India 2015 Sketchbook - Maine to Delhi

The sketch on the left page was done on the Cape Air flight from Rockland to Boston. The sketch on the right was done the next morning at JFK Airport. That's the plane I flew on to London where I then connected on to Delhi.

The sketch on the left page is Oscar Hernandez, an urban sketching friend whose portrait I painted (from a photo) the first evening I arrived in Delhi as part of The Portrait Project. The sketch on the right is a the largest Hanuman statue in the world. It is 108 feet tall. Here's a video taken from near where I was sitting:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LO7uOVSuxE - this is the sound of Delhi. It never stops.

The first morning in Delhi I had breakfast in the hotel restaurant and sat alone at a table near the window and sketched the view and the busy street outside. The window was actually two thick sheets of plate glass separated by about 3/4" and filled with bits of broken glass up to about 40" off the floor. That's what I was trying to indicate at the bottom of the sketch.

After breakfast on the first day I wanted to explore the area around my hotel. I walked a couple of miles from my hotel and found this Sikh temple and a semi-shady place to sit and sketch. I worked on this for a couple of hours until the sun became too unbearable. Several people came up to me as I sketched and either watched, chatted with me for awhile, or took their photo with me. That's how it was sketching in public in India.

Inside the temple I met this man who showed me the proper way to wash my feet and hands and what to wear on my head. I sat for awhile in the cool interior and then took some photos and walked back to my hotel where I met the group I was going to be travelling with over the next 2 weeks. — at Gurudwara Nanaksar Sahib.

Day 1 we toured Delhi. We traveled in tuk tuks, explored spice markets in Old Delhi, visited the Jama Masjid Mosque (the largest and best-known mosque in India) and found a Starbucks in Connaught Place to cool off in. Not much time to sketch but I took lots of photographs — at Jama Masjid, Delhi.