Texture

Experiments at the lab.

The wonderful things in life are the things you do, not the things you have.

~ Reinhold Messner

Exploring Malleswaram

While it is great to have company to sketch with at Sunday's Pencil Jams, it is even more fun to go exploring Benglur with someone who shares my love of the city's fast disappearing old bungalows. Ramya invited me to her area - Malleshwaram where she had noted down some old houses which might be interesting subjects for sketching. It was absolutely wonderful walking through the near empty streets of Malleswaram in the morning. This area is up late so even at 9am the streets were relatively empty. 

While we saw many charming houses though not all of them were conducive for sketching because they were too close to the pavement or we couldn't get a good enough view, no proper place to sit etc. 

We enjoyed simply looking and exploring before we finally settled on this one.

I couldn't get the entire structure in a photograph in spite of the large compound because the house was so big. It also had a beautiful miniature orange tree growing beside it on the left with one bright orange fruit which unfortunately did not photograph very well. I made sure I got the tree in my sketchbook though, even if it meant cutting off most of the building. This house will require a few more visits for a good drawing to evolve.

Ramya shared famous and delicious Shrewsbury biscuits from Poona with me.

She also did an excellent drawing of the entire house which you can see in this picture below.

It was understood that we ate dosas at CTR

Then we explored some more -

The Kannada lettering says Step 'n' Style

Cotton Candy in the distance

African Tulip tree

I can't wait to go for another sketching session here once more. 

This time I hope to be more successful while  drawing the house.

IF - Mirror

Woman at the Mirror. Watercolour pencil on Ingres paper.

This time's Illustration Friday topic is MIRROR, so I fished out an old one.

Have you read Frogs by the newest Nobel prize winner for literature, Mo Yan?

Sketchbook Stuff