Sketchcrawl 5, Ulsoor

In the thick of many things going on, the 32nd Sketchcrawl came knocking. Unlike the old times, I wasn't very well prepared but I knew that I had to do it. The reason is that it liberates me in some ways, greeting a self that asks for no deadlines, style variations, target audience etc. The sole task of just going to a place and sketch vents the draftsman free in me.
Last night, I picked Ulsoor lake for sketching and packed my bags with the equipments. I had been using colours in my work a lot lately and it played me to put the Lamy ink with me for some plain sombre ink drawings. I started the event with sketching a Ganpathi temple near the lake. The architecture as pointed out by my friend Khushboo was quite a strange mix of Tibetan and South Indian temples. Thankfully, the footpath was empty and gave the needful sitting place for me to start. I worked with brushes and ink for the first layer of sketching and then the washes to highlight the lines. To talk about wash, Lamy inks are such a treat to work with. It has a unpredictability when played with water, giving hues of yellow and blues on the paper.
Here is the very first sketch of the morning -  

While roaming around the lake, I saw a few birds flying over the trees levitating in the lake. They had a hint of yellow on their beak and the arched neck. I had never been good with taxonomy of birds so I didn't make any guess work on it. Me and my friend walked to one of the park on the periphery of the lakes where the Mayura Boat Club caught the attention of us. Soon we were on a paddle boat navigating in the muddy green waters. Luckily, the boat ride managed to get me close to the birds I had seen before. Crazy as it may sound but we stopped the boat and I quickly drew the birds sitting on the dried branches half submerged in water.

The half an hour boat ride and the parking of it took some breath out of me in the end. But it definitely gave me a good time and space to do the second sketch. Looking at clock, we still had time before lunch, enough for one more sketch. We moved to the park and chose our spots to sit and draw. There is a statue of Vivekanand put in the park overlooking the couples sitting on the benches. I quickly grabbed my brushes for the last sketch of the day.

Click on the images for larger view
To finish things up, we had Maggi for lunch with some masala chai made by my friend at her place in Cox town. I had planned to do a few sketches in Shivajinagar too but I would savour it for the next Sketchcrawl. For now, I am ready to get back at the drawing board to battle out the deadlines.