Venkatappa's paintings were predominantly watercolor, in contrast to a popular movement in the Mysore court to oils during his time, following Ravi Varma.
He later wrote in his journal Young India:[6] Even a layman could not but be struck with Venkatappa's minute attention to detail, and mastery of line and colour.
His pictures of dawn, morning and twilight with their wonderful cloud effects produce an atmosphere of peacefulness and repose that the artist has assimilated by his long and intensive studies of nature.
Also in 1926, shortly after his first watercolors, Venkatappa decided to start a painting school in Bangalore, and refused to sell his work thereon.
Venkatappa delayed the completion of this series of reliefs past 1940, when the new Maharaja (who ascended following the death of his father), dispensed of his services and ordered him to vacate the palace.
In Mysore Modern, Nair argues "the courtroom had long been the stage on which Venkatappa had striven to establish his artistic genius.