I was carrying my sketchbook everywhere during this vacation. One day at the breakfast buffet, in between courses 😀 - I drew a couple of interesting sketches.

The Croissant Is Alive!

I got a yummy croissant from the bakery section and when I sat down to eat it the croissant seemed really dejected that its short life was coming to an end. So I drew it. Aaaand then I still ate it 😜.

The Fruit Bowl

Arranging a fruit bowl is an art! I drew this neat and majestic looking fruit bowl. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to …

Hello Again!

I’m back with another post on my vacation trip, this one about boats. Boats are ubiquitous in Kerala - something we rarely see when living in the city. Perhaps there are a few in the lakes around Bangalore. But boats really do come to life in coastal Kerala.

Resting in the Backwaters

Here is a sketch of a boat tied up in a backwater which I drew while resting under a tree on the other bank of the backwater. Even at rest this boat conveyed a sense of movement. It was bobbing up and down gently on the …

The hotel we stayed at in Kovalam had a “Crow Problem”. There were lots of crows and would steal your food if you were not looking. I was having a snack outdoors in the afternoon - and this pair were watching me intently - ready to pounce.

The crow problem was bad enough that they had to post a security guard during evening tea to keep the crows away.

I had fun drawing the alert crows and the security guard. And we had some nice snacks at tea. Win win!

Abhishek Mishra …

Hi!! and A Very Happy New Year 2023 to You!

A few days ago, I wrote a post about our trip to South Kerala. This is the second in the series.

I was sitting near one of the backwaters in Kovalam and this stork sat down in front of me on a piece of wood sticking out of the water - and started grooming its feathers. I had just enough time to draw this quick sketch before it flew away.

I will post more sketches in the coming days. Stay tuned!

-Abhishek (art noob)

The Vacation

In August this year we went on a week’s vacation to Kovalam, Varkala and Thiruvananthapuram, in the South of Kerala. All three places are located close to each other. This time we travelled by train from Bangalore to Trivandrum. This was a fun experience to be travelling in Indian Railways after a long time.

Instead of my camera I decided to take along my sketching supplies. I took a sketchbook with thick watercolour paper, some pens, pencils and brush pens.

I’m going to write a few posts with one or more sketches chosen from the trip …

We recently moved to a new place in Bangalore. And I’ve been busy with one thing or another for the past 3 months. However, we’ve settled down now.

My son and I were taking a walk a few weeks ago on a beautiful late Sunday morning. I had taken a camera along to take photos if we spotted something interesting. And we did…

This is a trio rudra-palash flowers - and I really liked the symmetry of these three. I like the way the photo turned out - hope you like it as well.

That’s it for now… Hope …

I got irregular in Apr-May, and then did not post at all in June when I got a mild case of covid. I’m fully recovered now, and thought I would post an update on what I’ve been reading and what I’ve been drawing.

Learning art is a continuous process - but improvements in your own skill are discrete in nature. If you are consistent in practice then all of a sudden one fine day you will notice that you are much better in a particular way.

I practice figure drawing every day for a few minutes - and last …

A lot of my sketching practice is based on reference pictures. Let’s say I’m practicing drawing figures. Then I go onto pinterest look for pictures with interesting poses - and then simplify them and try to draw the pose. I try to do this in a few minutes so that I can practice many of them. However there are challenges - looking for unique poses to draw, finding the tougher angles which are harder to draw, and also finding poses in clothing where the anatomy is clear, and more…

And so I recently tried drawing not from picture reference but …

Hello Dear Reader,

Today I’m going to briefly talk about palettes and share a nice resource where we can go for well-designed palettes.

What is a Palette?

A palette is the range or set of colours used in a particular composition.

No traditional artwork can use an infinite variety of colours. The artist is limited to certain pigments and uses various mixtures of these pigments to create the colours used in a particular painting. One can possibly mix uncountable number of colours using variation of colour, brightness, and whiteness. However artists end up using only a small subset of …

We took a little family vacation to Wayanad, Kerala and Bandipur forest in Karnataka the last few days. I will write a detailed travel diary someday but here’s a photo of a sunset I took from a viewpoint in Wayanad.

Happy Arting,

Abhishek (art noob)