Sketching

On a summer trip to maternal grandparents’ place and on the bugging of a cousin to draw stuff, I discovered something for the first time, my love for sketching. The love that was uncovered in those holidays in an unexpected fashion, blossomed into a stronger one over the coming years.

The memories of nudging Nana as a child to get charts of all colours, cutting them and folding into greeting cards, sketching and colouring on them, to turn them into new year and birthday cards, the memories of trying to draw everything that is there at home, ranging from stickers on the fridge to calendars on the wall, the memories of spending endless hours with pencils, sketch pens, water colours and brushes, all of them have etched a permanent place for themselves.

As the further years of my education demanded more time for academics and I parted more and more from this hobby, it took a back seat in my list of priorities. With college and professional life coming into picture, newer stuff seemed to keep me occupied. I did get sometime for myself in a phase of life, where I wasn’t working and didn’t have many responsibilities. But the current me can’t figure out the actual reason for not rekindling the old love in that phase.

Of the many things that I have been trying out in this lockdown, sketching is one of them. A picture on whatsapp status attracted my attention and I so badly wanted to try that.

The outcome of my trials trying to copy the picture on whatsapp

Working on this listening to the songs of Krishna, specially the Achyutam Keshavam one, was so therapeutic that I enjoyed the whole process immensely.

Inspired by what that did to me, I did couple of more sketches as and when I found some time and then maybe looking at this obsession, cousin gifted me a sketch book for Rakhi.

The itch to draw more has multiplied further on receiving this gift and I chose this as my first page to make an auspicious beginning.

Picking up the sketch book and trying out different sketches is my standard time pass these days. It recharges me as well as gives me a kind of satisfaction that can’t be put into words.

The latest one that made an entry yesterday, into the book is the one below.

The hands keep itching to do more, but there’s also something called reality that makes other things call out to me…

Hope I get able enough to squeeze out time to satisfy my itch amidst everything around me !

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New additions

So many things have changed this year in an unexpected fashion, and that list includes our access to library books. Until last year, we were using JustBooks library actively and that made things quite easy, meaning we could keep the reading habit going on without actually buying them and worrying about storage. I preferred library over actual purchase as we didn’t have to worry about if the book will be put to its complete use, whether it’s worth buying for one read and where do we store them.

Now, owing to multiple factors, we no more have a subscription to JustBooks and the choices we are left with are reading digitally or buying books. We tried the first option with A and she did manage to complete couple of the digital versions over the summer. But the fact that she is missing the physical version has been completely visible.

This July, my mother wanted to gift her grandchildren on her birthday and A chose these as her gift, as she had the previous parts with her and wanted to own the rest of the collection.

Last month, Daughters Day arrived and A asked what her gift was , about which we haven’t given a thought until that moment.

A started reading digital version of Hobbit couple of days before this conversation happened and we made use of this occasion to make an implulsive purchase of the ones below

Now that A’s friends too have started borrowing the books from her and are reading them, I feel less guilty about the purchases and am more satisfied. And am counting on the family too to read the books, including me and put them to maximum use 😊

Happy reading !!!

Are there any books that come to your mind that you can recommend for A ? Please do recommend and we will venture onto that when we are done with the current ones.