Saturation!

I did that which I like doing best today. It was Krishna Janmashtami (the festival celebrating the birth of Lord Krishna), so when I went searching for a place to sketch with Ramya once again in Malleswaram, I found the place simply saturated with colour. It was breathtaking. 

Here are the pictures:

We sat behind some flower sellers at the marketplace and I made this quick sketch. The air was heady with the scent of various flowers, I was sneezing due to the pollen laden atmosphere, my head was reeling at dazzling clashing colour. There were bees buzzing around us. But what I would give to experience this heady high once more!

Below are pictures of some of the patterns at the marketplace. Do these people even realize the beauty they create? They remind me of the bees just going about busy doing their job in vibrant surroundings.

Every flower is arranged with its face upward.

The earthy colours of Sambhar onions and ginger.

I was taken to Shri Kaadu Malleshwara Temple

Where vibrant red was splashed against black or white

Blue Krishna idols! It seems there is no escaping colour in this country. 

Pattern

Naturally that Murrukku (top right) was brought back home for tea

And these are for lunch tomorrow :)

Whew!

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.