The Hindu : Other States / Orissa News : Carving miniatures on chalk is his passion

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Thursday, Dec 27, 2007
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Carving miniatures on chalk is his passion

Staff Reporter

Best works of Sukant Rana are the skeletons of dinosaurs

Photo: Lingaraj Panda

Sculptures made of chalk pieces by Sukanta Rana of Kolathigaon in Ganjam district. ---

BERHAMPUR: For Sukant Rana, a village lad from Ganjam district has a distinct knack of sculpting chalk pieces into beautiful artefacts.

This class tenth student in Kolathigaon village had been sculpting the chalk pieces since his childhood. He said, he was earlier interested in carving small artefacts out of clay.

But his parents opposed the use of that messy medium by him. It was while studying class IV that he got the idea that the chalk pieces could be used for sculpting. “Being brought up in a small village and little exposure to the art world, I did not have the idea that many famous artists used chalk pieces for sculpting miniatures,” Sukant said.

With time his skills improved.

He has also made his own tools in different shapes and sizes of needles and shaving blade pieces for intricate carvings on small pieces of chalk.

He prefers to sculpt idols, miniatures of the articles used in day-to-day life and landmarks of architectural marvels across the world.

But his best pieces are the skeletons of dinosaurs, which are quite famous with his friends. He has also tried to sculpt the idols at the village temple, where his father is a priest. This year he had decided to gift miniature three dimensional New Year greetings made up of chalk pieces to his friends and relatives.

He is yet to develop a technique to increase the durability of his miniatures made up of chalk, which break easily. He hopes he would get a guru one day who would teach him to sculpt miniatures in stone.

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