For a while now, Sundays have mostly been about waking up late, brunch and just lazing around dreading Monday. But, the last few Sundays have turned out to be different. I happened to chance upon a sketch walk that was being organised by Hyderabad Trails at the Golconda Fort. I had heard of them organising music walks, photo walks, nature walks, heritage walks, etc across the city but, a sketch walk was something new. And for a person like me, whose skills as an artist are restricted to drawing stick figures, I was pretty excited.
Having visited the Fort several times before, I knew the site had something on offer to all. If you wanted to sketch, there were historical monuments, humans, shrubbery, stray boulders, dilapidated structures and other interesting shapes at your disposal. So one Sunday, I took an auto to the Fort and waited impatiently to begin my first encounter with sketching a monument. The walk was guided by two very remarkable artists — Arul and Srikanth.
In a few minutes, after initial introductions, we were all seated facing Rani Mahal clutching stationary. Srikanth asked us to draw whatever attracted us and made a small illustration as an example. The sky was a beautiful cornflower blue and the Fort stood all tall, and magnificent. The next few hours were spent closely observing the details of the monuments, sketching and shading with Arul and Srikanth monitoring each one of us individually — offering tips and techniques.
So as I sat there sketching, I observed how light plays with surfaces to create shadows. Trying to incorporate these shadows in the sketch, to create depth, was the most challenging task. I also began to understand the proportions and the details required to make a sketch more realistic.
While observing the monuments up close to really feel the patterns, I was amazed by the intricacies of the architecture. I realised that often when we click a photograph of a monument, we fail to capture finer details and instead tend to focus on the larger picture. But while we are sketching, we tend to focus our attention on the details and this generates a whole lot of fresh perspective. I felt a new kind of intimacy with the structures. They brought alive my imagination of a royal household and I mentally travelled back in time — that’s the kind of connection you feel with a monument when you sketch it. Another allure of the walk was the fascinating mix of people I got to meet.
They broke through barriers of age, gender, language, regional identities, qualifications and careers and had come together just to fulfil a passion for sketching. A small interactive session with everyone over some Irani chai and Osmania biscuits after the walk gave me insight into a diverse field of knowledge. Most fellow participants said that they were never going to look at these monuments the same way again! Hyderabad Trails has organized three sketch walks so far, and plan to host lots more in the near future. I, for one, am excitedly looking forward!
The author can be reached at shree.mram71@gmail.com
