Lots of CWA action!

2014 has started out with lots of sketching action and oppurtunity for me. Most of it is thanks to the CWA. A wonderful group that I am a part of that makes sure that no matter what happens there's a reason to sketch outdoors each sunday. Soon after I was back from Goa, our group displayed our sketches during the Mylapore fest and next to our stall was a busy street full of banana vendors. Below you see the general crowd and mayhem of Art Street where we camped with our artwork, making live portraits and sketches.

More recently, we took a day trip to Senji which was hot, tiring but totally worth it. The old fort and the ruins have tons of sketchworthy subjects to offer. My first painting is of Rajagiri or King's Fort. I tried to do a watercolour directly without doing outlines in pen. Something I'm very afraid of and in the end I succumbed and added a bit of ink work for definition . But at least its a start. At least I did the brushwork first.

And this one below is an attempt at a panoramic capture of Senji. I climbed up Rajagiri (my first painting) but only a fifth of the way and already the view was so... Epic... as a friend put it, that I gave up on the climb and decided to record instead.

Those monkeys crept into the frame. Look adorable. Most annoying and when they single you out (one female did) it can be quite terrifying.

Sunlight on Stone

A quick shadow study of the top of a monolithic Chola structure at Mamallapuram. It's locally referred to as the Ganesha Ratha but the figures and figurines on the top are very different from the usual Ganesha temples.
Like most other Chola architecture in the town, its a subtractive work - (instead of adding small blocks to make a building you subtract from one large chunk of rock to arrive at the end result). It was late afternoon and the sun was falling perfectly on the granite.
This was part of a day long trip that a bunch of us sketchers made. Much fun was had and many sketches were produced by one and all. If you'd like to see more work from the group at Mamallapuram you can check them out here.

Sketching is Not Allowed

I think it was roughly ten years back when, as students of architecture, we heard that the ASI had formulated a new rule saying sketching of heritage monuments is not allowed. I remember some of our Professors being outraged and several discussions ensued about signing petitions against this. I'm not sure if petitions were ever written or signed.

Last year at the Taj Mahal, I had a small pencil in my bag. I waited half an hour in the queue to get in and then was sent off to the lockers to stash my bag and come back. That was my mistake. After all it has World Heritage status and it is made of  white marble and already half a million idiots have defaced it. The authorities are understandably strict.

On Sunday I visited the five Rathas at Mamallapuram. Fine seventh century examples of subtractive architecture. Security is not as tight, and I got in with my sketchbook and pencils but before I could finish a rough pencil outline I was asked to stop. Knowing about the rule, I didn't argue but it got me thinking - what is the exact logic behind banning sketching. That too, rough impressionistic sketches like this one, where I sit quite far removed from the monument. What threat do I or my sketch pose to these monuments?

On the other hand I did notice several droves of families with half a dozen children in tow clamber all over the same, old structures. The surfaces have fine sculptures of figurines depicting mythological scenes and children are propped up on top of these sculptures - on the top of animal figures, on the shoulders of lords so that a photograph may be clicked. Apparently this is allowed and poses no threat to the severely wind eroded sculptures.

I feel we need to re-visit the petition idea. Anyway, after being booted out, I sat under a tree and finished as much as I could based on the rough sketch lines I already had, and once in a while walked back to the spot but just outside the fence to fill in a few details. Finally I finished the water colour wash on a pavement next to a shop. I was lucky to have another sketcher sketch me at this point! So if you are curious to see what I looked like with all my watercolour gear spread out on the sidewalk you can see the sketch here. I think this would be my very first on location drawing done at four different locations!

A Trip to the Zoo

This sunday the penciljammers in Madras decided to meet at Vandalur Zoo. I hadn't been there in almost twenty years and only hazily  remembered a vast scorching expanse of tarmac more than anything else. Thankfully in the past two decades the trees have grown.

Most animal enclosures are reasonably generous with a lot of trees and shade for the animals. People can't get too close with double lines of fencing and walls and then moats. So we sort of squinted and approximated and sketched what we could. 

The weather was merciless. Thankfully Nithya hit upon an idea of hiring one of the battery operated vans exclusively for the sketching group. We had it for only one hour and had to do the whole circuit and be back within that time, so when we saw something interesting we would all hop out yelling to the driver "just two minutes" and mostly we were back in the van in five minutes and off again. 

 It was unimaginably crowded and most people had never seen sketchers before so we sometimes attracted more attention than the animals.  I had taken 4 water brushes with pre-mixed colours filled in it so that I could sketch and paint quickly standing up. It worked out well except the colours were a bit diluted and I had a very limited colour palette to work with. But it sure beat lugging my entire kit around in the heat!

Higginbothams.....What looms ahead?

Last sunday morning I managed to sketch something I've been meaning to capture for a long time now. On the arterial and busy Mount Road there has been hectic construction activity for the last couple of years as Chennai hopes to have the first phase of its Metro Rail Project up and running by year end.

Mount Road is one of the five old arterial roads radiating outward from Fort St George, it was a major road when Madras was the capital of the British colony of India and still has several old buildings on it. Hopefully the metro rail in this area will be completely underground and one hopes further that the structures put up as station entry and exit points are done sensitively keeping heritage structures in mind. One can only hope, though, as such plans are not very openly shared in the public realm in this country.

I had particularly wanted to draw this building - Higginbothams - as it is India's oldest bookshop in existence. Yes, that is right! Built in 1844, it has stood to this day housing books of all kinds and even until twenty five years ago it was the place to go to for book lovers.

Soon after it was built, Lord Trevelyan, who was the Governor of Madras wrote :
"Among the many elusive and indescribable charms of life in Madras City, is the existence of my favourite book shop 'Higginbotham's' on Mount Road. In this bookshop I can see beautiful editions of the works of Socrates, Plato, Euripides, Aristophanes, Pindar, Horace, Petrarch, Tasso, Camoyens, Calderon and Racine. I can get the latest editions of Victor Hugo, the great French novelist. Amongst the German writers, I can have Schiller and Goethe. Altogether a delightful place for the casual browser and a serious book lover"

Today, digital technology, the internet, e-books, the ipad and the kindle are elbowing out the good old paperback while at the same time, over-crowded cities bursting at the seams and choked with traffic jams are trying to magically bring in the infrastructure that was never planned for.

Lets hope the metro project has been planned well. Lets hope the project is completed despite whatever the result of the next election, and lets hope it works beautifully for the citizens of this city.

Something to look forward to

Every year, in december or jan, the Kalakshetra foundation hosts a Dastkar Bazaar where over hundred different traditional craftsmen from all corners of India set up stalls to sell hand-made products. The bazaar is a platform to interact directly with craftsmen who man their stalls and also to marvel at the few people of each of these far flung communities who passionately hang on to their traditional skills that could otherwise so easily die in our fast paced industrial and digital world today.

Many craftsmen have innovated with traditional wisdom to bring new products that are relevant to the city-shopper. Paper, jute, bamboo, clay, wood-work, textiles, jewellery, leather. The place looked festive with colourful penants strung from the trees and hundreds of eager shoppers strolling around.

I did this sketch on 21st January for the 34th worldwide sketchcrawl day! It is now well into february and about time I shared it.

A Family sketchcrawl!

This sunday was a long awaited fun family sketching day. My parents, cousin and I went with our sketching bags to the Thiruvanmiyur temple in the morning and each found our own nook to settle down in and sketch. I chose the sacred tree of the temple. It's supposed to be the oldest part of the temple and has some old mythological link to the sage Valmiki's resting spot on his travels here. 

All large temple complexes have a sacred tree. This one is medicinal and called locally as the Vanni tree. It is very very old and gnarled and has been protected by a fencing. People go around the fenced enclosure praying. Inside the enclosure are very old black snake-worship idols. I don;t know the story behind that, I'm afraid. And on the eastern side of the enclosure where I sat there was another altar with seven more idols which are accessible to the public. These are smeared with turmeric and kumkumam dots.

There was a constant coming and going of worshippers on sunday morning. They would first go around the tree and then come to the eastern altar and either offer flowers or light a small lamp and pray. This spot was secluded from the main outer walkway of the temple compound. It was tucked away in a shaded grove of trees and I found a nice flat stone on the ground with a lovely brick wall as a backrest. It was bliss.

My cousin sat herself down on the main walking thoroughfare and had to persevere through bright hot sun and a lot of crowd. You can see her final sketch here. My dad (check his blog here) went into another shaded corner to sketch the gopurams and my mum, ever the quick one, did two sketches in the time I did my one. Then we met back at the car and went down ECR to tryst cafe in neelangarai.

The cafe has a wonderful display counter at one end with all kinds of breads stacked up in a tantalizing display but  it was crowded and we couldn't sit facing the counter. So we just cooled off, looked at each others sketches, drank and munched some stuff and sketched each other. It was so much fun!

Discovering Vasant Vihar

Uma and I had fixed to meet up at the KFI on greenways road on saturday afternoon. She was familiar with the place having been a frequent visitor of their library. I, on the other hand, knew where it was but surprisingly had never gone in before. I arrived at three in the afternoon and walked in through a winding tree lined mud track and as I walked the traffic noises fell away with each step. Suddenly this beautiful white building came into view through the trees. It was fronted by a lush green lawn - such a rarity in my city.

On the lawn sat Uma, sketching away already. Although the building looked inviting, we had to wait half an hour for them to open after their lunch break, and the lawn was cool with plenty of shade so I sat down and spread out my things too. As it happens, we never went in. We just sat there and sketched. The sunny weather and the huge trees all around and that lawn was just a great place to be.

Vasanta Vihar, which is the name of this building, was the house in which J. Krishnamurti stayed when in Chennai. It now houses an archive and library and is open to the public. The grounds are large and have guest houses, a book shop and a lot of green space which is such a needed lung in the heart of the city. What struck me most that evening was how peaceful it was. Visitors came and went, but maintained a respectful silence, a few glanced at us sketching, but no one bothered us. The usual Indian curiosity wasn't there in the people.

The black and white sketch of the building is what I did there, and the colours and some details were added later. The sketch of Uma is a very quick one. Light was fading by then and there was a beautiful orange-ish glow on the building and lawns from the setting sun. You can check out more pictures of this here. Once again I really enjoyed sketching in company and we have lots of ideas of where to go next. 

Saturday sketchcrawl in Mylapore

No, I don't mean last saturday. This was actually 3 weeks ago and since then I've sunk into a bloggers black hole. Work and travel. But 3 saturdays ago I did something very exciting. I was approached through my blog by Uma, who is a fellow urban sketcher right here in Madras. We fixed up to meet at three in the evening and we were blessed with a cloudy day. 

Now all outdoor sketchers from other parts of the world will go huh?!! at this point but if it had been sunny we wouldn't have lasted half an hour at 3 pm. As it was, the shadows weren't crisp but we lasted 4 hours walking around Mylapore temple lugging our sketchbooks and paints around. We had fixed up to meet at the eastern entrance to the temple. The main doors were shut and would only open at 4 so we walked around the area and then realised that our first rendezvous point had a shady spot on the front steps of someone's house.

While waiting for the temple to open, the flower sellers were setting up their baskets and stalls, worshippers parked and went off to deposit their footwear in the booth and the owner of the house started washing her front steps making me jump sideways and mess up the perspective of the car.

Then the temple opened and in we went Again we made a beeline to a shady spot. The flagstones were hot even on a cloudy day and I did these two sketches from the same spot. By six thirty we were both thirsty and tired from the heat. Uma had the stamina for one more sketch sowe walked across to the other side of the enclosure and I just chatted with her while she captured the long dance hall on the southern side. Sketching with another person was so much fun and we hope to do more saturdays soon. I wish Madras had weather like Bangalore.