted the rest of the petals, added the the red-orange "beards" and refined the stem and the background. The whites of the flowers have also been painted with warm and cool variegated colours.

Jun 9, 2018

Shapes - The Ones To Avoid

One of the cornerstone of a painting is a shape. A shape is any object which has two dimensions e.g. a height or length and width. There is also a negative shape that surrounds the object but we will discuss that another time.


Let us take a simple example of my painting of the water bottle. Here the silver steel water bottle is the positive shape. The shadow on the table is also a shape. The brown background is also a shape, however since it does not represent an object, it is termed a negative shape.

Aug 5, 2018

Shapes - From Boring To Interesting- Part 1

 On one of my previous blogs, I discussed shapes that tend to be boring. One of them was a square shaped building seen below. Here I discuss some tips to change this shape to a more interesting shape or select one that is more captivating.

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Aug 18, 2018

Shapes - From Boring To Interesting- Part 2

 On one of my previous blogs, I discussed shapes that tend to be boring. One of them was a square shaped building seen below. Here I discuss some tips to change this shape to a more interesting shape or select one that is more captivating.

Shapes - From Boring To Interesting- Part 3

Sep 10, 2018

 On one of my previous blogs, I discussed shapes that tend to be boring. One of them was a square shaped building seen below. Here I discuss some tips to change this shape to a more interesting shape or select one that is more captivating.

Shapes - From Boring To Interesting- Part 4 The Conclusion

Sep 29, 2018

 On one of my previous blogs, I discussed shapes that tend to be boring. One of them was a square shaped building seen below. Here I discuss some tips to change this shape to a more interesting shape or select one that is more captivating.


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