To Tirunelveli and Tamarabharani with Mystical Palmyra

Two years ago Nithya and I went along on a two day holiday trip to Tirunelveli organised by Mystical Palmyra an organisation led by Priya Thyagarajan, a young pocket dynamo with extraordinary organisational skills, and Pradeep Chakravarthy a historian and epigraphist. This was a pilot effort by the duo and around thirty of us made up the tour party. Most of us knew a few in the group, but none of us knew everyone.

Early Pandya Cave Temple, Thirumalapuram

That trip did have some glitches. We visited several temples to savour their architectural, social, and cultural content. But many in the tour group thought that worship was part of the tour agenda. This resulted in the schedule going haywire. But in all other respects the holiday was very enjoyable and we got to see and learn about many interesting facts connected with the places and regions that we visited, including the local cuisine. We also go to know the others in the group and found them to be very good company.

Steeple of hill-top church, Thirumalapuram

Before the trip ended the organisers asked for feedback from all the tour members and by the time the next tour came along in about three months they acted on most of the suggestions. It was decided that these tours would focus on the cultural and heritage aspects, and not on religious worship. Since then Nithya and I have been on all the tours organised by Mystical Palmyra, which translates to a tour every three months or so.

A structure near the rear entrance to the temple at Thiruppudai Maruthur

Typically we leave on a Thursday evening and return on Sunday morning so that we can rest and recover to face the week on Monday morning. We spend two nights on the train and one night in a hotel. And local travel in the region that we visit is in a/c coaches. And over the last two years it has got to the point where we not only look forward to visiting new places but also in getting together with familiar faces in the tour group.

Sculpture in Narumpoonathar Koil at Thiruppudai Maruthur,

The sketches in this post are from the two tours to Tirunelveli. The second one was in December last year. The first three sketches were made on location and the last one was done later using a photograph taken on the trip for reference. Over the next few posts I propose to share more of these sketches and some of the stories related to them with you.

Kailasanatha Temple, Ellora, India

It has been a very long time since I posted in this blog. I have been meaning to resume but the longer the break the tougher it is to get back. An unexpected break from work today motivated me to post something to get started once again.

A few days ago I made a quick impressionistic pen and ink sketch of the Kailasanatha Temple, at Ellora, in Maharashtra, India. The sketch is based on a photograph in Good Ideas' album Hindu Temples on Facebook. 

This is a rock cut temple carved out of a single rock, and one of the biggest of this kind. It is approximately 1300 years old and there is an interesting story about the construction, or should I say the sculpting, of this temple.

The king of the region was seriously ill and his loving queen prayed for his recovery. She made a vow that if the king was cured she would not only build a temple, but also fast until the topmost part of the temple was in place. 

In due course the king recovered and it was now time for his queen to keep to both her promises. But every temple architect who was consulted said that it would take years for a befitting temple to be constructed. And surely the queen could not survive fasting for such a long period.

But one temple architect came up with a very clever solution. He proposed carving a temple from a huge rock and working from the top downwards. This would allow him to sculpt the top of the temple in about a week, allowing the queen to fulfill her vow.

Whether this story is true or not in all its details, experts are of the opinion that this temple was indeed sculpted out of a single rock, and also that it was carved from the top downwards!

Dream Of The Black Sun

I was with the Pencil Jammers once again early in Oct 2012 at Cholamandal Artists Village and this time we had a large number of children for company as you can see from the pictures here. The children were merely visiting the village but many of them seemed to like watching us draw. Several came and chatted with us. A few complimented us on our drawings. I was very impressed with how polite they all were and felt very stimulated by their visit.

This time I did two sketches. My first was a pen and ink sketch of a sculpture called "Dream of the Black Sun" by ND Rajasekharan. I completed the outline and mapping of contours, light and shadows on location and then worked on increasing the value range at home.

The second is a 30 minute sketch of the still life set up for the day by the Cholamandal artists. Many of the artists gathered there that morning concentrated on the still life. But I was keen to see what I could manage in half an hour using just one pen and that too without any graphite pre-drawing. I therefore sketched directly with a 2.0 Sakura Calligraphy sketch pen which allows me to vary line weights.