Figure And Portrait Sketching At Cholamandal Artists Village

Cholamandal Artists Village has become the fall-back venue for our sketching group. Apart from each of us choosing subjects of our choice, which we do on some occasions, the resident (professional) artists at Cholamandal arrange one or more still life compositions for us on each of our visits. They also sketch along with us to demonstrate the many ways in which we could explore each subject.

On a couple of occasions we also had people sitting for us. The first time this happened the model was a friend of one of our group of sketchers. We were told that he would be coming in a little later and therefore I warmed up by sketching the drapery that had been arranged as the backdrop for a still life composition.

Once Sumit (our model) arrived, while most of my friends attempted portrait studies I decided to sketch a full figure. I had sketched people from life only on a couple of occasions before this and was therefore quite pleased with the result. I took this photograph of Sumit after I had finished my sketch.

 

Some weeks later we had an old man sit for us. This time I tried to draw only his face and I think I did a fair job of it since the old man was very happy with it. That day a reporter from a daily newspaper had come to interview the resident artists at Cholamandal about the Sunday morning sketching sessions that they had been running for a long time and since we PencilJammers happened to be there that day, some of us were also interviewed. I was not interviewed but when the article appeared in the newspaper I was very surprised to find that my sketch had been included in the news report.

Mylapore Festival

Chennai is considered one of the cultural centres of India. And, if there is one part of Chennai that embodies these more than the others do, it is Mylapore. While Chennai is said to date back to the 17th century (1644) when The East India Company established Fort St. George, Mylapore was already a large settlement then. There are records of settlements around Mylapore predating the birth of Christ. And, before the British, Mylapore was occupied by the Portuguese and the French.

This weekend we are witnessing the 11th edition of the Mylapore Festival, when the entire community comes together to put up a four day street festival celebrating the music, art, food, traditions and culture of the place. From a fairly sedate start this festival has grown in popularity over the years.

The kolam competition is one of the very popular events during this festival. Kolam is a drawing made on a swept and washed floor using white rice powder. Traditionally it is drawn early every morning by Hindu women in front of their homes. Last year I watched as a part of a very busy street was cordoned off to hold this event. These are some of the photographs taken then.

Amongst many other things Mylapore is famous for its Kapaleeswarar Koil a Shiva temple. There are references to this temple that date back to the 7th century, but these references place the temple on the seashore over a kilometer away from the present location of the temple. Additionally the present temple reflects the architecture of the 16th century although there are inscriptions within the temple dating back to the 12th century. The explanation for this paradox seems to be that the old temple by the seashore was razed to the ground by the Portuguese to build the Santhome Cathedral and that the Kapaleeswarar Koil was then rebuilt by the kings of Vijayanagaram in the 16th century.

These are two sketches that I made on location a few weeks ago. The first is of the entrance to the temple with a mandapam (hall) in the foreground. And the other sketch is of a house just outside the temple which caught my eye because it had its own mini-temple. I later discovered that it was the house of one of the senior priests of the temple.

Lookout post - Senji

This is one of several lookout posts located at various strategic points all over Senji. Most of them have the same character. I found these rock formations fascinating, and the way the man made construction seems to grow out of these rocks is just beautiful.

The one that I have sketched is within the outer walls of Rajagiri, but at the foot of the hill on which the citadel is perched. While my wife and daughter went enthusiastically up the 800 feet climb to the main fort, I found myself a comfortable seat in the shade and completed this graphite sketch.

While I was sketching, I found my thoughts going out to the courageous soldiers who must have manned these lonely outer lookout posts during periods of strife. The citizens and the soldiers in the main fort were relatively safe even during such times, since the main Senji fort, Rajagiri, was considered almost impregnable. But that did not apply to these isolated sentry points.

View from Krishnagiri

Senji (or Gingee, as it was known during the British rule) is located about 160 km south of Chennai. It has one of the few surviving forts in Tamilnadu. Originally the site of a 9th century Chola fort, it was intensively modified and further fortified in the 13th century by the Hindu rulers of the Vijayanagar empire. Between then and the mid-18th century it passed through the hands of the Nayaks, the Muslim rulers of Bijapur, the Marathas, The Mughals, the Carnatic Nawabs, and the French.


Senji was so well fortified that Shivaji considered it the most impregnable fortress in India. The British called it the Troy of the East. And, Aurangazeb had to lay siege to the place for 7 years to capture it.


The Senji Fort complex consists of three hills connected by a continuous wall enclosing an area of around 7 sq. km. The entire complex is known as Senji Fort, but each of the three hills has its own self-contained fort. The three hills (and forts) are called Rajagiri, Krishnagiri, and Chandragiri. Rajagiri is the tallest and most formidable. It is about 880 feet high.


My graphite sketch shows the view on a hazy morning from midway up the ascent to Krishnagiri. I sketched it on site and would have probably completed it entirely that morning itself. However, a troop of monkeys seemed to be fascinated by what I was doing and when their inquisitiveness proved to be too much of a hindrance, I closed up shop and completed the sketch at home.

TOMCO, Ernakulam

TOMCO, Ernakulam
What you see in this sketch was once a prosperous soap factory in Kerala, a very picturesque state on the south-west coast of India. My father worked here for many years.

When I was very young, which was more than half a century ago, we lived right next door to this place. A huge amount of my time was spent watching the workers enter and leave the factory. Very few people owned cars then. Most of them either walked, cycled, or rowed to work. Yes, Kerala is ridden with canals and backwaters, and even today the waterways are in popular use.

The long tiled shed to the right of the factory entrance was the cycle shed. The factory and staff housing was flanked by the backwaters on two of its sides, and these had several jetties (piers). The employees who rowed to work would leave their canoes tied to one of the jetties and pick them up again at the end of their work shift.

By the standards of those days, there were excellent support and recreational facilities for both the workers and the residents. My memories of the place and those years are therefore very pleasant.

Unfortunately, this tiny bit of paradise did not survive into the twenty-first century. A few years ago the entire property was sold to a multinational giant who seem to have bought it only for its real estate value. When I last heard, the factory was idle, the staff quarters were lying vacant, and the entire property wore the look of a ghost town.