Chennai Weekend Artists

I have not posted in this blog for several months but I have been fairly regular with my Sunday morning location sketching. I am still part of the same sketching group that I joined in Sept 2012 but we now have a new name: Chennai Weekend Artists (CWA) hosted by the art community Pencil Jammers.

Chennai, which was known as Madras until 1996, celebrates its founder's day on the 22^nd of August every year. It suddenly occurred to us that by visiting different locations within the city we at CWA were actually celebrating Chennai/Madras round the year. We therefore presented our work and several of us spoke about our activities at a function held as part of the Madras Day celebration this year. The event was very well received and soon after that we found our membership surging.

Earlier we had a membership of around 30 or 40 with not more than ten members ever getting together at one time. Now our membership is in three digits and we regularly get around 30 persons participating every Sunday morning. The participants vary in age from 6 to 60+ and it is therefore now a challenge to choose locations which will meet a variety of sketching interests.

So far we have visited a number of locations within our city and our sketching itself has been confined to only a pre-lunch session every Sunday. But I think the group is now ready to spread its wings. We are considering locations outside Chennai and perhaps one day we will even think of journeying overnight to our sketching locations.

Starting from the top these are 1. A corner of the General Post Office Building on Rajaji Salai ("Salai" means "Road"). 2, Kapaleeswarar Temple, at Mylapore. 3. The State Bank of India Building on Rajaji Salai. 4. Valluvar Kottam at Nungambakkam.