Leftovers from Spring

Who doesn't love the fresh aroma, the soft touch, the warm feeling that flowers bring!

Nothing like flowers to cheer one up, right? Wrong!

For the past few weeks, I have been battling with my pencils to sketch a few of my favorite flowers and the results have been very very disappointing. While landscapes remain my favorite subject, I do not think I have the courage to ever draw flowers again.

I just cannot capture the seemingly simple and elegant beauty of these creations on paper. So here's a sample of my dismal work.

Pansy: I swear to god, I hate all pansies now (pun unintended)...Everything went wrong with my first attempt - the drawing, the strokes, everything.

Carnation: The flower is menacing in its simplicity; it camouflages an artist's worst nightmare...

Tulips: How can anyone go wrong with Tulips...Well, I can...

Dogwood: Am sure, this is everyone's favorite doodle flower. A lot of my notebooks in school, college and even some notepads at work have been subjected to many dogwoods :).

P.S. After viewing the above sketches, please do not "unfollow" me or remove me from your feeds, I plan to move to some other subjects, I promise :).

A Sailor’s Cottage

A couple of months back, I happened to visit Odyssey (a leading book store in Chennai) and was delighted to spot the Anchor Stitch Kits.

Those not familiar with these kits must know that Anchor provides great designs that you can embroider using long stitch. They give you the design as well as the matching threads.

Though not a pro at these myself, take my word that they are extremely easy to work with – I first did a design (a cute penguin with an easel) eons back in school and it took me 3 years to complete it – not because it was complicated but because of the lazy procrastinator I am :). The framed work still adorns my bedroom back at my parents’ place.

This time around I thought these kits would work well with my resolve to do something more constructive with my free time, especially over the weekends, instead of wiling it away on the idiot box. So the highly ambitious person that I am, I picked two large ones.

After a good amount of dilly-dallying with little progress made in months together, I pulled myself up. And, yes, the self reproach did work.

Here’s the fruit of my labor, and you bet, I am damn thrilled and proud of myself. Forget the fact that long stitch is child’s play, atleast I did it reasonably well. This design (25 cm x 30 cm) is named ‘A Sailor’s Cottage’ and I love the bright, vibrant colors that make the setting! This colorful work goes for framing this week and then its up on the wall :).

I have the next one (and the larger of the two :() to finish now, but want to take a break from all the needlework. Hoping I can get back to my pencils in the interim!

After a long long time...

The last 4 to 6 weeks have been maddening. A jam-packed work schedule left very little time to indulge in aspects of Life that interest me and are very dear to me - apart from ofcourse documenting applications that die out on you when you need to validate interface specifications, writing down boring UNIX based installation commands, sitting in endless planning and review meetings, and getting nightmares about packaging help instructions :p.

Well, thankfully, gears are shifting back to normal and I am in the process of catching up with myself - blissfully long hours of sleep, culinary gratification, retail therapy, a rejuvenating massage - yes, the order has been precisely this so far. And finally, today I did some sketching as well. (*clapping hands in glee*)

For details on how the artist bug bit me sometime mid of this year, see the following blog posts:

• Just to put on record...
• Recording progress...
• Some relics from the past...

And here's presenting to you, after a very very long time, some determined Saturday morning work. Yes, yes, I am getting scratchy again - Practice, darling, practice I shall...

Some relics from the past...

And while I have been uploading pics of mom's paintings, she has very proudly dug out my ancient sketch book. If she is to be believed, it is precisely 12 years old.

She insists I post these relics too...ouch! What hurts is that the sketches that I do now show no improvement - infact some are much worse :(.

Recording progress...

Folks, now is confession time!

What I started off with great pomp and show in one of my blog posts a while back (see here), has not progressed as well as I had promised myself. It has been more than a month since I first sketched and today my count remains at a measly four, which is quite an awful total given the fact that I've had ample free time at my disposal.

I have sat through some extremely lame and lousy Rakhi ka Swayamvar (an Indian version of Rock of Love and other ridiculous Bachelor and Bachelorette reality shows) episodes, wiled away my precious time reading John Grisham (not that he is a bad author, but then not the best to spend my wide-awake creative hours on), engaged in day dreaming, and spent extra hours surfing news sites even though all give the same "breaking" news! All this when I could have invested serious hours in upgrading my drawing and sketching skills. I am hoping a public self-admonition works.

Okay, so here's a status update. After my first sketch of a rural landscape (see here), I did another one - somewhat similar. I personally love the way you can play around with the oft-used "hut". As a subject, it offers great depth and is a more visually appealing sight compared to the concrete jungles we city slickers dwell in.

Here it is:

I came across this really beautiful picture of a devastated tree (yes, I get the irony there but it was not intended), devastated by lightning perhaps. The sketch does not come very close to reality, but perhaps provides a different angle (quite literally) to the traditional depictions of a tree.

Sketching the human face is, ofcourse, an artist's envy. I cannot sketch a person, simply by observing him or her, and don't even think I'll ever be able to do that. Nevertheless, I tried copying from a picture. The front view is the most difficult to get, and yes, I screwed it up.

With that, I have pretty much given up on frontal views for the time being.

In the process of creating the following sketch, I figured out that side profiles are easier to depict as symmetry ceases to be an issue. You don't have to worry about the alignment of the eyes, the nostrils (I mean it) etc etc. I could have got this one better had I been a little more patient with the initial drawing (please ignore the nose, it wasn't meant to be like this). This is the one thing about sketching, if the initial drawing is not well proportioned, however well you sketch, the effect is dampened. Oh Lord, I only learn lessons, never get to implement them.

Freud said, "From error to error, one discovers the entire truth", and so I hope it shall be. Amen.

Just to put on record...

Till almost 10 years back, I remember spending a lot of time drawing, sketching and dabbling with colors - term break, summer vacations, dussehra hols, winter vacation - all were spent in doing a little more than just doodling.

No great artist myself, I am blessed with a super artist mom. Her oil renditions on canvas occupy prominent spaces in our home and leave every guest awestruck.

I have frankly never showed inclination for this (or for that matter any) form of art, however, have some affinity for the art of pencil sketching - maybe one-millionth of my mom's artist gene did find it's way in my DNA ;).

During a recent trip to a wonderful book store in Chennai, Landmark, I spotted some amazing Walter Foster books in the Arts section, and suddenly experienced a strong urge to revive the skill.

So I bought a sketch book, pencils et al and through this blog entry want to put on record, that I finally did my first sketch after a hiatus of a decade. I realize I have become quite scratchy, the pencil strokes took a lot of effort and the final result was much more amateurish than I would have liked it to be.

Nevertheless, never say die, posting a pic of the sketch here to remind me not only that I have miles to go but also that a start has been made. Here's sincerely praying that I am able to keep myself motivated and hoping to be able to post a better sketch sooner than later, and with greater pride.