BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir - The Hindu Mandir

 

our group

I think the two pictures give you some idea of the complexity of the things we were trying to draw on our visit to the Hindu temple in Stafford. The intricately carved panels of the mandir covered both inside  and outside. It was amazing. In her drawing in the header you can see that  Svetlana did a good job of capturing the many carved columns and the dark, cool atmosphere inside the temple.

The day was hot. So the main job was finding shade long enough to get the sketch. Some folks did tackle drawing the entire temple building.

Michelle 

Michelle was very patient.

Alicia

Decha

Rania

Peter

Jenny

Susan

I think the commonality among these sketches is that they really simplified the very intricate shapes and picked a color palette to pull it all together.  It was a tough subject.

Some folks kept it even simpler.

Mary m

Mary took one portion of the temple and the surrounding greenery for context. Lovely reflections in the pool in the foreground.

Vicki

Vicki went strictly black and white. All light and shadow. It gave her drawing wonderful atmosphere.

Jacklynn

Jacklynn went straight for the watercolor and limited her palette to five colors. Very effective.

And leaving the white of the paper works every time.

Nancy

Using a toned paper is another option. It worked well for Nancy.

Michael

Michael drew from a completely different vantage point. He also limited his colors. You can feel the heat of the sun.

Shakti

Shakti stuck to pen and ink. I like the inclusion of a few people.

Jen V

Jen V worked in pencil. Very simple.

Paul

A nice graded wash worked well for Paul. After that, just a little ink pen and some embellishments.

Sketchers hard at work

 A couple of us drew the carved entrance gates. I just wasn't up to a whole temple.

Jeff

Jeff included sketchers hard at work.

Chris

This way, I could compose a page for text and drawing, something I've wanted to incorporate for a long time.

Fran

And Fran laid out her entire watercolor on site. But, running out of time, she completed the drawing later. As I've said before, this is perfectly ok. (especially with a large and complicated subject)

Judith

Judith went into the temple and drew a sampling of the carved posts she found there.

Bruce

Bruce also went inside and drew a goddess statue.

Nancy

Nancy drew one of the altars to the gods. The addition of the gold and the contrast with the black paper and  Posca markers is effective.

Here are some more of the drawings from both inside and out.

Magda

A collage on a prepared blue background.

Chris

Different color scheme, but along the same lines. A bit of this and that.

Susan

Women in their saris.

Yug

Yug drew some detail. He kept at it even though, as he said, it was hard.

Jen V

A river goddess

Peter

Another goddess

Nancy

Pillar detail.

Here's the throwdown.

our throwdown

Here's to all the hardy souls who stuck it out until the end.  And here's to our gracious hosts at the mandir.

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