Art House: July 2011

Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace in Bangalore is one of the few and best historical places in the garden city today.

The palace, now maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India, is situated amidst a picturesque garden that enhances the beauty of the old palace. The specialty of the garden lies in the fact that it was originally planted by none other than Tipu Sultan, himself.

Built between the years 1781 and 1791, Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace in Bangalore is similar to Daria Daulat, the other palace of Tipu that is situated in Srirangapatna. As the palace was special to the mighty son of Mysore, Tipu Sultan, he called it 'Rash-e-Jannat' which literally means the abode of happiness and the envy of heaven'. The name inscribed by him on the wooden banisters of the palace can be seen by the visitors even today.

Though a large part of the palace is preserved well, the eastern wing of Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace that housed the 'Zenana' or 'Harem' has been destroyed over the time. What exists today are the wonderfully cusped rosewood arches that rise above the fluted wooden pillars and the beautiful hardly visible frescos, painted elaborately on the ceilings and walls of the palace. Although the palace was previously painted in the elaborate style of the Daria Daulat palace, now the arches and ceilings, made of expensive rosewood have been painted with dark-brown enamel paint. This gives the interior of the palace a rather sober look than warm. However, the delicate and serene white flowers painted on a warm brick-red background cover the walls like a bright carpet. Also the raised frieze of gold flowers and leaves on the plain white base of the borders are a feast to the eyes.

You are all aware of our workshop Discover Bengaluru through sketching, 24^th July, class at Tippu palace. Being in Bangalore, lot of people have not seen this wonderful place, 80% of this palace is wood, I though this place is ideal to sketch so that one can admire this palace and also under stand how to sketch and learn light and shading.

I reached the premises at 09:45, I first saw Ravi Cavale and Vishanth standing at the gate. I did not want them to stay near the gate, so I sent them inside along with Senthil to start sketching. I first told them to go around the place and then to sketch. I was waiting at the entrance for others to come. By 10:10 everybody had gone inside the Palace.

As I went inside I saw everybody busy sketching, some decided to sketch just a pillar and some compositions. Senthil also did one complete work (drawing) to motivate the participants. The class went on till 1 pm.

Sketching Scene at Tippu Summer Palace

Sketching Scene at Tippu Summer Palace

Palace Scene by Ravi Cavle

Palace scene by Senthil

Vikram Ponnappa, Leena Kumar, Sonia seen sketching

Smithi at work

I was always thinking of holding an art workshop, but never wanted to do the same traditional studio practice which is happening in the city. For a change I planned to adopt the European method, where one used to travel and work on the spot. I started exploring the places in Bengaluru and finalised some in terms of development of sketch from basic to advance, the initial classes were set to be at museums, Lalbagh, bugal rock park, tippu summer palace where one studied still forms later, to visit busy places like market, bus stand, railway station etc., To begin with I decided to start with sketching. Here I introduced mediums like pencil, charcoal and ink to explore. I titled it as The Secrets of Drawing, a workshop on sketching and drawing.

It was 6^th September 2010, I started my first batch with 7 participants, Mr. Gurusiddappa. G.E, young artist from Bengaluru handled the batch, later in October Mr. P.S.Kumar the 2^nd batch with 14 participants and 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th batch by Mr. Senthil Kumar.

Batch 1, class 1 Gurusiddappa Interacting with Jayashree our first student, Kavya, Hiriyannaiah, Ramesh and Arvind (not in pic)

sketching at Tippu summer palace

Dr. Ashwini & Dr. Priya at Lalbagh

P.S.Kumar's Anatomy class

Senthil demonstrating at cubbon park

V.G.Venu at Venkatappa art gallery

Krishna Prasad modelling at lalbagh

Mr. Thomas architect sketching at CKP

Sketching sheeps and goats at Eid ga maidan

Sketching at Gandhi Bazaar Market

Discover Bengaluru through Sketching

As the name it self says discover bengaluru through sketching meaning, trying to see the city through your sketch, using pencil, charcoal, Ink and sketch book, explore interior space, atmosphere, light and the human figure, while learning basic drawing skills. Our first class was at Venkatappa art gallery campus. Started with introduction, we had 13 participants all in different genre and different profession, architect, techies, photographer, language Industry, students, enterupuners, a civil servant, theatre and tele artists. To guide them all Senthil Kumar, a practicing artist from Bengaluru. Graduated from Chitrakala Parishath, PG from Bengaluru University. He has been teaching art since past a decade, he has also participated in various exhibitions in India and abroad.

Class 1 at Venkatappa art gallery and archeology museum 3rd July 2011

Our class started with scribbling, where each participants were instructed to draw quick (rapid) sketches by free lines. Fluent lines started running in their sketch books, each one captured scenes from the campus, some captured the architecture, some motifs from the campus, lot of them experimented with trees and nature. Each one started enjoying as Senthil went to each one of them and corrected, after an hour we all went inside the Government archeology museum. After browsing the place for 15minutes, there was a demonstration of drawing a sculpture inside the museum. Later each one selected a sculpture of their choice and started drawing. For the first time our participants started looking at a sculpture in detail and captured using pencil. The days session ended with their aching fingers at 1:30pm.

rapid sketching session at venkatappa art gallery campus

In the picture Ravi Kavali, Business man, Lokeshwar rao, IFS Civil Servant, Smithi and Sakshi, students

Demonstration by Senthil

Sakshi, Ravi Kavali, Leena Kumar, sketching in museum

Chanakya theatre artist, Rakhi from language Industry and Anitha tele artist

Class 2 at Lalbagh 10th July 2011

All participant were to meet at the entrance of Lalbagh (double road gate) at 09:45am, as a warm up we make all the participants to draw quick sketches of their interest from the surrounding. After half an hour we went to a spot near the glass house. Here Senthil demonstrated how to draw a Banana tree, followed by all of them started capturing, also each participant experimented with charcoal stick. In class 2 we also introduced to sketch human form. I started modeling for all the participants, everybody were to do quick sketches in 3 to 4 minutes there after all of them were to model on rotational basis. The session ended at 1:45pm.

Leena Kumar architect, Chanakya, Smithi & Sakshi at sketching at the hill top of lalbagh

Sonia sketching banana tree

sketching scene from lalbagh

Model study at Lalbagh

Class 3 at Chitrakala Parishath 17th July 2011

We all assemble at the beautiful campus of CKP, with hectic week days, Sunday being the only day for sketching for our participants, we started with rapid sketches as warm up. The days subject was Head study, to knowing the proportion of head. Our instructor demonstrated how to study the head from skull to finish, thereafter practice session some also tried part study(eye, nose), It was 1:30 when we concluded the days session with rapid human body sketches where some of them modelled each other.