Saturday 23 November 2013

Dakshina Chitra

Dakshina Chitra is a very popular heritage village located on the Southern outskirts of Chennai, on the way to Mamallapuram (previously known as Mahabalipuram). Some months ago I had visited this place with members of my sketching group (Chennai Weekend Artists). My friends were delighted with the sketching opportunities at this venue, and since then we have made two more visits to the place. I am convinced that we will be going there many more times.








During our second visit to Dakshina Chitra there was a performance by a troupe of drummers from a neighbouring state. In the short time available before the start of their performance I managed to do a couple of quick sketches of a couple of the artistes. These served as warm-up exercises to my main sketch of the day. This was a sketch of the Chettinad House. Chettinad is a small region in Southern Tamilnadu known for its local cuisine, architecture, and consequently its skilled masons, carpenters and craftsmen.

Our most recent visit was last month. This time there was a newly constructed building called the Chikmagulur House which caught my eye. It represents the type of houses seen in a certain part of Karnataka, a neighbouring state. As has been my practice over the last few months, I sketched this and the other sketches of the day directly in ink with a Hero 578 fountain pen.

My next sketch was of a cluster of thatched houses typical of rural Tamilnadu. We use different types of thatched roofing in this region. The roof in this cluster is made of river-bed reeds and is considered a higher quality of thatch roofing. The space under this type of roof is much cooler than under other types of thatch roofing which use the woven leaves of palm trees.

Villages in Tamilnadu have temples dedicated to a guardian deity. These temples are called Ayyanar Temples and the priests in these temples come from the potter community. As a result, the icons in and around these Ayyanar Temples are usually made of terracotta. Dakshina Chitra has showcased one such temple and my next sketch was of a white painted terracotta idol facing this temple.

After each sketching trip one of the members of the group posts a report of the visit and the other members then upload their sketches and photographs of the day into this thread. If you would like to see what others in my sketching group sketched on these visits please follow these links:

10 comments:

  1. Great sketches! It's like traveling overseas without leaving your place... Thanks for sharing with Us Balaji!!

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    1. Thank you Jorge for visiting and commenting. I am glad you liked them.

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  2. Your sketches are delightful! I landed here through a google search for images of Mylapore. I'll visit again!

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    1. Thank you very much Isabel for viewing and leaving your comments. My apologies for such a delayed response. I have been inactive and checked my earlier posts only now after a long break.

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  3. Replies
    1. Thank you very much for viewing and leaving a comment. My apologies for such a delayed response. I have been inactive and checked my earlier posts only now after a long break.

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  4. Amazing post of sketches. DakshinaChitra has collaborated with Nalandaway to create DakshinaChitra Arts Lab to work with children from under privileged communities, who face economical and societal challenges. There are different Dakshinachitra timings for different events and activities.

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  5. Thank you very much for viewing and leaving your comments. My apologies for such a delayed response. I have resumed blogging only now after a long break.

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