For Satheesh Vellinezhi, Deputy Chief Designer of The Hindu, Kochi, painting in water colours is a passion. Last week, he got recognition for this love when he won the Vijayaraghavan Endowment Gold medal for landscape, instituted by the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi, among its awards for works of 2011.
Part of the Kailas Yatra series, of 30 paintings which he is getting ready for a solo show, this frame gives you a typical Himalayan feel.
His style belongs to the K.C.S.Panikkar school of painting. His works have been a great inspiration for Satheesh. Like Ekalavya, he learnt much, looking at KCS paintings at the galleries in Thiruvananthapuram, where he studied for his BFA.
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The white snow you see in Satheesh' work does not come from a water colour tube. “I like to leave the white of the paper intact and use the other colours to advantage. One has to practise hard to master this technique and I prefer that to using white paint,” he says. Blue is the most used colour with a dash of brick red for the monasteries and steel grey for the cold terrain..
Satheesh also loves to do illustrations, which is a challenge that keeps him happy. Besides the print medium, Satheesh has worked in the software industry and in animation, early in his career. He was also the art director of the movie, Kazhakam.
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