PEN & INK DRAWINGS BY BELA RAVIKUMAR
To be able to devote completely to ones chosen art form is a privilege I think. I have been doing Art for more than 35 years. I started as a printmaker and moved to watercolors, exploring many other forms in between. It has been a challenge to sustain and keep working with demands of the daily life but my creative spirit would not sit quiet. So I started doing Pen and Ink drawings a few years back as the only way to continue doing some form of art amidst the busy schedule of my day.
A set of few pens and a drawing book was all that I needed. I carried it everywhere and drew whenever I had some time, at lunch break, while waiting for an appointment or on a trip. Nature has always inspired me and I continued to study and draw its beauty.
Soon a friend joined in and we began on an artistic journey together. We plan and eagerly wait to go outdoors and draw. This has become a Friday routine, rain or shine we venture to all possible sites in and around Santa Cruz County—ocean, lakes, river, sloughs, cliffs and bluffs, parks and forests, meadows and gardens, opening to vistas. We try to capture the mood and sense of a place in the composition. It has been a wonderful harmony being in nature and working together in silence, occasionally consulting each other to review or seek some guidance.
A simple and basic skill of drawing has become a tool to understand Nature, to show the volume, scale, transparency, movement, light, shadow, depth and layers with just lines.
The recent pen and ink landscapes are the result of this intense enthusiasm to draw. What an enriching learning process it has been. Hope you enjoy seeing these drawings as much as I have enjoyed drawing them.
Thanks, bela
You can check out more of my work at: www.belagallery.com
