Kerala - Sketches and Sniffles...

Despite never having smoked a single cigarette in my life, on Friday I woke up with a real hacking smoker's cough. By the evening knew I was in for another cold. And the school-visit season has barely started!

I needed to get better fast, as I had to travel to Sunderland this morning, so I spent the weekend mostly trying to force myself to rest. I'm not much good at that. After a bit, I figured that scanning in sketchbooks was not particularly onerous, so I tackled more of the Kerala drawings.

One of my favourite places we visited during our Kerala adventures was Fort Cochin, famed for the Chinese fishing nets above. I'd never seen anything quite like them. They're constructed from wooden shafts lashed together and counter-balanced by boulders hanging from ropes. Apparently the locals have been plucking passing fish from the estuary in the same way for hundreds of years.

I loved the little, square park immediately in front of our hotel. I would get up slightly early and dash out to watch the community waking up, and get a few sketches in before breakfast.

The park was dotted with these massive trees. They are known locally as 'Sleeping Rain Trees' - great eh? 

Fort Cochin is very much a fishing community and, every morning when the catch was brought in, men loaded fish into crates which they put onto the back of motorbikes, to take out to the surrounding villages to sell. Cats appeared from nowhere to gobble up tit-bits and occasionally steal whole sardines when a back was turned!

There were so many different things going on in the park and along the adjacent river front, I hardly knew what to draw next! I drew lots of the traders and, before I left, managed to find somewhere to take photocopies of my sketches to give to them. As usual, the drawing provided a lovely means of communicating with everyday people; so much more respectful than taking a photo.

If you want to read more about my trip, these are all the posts so far. You can see more sketches from Kerala and from my various other adventures on the sketchbook section of my website. There's also a short film of me talking about why and how I keep sketchbooks.

Kerala: House Blessing Sketches

I am still waiting for my page layouts to come back from Gullane, so am spending most my time writing at the moment (when I'm not answering emails anyway). I'm working with John on the Koala stories I mentioned last week. Turns out John is great at plot ideas and moving stories on when they stall. I'm best at dialogue and characterisation, we make a good team! 

Anyway, there's nothing specific about that I can share right now, so I thought you might like to see a few more pics more my Kerala sketchbooks. These were also in Tellicherry. We were there over the Christmas weekend and there was a blessing happening in one of the houses in the village. It was taking place in the garden, where there was a small temple, and was to bring good fortune to the house and village for the forthcoming year. 

It was an evening event, so at sunset John, myself and our 2 friends were guided to the house by torchlight, through a series of back alleys. It got increasing black and hard to see our footing on the uneven ground and our guide got lost and had to ask directions twice!

We arrived just as the dancing and drumming was starting. People from all the neighbouring houses were there, sitting around two sides of the garden on plastic chairs. We were immediately shown to seats at the front, which made me feel a little guilty, as unbelievers, but I didn't complain too much, as it also gave me the perfect vantage point to sketch. 

I wasn't sure at first if it was appropriate, but the local people seemed very interested, so I kept going. An hour later, we had to leave to go back to our lodgings for dinner, but apparently the dancing went on well into the night.

Next morning we went out for a walk round and, from a very handy vantage point above, watched these women drying hospital laundry in the massive courtyard below. In the area out of shot to the left of the page, they had laid out sheets on the ground in the sun to dry (I can just imagine how many weeks that would take in Sheffield!):

Everything I've shown you so far has been from just one sketchbook, but I filled three and a half while I was in Kerala, so eventually I'll get around to scanning the rest and get them up on the website. I'll let you know.

The Lull Before the Storm...

My new-improved, doggie-story has now gone off to the publisher (cross fingers...). I probably won't hear anything for a week or so at least. I am still waiting for my other publisher to send me the suggested page layouts for the next book I'm to start work on any day now: between us, we have to tame all the work I did last year and squeeze it into a 32 page picture book! 

It's weird having a lull just before you know you are about to be really busy. I have a couple of events later this week, but school visits won't really kick off until next month, so John and I have been going through all the bookings I've got coming up, making sure timetables are all resolved and trains are all booked.

I'm also using this pocket of time to write down another idea that's been knocking around in my head, about a koala, but that's way too new to share for now.

What I can share though, are some more pages from my Kerala sketchbooks: I've at last got time to do more scanning. 

These drawings were all done in Tellicherry. We were taken to visit the obligatory fabric shop, but first, to my delight, we were shown the weaving and spinning sheds where the fabrics were created. It was like Northern England before the Industrial Revolution, except the hand-operated, wooden looms were all operated by women in beautiful saris. The low-ceilinged room clacked and banged noisily with the sound of wood on wood.

In a neighbouring, smaller room, women sat on wooden stools, spinning:

I showed each sketch to the women I drew, getting their names, and briefly stopped production in my corner of the factory, as everyone wanted a look and pass the book around. We bought John a lovely, brilliant orange, linen shirt before we left.

When the guide said he was taking us to a 'beedi' factory next, I expected beaded jewelry (and inwardly yawned). But it turns out a beedi is a kind of cigarette, and the 'factory' was very interesting indeed. In a big wooden building, long rows of women sat with trays on their laps, twisting tobacco into dried Ebony leaves, which they clipped into an appropriate rectangle shape with scissors. On our way out, the woman in the office saw my drawing, and gave me some freebies - shame I don't smoke!

The sketch at the top is in town - I stood by the side of the road and soon drew a considerable crowd. They all watched quietly and even shooed away a beggar. After a while I stopped worrying about my handbag hanging at my side - I knew they'd give short-shrift to any pickpocket. I really loved the people of Kerala who were always positive, interested and helpful and I never, ever felt threatened by crowds.

Just to finish (and to make you feel as jealous as possible), this is the view from the house where we stayed with a family in Tellicherry. Horrible eh?

An Afternoon Drawing in the Market

I just love drawing markets and what better place than India? It's such a great excuse to get in amongst local people, doing their everyday jobs, and as soon as you draw, they welcome you into their lives just a little, and that makes it so much more rewarding and memorable.

These sketches were done on my very last afternoon in Kerala, in a small town called Angamaly, near Cochin. I started with the veg stall: stuffed with sacks and crates of veg in all shapes, sizes and colours, many of which I'd never seen before. 

This is Ajilal, who was the man taking the orders and the money for the veg. His fellow workers nominated him to be drawn and then ribbed him shamelessly throughout. When I was done, John and I were fed as many finger-bananas (literally finger-size) as we could eat, while someone nipped my sketchbook to the photocopy shop.

I was then dragged into the garden of a man who happened to live next door. He showed me his caged bunnies, guinea pigs and budgies and offered them for me to draw. It felt bizarre, and was not quite what I'd had in mind, but I gave it a go while his wife, Rosie, stood and watched. He bought me a bottle of mango juice to cool me off, which was very welcome by then.

This man was deep-frying food round the corner, in a massive wok. It was a fiercely hot and horribly humid day and the extra heat was making me run with sweat, though I was standing several feet away - how he kept smiling I'll never know.

Time was getting on and the afternoon's fish catches arrived, so I moved to the next street, where fishermen crouched on the pavement with small tarps at their feet, where their fish was laid out. I started with the man below and began to draw quite an audience. 

The fisherman was disappointed I didn't get his head in (though pleased enough to take a photo on his mobile phone). So the man sitting opposite him insisted I did him next and that I made sure his face was showing. 

By then I had quite a crowd (John counted 25), and we were entirely blocking the narrow road. Soon the other fish men were all lining up to be done and I had to plead fatigue to get out of drawing everyone. They took pity on me and one of the men bought us both a cup of sweet tea off the chai man (with an urn on a bike).

A wonderfully memorable, final afternoon, full of laughter and sudden, brief friendships. 

Bewilderingly Back to Earth

So far it's been a week of trogging through all the emails that have built up while we've been away, opening the post, checking the diary and generally getting my head back into gear. It's the sign of a good holiday when you get back and work feels like something you vaguely remember you were up to once, but you can't recall anything properly.

I've started scanning a handful of my sketches, so I'll pop them on tomorrow morning, but here are some quick monkey sketches in the meantime. They were a little bit scary, but also very cute, though a right nuisance to locals, as they would steal anything sweet. 

It's back to work with a bang tomorrow though, as I'm back teaching at the university for 2 half days, so that should sort me out and get me in gear!

Kerala in India - Quite a Christmas!

On Saturday we got back from three fantastic weeks, touring Kerala in southern India. I filled 4 sketchbooks, so there is plenty to show you but, of course, we got back to 500 emails as well as the big pile of envelopes on the mat, so it's going to be a while before I can put an e-sketchbook together. 

In the meantime, here is a couple of sketches I did in Punnathoor Kotta Kovilagom - a place where 64 elephants are kept and trained for work in Hindu temples. Keralan elephants have a unique pink face with black freckles, so I had to get my paints out, which of course turned me into just another attraction, as far as the Indian visitors were concerned.

The Keralan people are the friendliest and most welcoming I have ever come across in my travels. Absolutely everyone we met was delightful (and also honest, despite some obvious poverty). Stunningly beautiful scenery too. Plus there's the gorgeous food... (I have put on weight and all my trousers are too tight!).

More to come!