Art for me is more often than not an inspiration taken from life, a reflection of it as I see it. Ideally I would love to sit in front of my subject and sketch or paint away. But much as I’d like to, in our day to day lives it isn’t always feasible. Thus I try and use my love for the outdoors as an advantage when it comes to painting. In my local and out station trips, I try and capture what interests me onto my camera lens and then represent them later onto paper or canvas in my own way.
One such trip was to Santiniketan, which is a small town in the Birbhum district of West Bengal. It was established by Rabindranath Tagore, whose vision became what is now a university town- Visva-Bharati University. It is nearly 160 km from the city of Kolkata, where I live. While driving through the roads, one gets to experience the rural life..the paddy fields on both sides of the highway, the farmers toiling on the fields, the beautiful horizon beyond, stacks of hay bundled up, mud houses and shanties alike, domestic animals like cows and hens are a common sight, as are stretches of greenery for miles.
Am posting two images among those pictures that I clicked :
This second picture I later converted into black and white to understand and represent the contrast better.
The following are some of the the sketches I later created with soft pastel on coloured fabriano sheet, using the images that I captured, as reference :
I intend making more such drawings. Keep watching this space for more!
