Portrait session at Leaping Windows(March 1st 2015)

Rainy day in Mumbai! As the temperatures were rising in Mumbai, a surprising downpour brought a nice and quick relief. But this meant that we had to cancel our plans of going to Kanheri caves, which is an outdoor location. Mukti(A fellow sketchwalker) suggested that we meet up at Leaping windows at Versova. Since it is our all time favourite place for sketching, we decided to meet up for a portrait session.

Having never had done portraits of people who are not my family members(Yup.), I was a little nervous about screwing this up, but people were so lovely and gave me such wonderful tips! This is the day I learnt about line weight from Alen(Another sketchwalker)

Alen, Leaping Windows

Nidhi, Leaping windows

We finished the day with nice glass of sangria and pizzas. Day well spent!
Here are more sketches from the sketch walkers.

Kanheri caves

Amidst the forest of Sanjay Gandhi National park are these beautiful rock cut caves. You can find out more about the caves in this link.
Although reaching this place from Powai was not at all pleasant in this heat, but after the ride through the forest, the tranquility inside the caves and the view from the top of the cave, I must say it was worth it.

The First portrait is of the gigantic entrance to the main cave. It is impossible to imagine the size of this structure hence I have given an approximate human scale in the sketch to give an idea of the size of the entrance.

Entrance to the cave

The second sketch is of the main cave. I wish I knew more about what this structure was, I found out few peculiar things. The top half of the wall had small holes in them, which were not equidistant. Kishan (a friend) said, they are holes for keeping the wooden skeletons on which workers sat to carve the ceilings. Fascinating!Another thing I found strange was that, not all pillars were ornamental and symmetric, which I found to be quite odd. Not too happy with how this sketch has come out perspective and shading wise but as they say, every experience is a learning experience.

Inside one of the caves

If you visit the place,
1. Do climb up to the top, for the beautiful 360 degree view of Mumbai.
2. Do not bring any food along. The place is full of notorious Monkeys waiting for an opportunity to attack for food.
3. Do notice the 2 gigantic statues of Buddha on the entrance to the main cave.

Here are more photographs from the sketch walk.

Mahalaxmi Temple

I had not sketched for 2 weeks and I was feeling extremely uneasy. With the increased work load in my lab, and my terrible sleep schedule(self inflicted) I was not sure if I would be able to join people for the next sketch walk at Mahalaxmi temple.

Having heard a lot about this place, I was quite excited to go and sketch the temple. So, I pulled an all nighter, slept during the commute and finally reached the place only to be disappointed. Turns out the temple is famous mainly for the devotees and not the architecture or anything that'd involve an artist's interest. So I just sat by the corner of a busy road that led to the temple and started sketching whatever I felt defined a good composition. And here it was:

Near Mahalaxmi temple, 15th Feb

As the rest of the group was heading to see Paul Fernandez's art exhibition, although I was quite interested I chose to go for Kala Ghoda festival. A French lady from the sketch meet up who has been in India since 30 years told me about the deteriorating quality of the festival. So I decided to attend it before it gets even worse. Plus it is my last year in Mumbai. 

South Bombay never stops amusing me, I found an old music store (Rhythm house) which has CDs of Joan Baez! Found a beer shop that claims to have beer from every corner of the world (Yet to go there). Had my favourite chocolate ice-cream while sitting by the lawn of Prince of Wales museum and saw a wonderful art exhibition at Jahangir art gallery.

A nice day!

Prithvi Theatre

Prithvi Theatre is one of the best known theatres of Mumbai. With a cosy and pretty canteen outside the theatre, it makes it one of the best places to sketch people, plants and life of urban Mumbai. I organised the meet up today and it turned out pretty well despite the traffic jam due to Mumbai marathon.

Canteen speciality: The Pav bhaji in the evenings, delicious parathe and the old uncle who plays flute every evening by the banyan tree.



Prithvi, 18th Jan.

This is off the topic and not pretty at all, but I saw two aunties fighting today in the local. By fighting, I mean hitting each other and pulling each others hair. I am scared of travelling in locals now. Although a major population is nice in Mumbai, there are quite many people who do not mind shoving their elbows to make space for themselves or stepping on your feet because they are major jackasses. Did not have a bad experience yet, but I will be really scared to travel in local trains from now on despite the convenience of timely commute it provides me.

More Love for Mumbai

Mumbai is lovely in winters, not too cold and pleasant weather all day! I met a group of sketching enthusiasts in Mumbai who are professionals and we sketch around Mumbai every Sunday. Best part is, I get good tips from them and learn from their sketching over our post sketching coffee time! Here are the two sketches I drew in past two weeks:

Mount Mary Church, Bandra

Gateway of India 

Will keep updating.

Perspective drawing 01

I came to Mumbai few months back. Though for first two months all I did was roam around and indulge deeply in food, I realised I can never get the opportunity of sketching as beautiful buildings anywhere else in India. As I picked up the pen to start sketching, I figured I am really bad at perspective drawing. Vanishing point, horizon, two/three point perspective...equally bad at all of them. So I took  upon this task of understanding and practicing perspective drawing since August.
Here is how it has been going so far:

Scorpio House Hiranandani

Leaping Windows

Se Cathedral-Goa

Goa Airport

A Diwali Gift on my desk

Leaping windows. (Not guilty for her face, she was talking a lot)

Mumbai local train. Which looks more like, my idea of a local train. 

Some building at a distance in South Bombay

Untitled-1

This is an old one. Did this way back in 2012.

Came across this while sorting my pictures, thought could be put on this blog.