Don Renuka Ranjaya:

Capturing nature’s glory with watercolours

Renuka Ranjaya’s persistent passion for painting was due to his environment at home. He hails from a family of artists. His father and brother were reputed artists. Don stphen Raymond was one of the prominent artists for church murals and a sculptor.

Renuka Ranjaya is a chip off the old block. He inherited the artistic skills from his father.

As a schoolboy he turned out sketches of leading personalities and scholars. He completed his O/Ls at St. Xavier’s College, Maravila.

After coming to Colombo he became a member of the Ceylon Society of Arts, Colombo. He joined the art classes conducted by the society and received training in drawing, painting and sculpture. He was fortunate to come under the tutelage of Kalapathi Pulasthi Ediriweera and Jayantha Tissera who moulded him to be an artist.

Renuka held his first art exhibition in 2012 organised by the Ceylon Society of Arts. It was a tremendous success. He is a lover of nature and in landscape compositions he uses themes that stimulated art lovers. He infused into his paintings bright colours such as green, blue and orange.

One of his paintings

Don Renuka Ranjaya

The subjects he selected for his paintings were realistic scenes of everyday life such as farmers, bullock carts, Bhikkhus, waterfalls, wildlife and religious places of worship.

He excels in portraits of public figures. He gained a reputation for painting some of the most beautiful pictures. He absorbed beauty, filtered it through his philosophy and transmuted it into living art.

Observation of nature is part of an artist’s life. It enlarges his knowledge, keeps him fresh and gives inspiration to create a true environment of nature by the use of sober colours.

As a wildlife painter he has captured the mood of any animal in any situation. His deep feelings for animals and nature is so much that he constantly visits national parks, such as Yala, Kumana, Wilpattu and Pinnawala to see elephants.

Renuka is widely known as a portrait painter. He aroused the enthusiasm of the affluent in Colombo 7. It was all the more surprising because he never flattered any of his clients. He painted as they were, in all their physical beauty.

His use of soft and glowing colours was remarkable. He has an individual style of his own to create bold eye-catching compositions in rich textures and a striking contrast.

Renuka works with oil, acrylic and watercolour.

He considers watercolour as a highly expressive form of art that is both exciting and enjoyable.

He says a watercolour artist is capable of capturing the glories of nature with its many strokes of light and dark and in between misty shades with a few strokes of his brush.

He has participated in many art exhibitions organised by the Ceylon Arts Society and won many awards and received certificates of merits.

He held his second art exhibition organised by the Municipal Council of Negombo, it attracted many art lovers. At present he works at home promoting his work to tourists and intends to exhibit his latest work later this year.