1 of 100 "starts"

I am reading a book "Fill Your Oil Painting with Light and Colour" by Kevin MacPherson. Its the first time I am reading a book on painting and applying the lessons to use. One of the things suggested in the book is that you do 100 starts - which means you block the major colours of the subject without getting into any detail. Basic idea here is too build ones judgement of colour of objects and the relation they share with things around. As well as building the speed factor. So here is my first of this series...
I left my camera at my mama's place during a recent visit... so image was taken with mobile camera and quality is not great...
It is a very good book and available for less than inr1000 on flipkart.com!

sketches in Mar10 [2]

Cricket is the most popular sports in India. There is a new shorter duration format of this game - T20. After this format became popular, the BCCI launched the India Premier League or IPL as it is better know. 2010 is the 3rd season. The entire team of Rajasthan Royals were on the Indigo flight that I took on my way back from Ahmedabad. One can only imagine the excitement that the 80 odd passengers had travelling in that small space with their heros... I am not a very big follower of cricket. And so it didn't strike me that I take an autograph even though I passed a couple of pages from back seats to Yusuf Pathan and Shane Warne for autographs... I however made this sketch :)

sketches in Mar10 [1]

I did some sketches during a recent official tour... These were done on handmade paper with felt-tip pen and so the lines are very hazy... Next time on, I plan to use a ball point pen instead...

First up is a sketch done while we were being taken to the place where the aircraft was parked...
Second is a view from my seat... This was a ATR aircraft... which I find a bit scary as they fly on a lower height and wobble badly in case of turbulence... But otherwise the take-offs and landings are smooth...

sketches from Feb10

We attended a leadership learning program at Pegasus. Here the learnings were built up through the activities/team tasks. Had a very good time there. The institute is located in a remote village and surrounded by nice hills/farms. The classrooms didn't have any walls and there were times when my thoughts would wander out to find interesting subjects from an artists perspective. The sketch below is one of those... I could not capture the up and down movement of the landscape here...
Next sketch was done while waiting for a friend who was trying out a lot of garments during a recent sale...

sketches at the Fireflies concert

I went to the Fireflies concert with some friends... Its a very cool concept and you can read more about it here... We reached there a little late and had to queue for about 30mins before getting in... Sadly, we didnt find a good spot to sit and so it was a little difficult to enjoy the music...

There was a dance show where the participants had there bodies painted like tigers and the did some awesome things like breaking a coconut with bare hear etc, in addition to some super dance steps... the steps with so fast that I could hardly make a direct sketch; instead did some patterns... one of the viewers was shocked with disbelief and kept his pose for a while so I was able to sketch him as well...

We stayed on for two more performances before heading back... Next year will plan such that we reach early and get proper place to sit and enjoy!

waiting in the queue... what I was seeing then is actually opposite of the sketch... it was a pitch dark background and only the wires and pole was lite-up...
sketch during the tiger-dance...


awestruck audience...

pondicherry trip - I

I went to a trip to Pondicherry with some friends in Feb10... It was a absolutely relaxing trip... Its very difficult to explain in words the calm and timelessness of this place... It doesnt seem anyone is in any hurry/or has any agenda... things seems to be falling in place on their own... I am sure this is what a tourist feels in any city... but Pondicherry was awesome...
The cafe, sea-food, breeze was too tough to let go... Whenever, I plan for a next visit, it will definitely be 4-5 days as 2.1/2 days we spent this time was too less...
I did 2 sketches in the trip... One was a rough sketch of some hills on the way from Bangalore...
second was in Auroville... Its a view of the Matrimandir... Its a very intriguing structure... I will put some colour to it soon...

Bangalore edition of 25th Worldwide Sketchcrawl

"Au Bon Pain" a cafe on MG Road was the start point for the Bangalore Edition of the 25th Worldwide Sketchcrawl... We were six participants - myself, Prabha, Arun, Nishita, Murali and Jyotirmoy...
It was a hot day so we stayed at the cafe most of the time before moving to a buliding behind Mayo Hall where we did one or two sketches more... It was time for some lunch after which we went to UB City which is hosting a exhibit of Contemporary Art in India...








Some rough sketches...