On its second venture in the city after organising the sketches of temples, the members of Urban Sketchers sketched the streets along the Bindusagar lake, celebrating the World Heritage Day with a special event ‘Art Haat.’
As part of the celebration, the Art Haat initiative was jointly organised by the Bhubaneswar Development Authority, the BMC and the Bhubaneswar Urban Knowledge Centre with the Urban Sketchers’ local chapter as the knowledge partner.
During the early evening hours an exhibition was also organised to showcase the sketches of the participants near the Rukuna Ratha, the holy chariot of lord lingaraj, on the Ratha Danda.
The World Heritage Day’s theme was “International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development.’’ The theme for the Urban Sketchers, on the other hand, was “Streetscape’’.
A group of young painters included 30 students from KIIT School of Architecture, KIIT University, four practicing architects, five artists/graphic designing students, one Class VIII student of Kendriya Vidyalaya No. 1 and two commoners.
The youngest participant Shrishti De, a resident of Bapuji Nagar, came for the session with her father Sidharth De after knowing about the event from social media.
Shristi, who has more than 100 prizes in drawing and painting from various competitions in her school and outside, termed the new experience of drawing a live urban landscape enriching and awarding.’
“Apart from streetscape sketches, doodles, water colour sketches were also made by the participants. We will be doing weekly activities by the group which is increasing every passing day. Now within two days we are 30 members and the next time after sketching the entire Old Town area, we would venture into other region of the capital planned and designed by Otto Koenigsberger and Julius Vaz respectively,’’ said city chapter moderator Swayamprakash Mohanty.
“We selected the Bindusagar area as from lingaraj Temple to Mukteswar, the Old City of Bhubaneswar offers countless themes for drawing and sketching,” he added.