My Sketches

I’m born in an artis­tic fam­ily. Such artis­tic com­pan­ion­ship brings two things: on one hand, it inspires our own cre­ativ­ity. On the other hand, it hope­lessly destroys any artis­tic cre­ativ­ity we may have. Because what­ever we do, it is noth­ing com­pared to what we see being cre­ated in front of our own eyes.

Nev­er­the­less, the inspi­ra­tion did work some times, in my younger days. When school teach­ers and col­lege pro­fes­sors were ram­bling, I used to scrib­ble, doo­dle, and some­times sketch. So here is a sam­pling of some of these diversions.

Note: None of the pho­tographs of the sketches have been dig­i­tally altered in any way.

Couple

This was from a color adver­tise­ment in a glossy mag­a­zine. I was inspired by the chal­lenge of cap­tur­ing the creases of the clothes in pen­cil. (That’s why the faces, a low pri­or­ity, are so bad).

Tree

This is not a repro­duc­tion of any­thing, just my imag­i­na­tion. The cap­tion below in Marathi states: “What does a giant tree know about the many trav­el­ers who seek solace under its cool shade? — Mahen­dra: 18th March 90″. This sketch was inspired by a quote in a char­ac­ter study called “Sakharam Gatne” by the famous Marathi humorist P. L. Desh­pande, fondly known as “Pu La”.

Woman Face

This is from an adver­tise­ment for Neko ger­mi­ci­dal soap. This soap is no longer avail­able in India. The ad was from a very old news­pa­per, prob­a­bly from the 1960s. I was fas­ci­nated by the coun­te­nance and the expres­sion in her eyes.

Woman in Sari

This is from a very old, black and white pho­to­graph of my mother. Again, from around 1960. The creases and wrin­kles of the sari and blouse were my inspi­ra­tion. Most peo­ple who see this sketch ask me, why did I leave the face out? I don’t know. I have many expla­na­tions and rea­sons. But as an artist, I choose not to express them and let my sketch do the talking.

For me, the high­light of this sketch is what is not sketched — the upper line of her arm. You see it, but its not there at all.

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Related posts:

  1. Attempt­ing to Sketch after 20 Years!

Categories: My Art, Personal
  • http://krishashok.wordpress.com krishashok

    My turn to ask. What in the world are you doing in the soft­ware busi­ness? That first sketch, espe­cially the cloth­ing part, was bril­liant. I do a bit of pen­cil sketch­ing myself and I have a fair sense of how good an artist is. Those clothes were some­thing else. Seriously.

  • http://forgettingmyself.wordpress.com/ aika­ter­ine

    I must agree with krishashok, you are tal­ented beyond words. *Aika­ter­ine being silent, because she can­not find the words to accu­rately express how good these are*

  • http://forgettingmyself.wordpress.com/ aika­ter­ine

    FYI — My favorite one is your mother. You did not need to draw her face to por­tray her emo­tion. With­out the face, it still comes across. You are that good.

  • http://rambodoc.wordpress.com ram­bodoc

    Mahen­dra,
    When you see the my avatar, please notice that my hat is off! Your mother’s sketch is so evoca­tive!
    Great stuff, but last cen­tury (antique value=priceless). What about some mod­ern mas­ter­pieces, with your emerg­ing philo­soph­i­cal consciousness?

  • http://forgettingmyself.wordpress.com/ aika­ter­ine

    Holy Christ Ram­bodoc, you and I agree on some­thing. Mahen­dra brings the world together yet again. I raise my glass of pinot noir to you all in celebration.

  • http://skeptic.skepticgeek.com mahen­drap

    Ram­bodoc: This is a skill I’ve lost now. My philo­soph­i­cal con­scious­ness is not emerg­ing, but has waned. In my hey­day, I was so philo­soph­i­cal that I ended up iso­lat­ing myself! :-)

    Ashok: When grow­ing up, I gave my par­ents a very hard time. First, I made them hope I would be a chess cham­pion, then a musi­cian, then a roller skater, and so on. I just used my skills to spend my par­ents’ money on every­thing under the sun…:-)

    Yes, if you sketch your­self, you would bet­ter under­stand what goes on behind this. Thanks so much for your kind words.

    Cheers to all of you! I was a bit appre­hen­sive when post­ing these, but you’ve made my day!

  • http://rambodoc.wordpress.com ram­bodoc

    Alkater­ine,
    Pinot Noir is so passé! So now that we dis­agree, let us get back to busi­ness! :-)

  • http://forgettingmyself.wordpress.com/ aika­ter­ine

    Ram­bodoc -

    As much as you would like to, you can­not deny our agree­ment — it is for­ever sealed in Mahendra’s vir­tual world. This is just the begin­ning. I will slowly and with­out your knowl­edge brain­wash you into a pinot noir drink­ing virtue the­ory espous­ing tree hug­ging choco­late eat­ing feminist.

    mwa­ha­haha

  • http://rambodoc.wordpress.com ram­bodoc

    ” I will slowly and with­out your knowl­edge brain­wash you into a pinot noir drink­ing virtue the­ory espous­ing tree hug­ging choco­late eat­ing feminist.

    mwa­ha­haha”

    Expecto patronum!
    (sil­very wisp of jack­ass floats out from his wand tip and dies at the feet of the fast-gliding Demen­tor)
    Cac­chi­o­lata sub­mer­gus
    Demen­tor drowns in choco­late syrup.…..

  • http://skeptic.skepticgeek.com mahen­drap

    I thought this blog and its com­ments were sup­posed to be in Eng­lish! :-)

    BTW, I just told my mom that I’ve put my sketch of her old pho­to­graph on the net, and that it’s get­ting nice com­ments — you should’ve seen the look on her face. Thanks for mak­ing us so happy.

  • http://cafephilos.blogspot.com/ Paul Sun­stone

    I love your sketches! Pen­cil is my favorite medium and your work is excel­lent. Thank you so much for post­ing these!

    My father was an artist, Mahen­drap, but all I inher­ited from him was his taste for art, rather than his tal­ent for it. I once tried to rem­edy that by suing him for my fair share of his genes, but the case was thrown out of court. There is no jus­tice in this world.

  • http://skeptic.skepticgeek.com mahen­drap

    Paul: You make me laugh…thanks for the com­pli­ments and a nice hearty laugh!

  • http://forgettingmyself.wordpress.com/ aika­ter­ine

    Ah, latin and choco­late mmmmmmm.….

    Throw in some shoes and that is one sweet sweet death.

  • http://www.priyank.com/ Priyank

    Ah thats impres­sive Mahen­dra! When you talk about being born in a bat­ter­ing artis­tic envi­ron­ment, I sure know what you mean. Ditto about spend­ing money on every­thing pos­si­ble! hahaha! Loved your mother’s sketch, but more than that I went silent for a while after hear­ing the tree speak.

  • http://www.alchemistpoonam.wordpress.com Poonam

    Hi Mahen­dra,

    I had just logged in to tell you how beau­ti­ful your sketches were: the first one with those clothes and your moth­ers. When I clicked your com­ments sec­tion to write, I found sev­eral oth­ers already echo­ing me. I have noth­ing new to add, only my homest appre­ci­a­tion of your artistry.

    Keep that going!

  • http://www.sandeepdeb.com Sandeep Deb

    SHREK: For your infor­ma­tion, there’s a lot more to ogres than peo­ple think.
    DONKEY: Exam­ple?
    SHREK: Exam­ple? Okay, um, ogres are like onions.
    DONKEY: [Sniffs] They stink?
    SHREK: Yes. No!
    DONKEY: They make you cry?
    SHREK: No!
    DONKEY: You leave them out in the sun, they get all brown, start sprout­ing’ lit­tle white hairs.
    SHREK: No! Lay­ers! Onions have lay­ers! Ogres have lay­ers! Onions have lay­ers.
    You get it? We both have lay­ers. [Sighs]

    - Well, you almost fit the onion descrip­tion!! Every­time I brush against you, a won­der­ful new layer shows up. Few days back, I had to col­lect my jaw from the ground when I read your prose. Now, I have to roll in my eyes after see­ing your sketches. Again, never real­ized before today that you had a mono­chrome itch to your­self too.

    Your under­stand­ing of anatom­i­cal details is superb. I love your drapes, but IMHO it can do with more prac­tise. I had strug­gled with drapes for quite some time and I know how tricky it can get. Ridges on the drapes are the trick­i­est — I can see the same strug­gles that I went through in Grandparent’s delight (http://www.sandeepdeb.com/art/gpdelight/index.shtml) and Mother’s pride (http://www.sandeepdeb.com/art/mpride/index.shtml).

    I just have one more com­ment, you need to let go.. there is so much of con­straint vis­i­ble in the lines and shades.. try to move to darker hues and richer vari­a­tion of shades and open up the strokes, let them flow in larger curves and not be constrained.

    PS: You should have been a techie, WTF are you doing in management??

    Regards,
    Sandy
    http://www.sandeepdeb.com

  • http://skeptic.skepticgeek.com mahen­drap

    Priyank: thanks! Looks like we’ve a lot in com­mon as well :-) You must prob­a­bly have read Sakharam Gatne, so you can under­stand where the sketch is com­ing from…

    Poonam: thanks for your appre­ci­a­tion. Like you men­tioned on your blog, it is the appre­cia­tive com­ments that keep one going at it!

    Sandy: thanks for the enlight­ened cri­tique! Thanks so much for shar­ing your knowl­edge and exper­tise. I fully agree about the prac­tise thing. I was never con­sis­tent in any of my exper­i­men­tal endeav­ors, and thus remained a Jack at all of them!

    The con­straint aspect is a new learn­ing for me. I never real­ized it before. I won­der if let­ting go comes with the con­fi­dence, which comes with practise?

    What has sketch­ing got to do with being techie?

    The onion bit was enter­tain­ing! Being an intro­vert, I don’t open up eas­ily. And I never had the courage to talk about sketch­ing with you after see­ing yours! :-)

    As you can see, these are 17 year old sketches. There is a black ‘n white, close-up, large size por­trait pho­to­graph of my mother from the same col­lec­tion. It is the most amaz­ing pho­to­graph I’ve ever seen in my life. I have made numer­ous failed attempts to sketch it. My trained cousin artist tried to offer expert advice — start­ing with the basics of the human skull. After that, I real­ized my anatom­i­cal under­stand­ing is mostly kindergarten.

    There is a hid­den ambi­tion, a dream, some­where inside me, that one day I am going to sketch that por­trait. But my con­fi­dence level is zero, after all these years…

  • http://sunson.wordpress.com Arunk

    mahen­dra — I can only come up with one word — WOW!

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  • http://thiruspot.blogspot.com/ Thiru

    Wow… excel­lent. Your blog is gain­ing beauty day by day!
    Details to the dress fold­ings given by you are stunning!

    Enjoyed the com­ment sec­tion too… Aika­ter­ine, Ram­bodoc… and their lat­inum lollanum

  • http://oemar.wordpress.com/ oemar

    Wow, how did I miss this… sorry for com­ing here so late (after 20 com­ments).… work is killing nowa­days… any­way, back to this post, I love the mother one the best. Its, well, kind of dif­fer­ent from the oth­ers. Even though you can’t see her face, you can eas­ily imag­ine the expres­sion that can be on that blank face. Prob­a­bly that has what attracted me the most in this pic — every­one can think of the expres­sion the way he/she wants it to be with­out being wrong about it. Keep brush­ing… you re good :)

  • http://skeptic.skepticgeek.com mahen­drap

    Arun, Thiru, Oemar: Thank you! I don’t know how to respond to all the kind comments…

  • http://forgettingmyself.wordpress.com/ aika­ter­ine

    Mahen­dra,

    I hope that everyone’s com­pli­ments pro­vide a bit of a nudge to tackle that por­trait of your mother. It is easy to let what you do not know over­whelm your con­fi­dence. But I think every­one here is mak­ing it clear that what you do know is prop­erly your focus.

    You are incred­i­bly gifted, not just in tech­nique, but also (and I would say more impor­tantly) in an innate appre­ci­a­tion for the sub­tle way in which great artists draw out emo­tion in the peo­ple who admire their art­work. This is evi­dent in the pic­ture of your mother. It is one thing to be able to draw a per­fect ren­di­tion of a pic­ture. It is another, rarer, thing to under­stand that by alter­ing the image (by mak­ing the face invis­i­ble) you can cre­ate emo­tion in the observer. And then to cre­ate the ‘miss­ing’ upper arm, that so clearly appears to be there (which is a per­fect com­pli­ment to the form and func­tion of the face). Well, that is artis­tic genius.

    You have the innate abil­ity to trans­late an image, to mold it into something…indescribable. I am not the only one who fell into silence at one of your pieces.

    Why did I say all of that? Oh yeah, draw the por­trait of your mother one day. Your innate bril­liance is still there, even after all these years. I imag­ine that brush­ing up on and improv­ing your tech­nique will be sur­pris­ingly easy.

  • http://skeptic.skepticgeek.com mahen­drap

    Aika­ter­ine: you started out silent, and then you said it all! :-) I can’t tell you how glad I am that you did. Rather than let my sketch do the talk­ing, I should’ve said let my affec­tion­ate blog read­ers do the talking!

    Thanks for the inspi­ra­tion. I’m try­ing to build it up inside myself. Let’s see…

  • http://ennasitharalgal.blogspot.com/ sowmya

    Amaz­ing art work. Stun­ning tal­ent !!! Keep them coming !

  • http://pr3rna.wordpress.com/ pr3rna

    Beau­ti­ful sketches.My favourite is your moth­ers sktetch.

  • http://enreal.wordpress.com/ enreal

    Truly beau­ti­ful work, I am hum­bled by my own attempts…But in all seri­ous­ness, you have a remark­able eye and a gifted hand!

  • http://skeptic.skepticgeek.com mahen­drap

    Sowmya, Pre­rna, Enreal: thank you from the bot­tom of my heart for vis­it­ing and commenting!

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  • http://techntrek.wordpress.com/ Prax

    Wow !
    won­der­ful detail !

  • http://mindwarrior.wordpress.com kopos

    evoca­tively vivid. how does it feel to feel con­nected to a part of a self that you once were?

    p.s: thank you for drop­ping by my blog.

  • http://skeptic.skepticgeek.com Mahen­dra

    Thank you, Prax!

  • http://skeptic.skepticgeek.com Mahen­dra

    Poorna, wel­come to my blog! In your sin­gle com­ment, you’ve touched upon some­thing none of the above com­menters have, and some­thing I didn’t think of shar­ing on my own. There is a very spe­cial inti­macy that I can­not describe, when you’re sketch­ing your own mother. It is a strange feel­ing, giv­ing shape to the form that gave form to you.

    Just like a mother nur­tures a child, dis­ci­plines him, feeds him — an artist evolves the form of the image, tweaks, prunes and erases the unnec­es­sary parts, and enlivens it with color and con­trast! The artist ulti­mately gives birth to his art form, so there’s an infi­nite loop cre­ated when the art form is the artist’s cre­ator. Much like Escher’s ‘Draw­ing Hands’.