The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Aliens, from children’s angle

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Monday, Jul 13, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Aliens, from children’s angle

Staff Reporter

Kids sketch aliens of all shapes and sizes alive on the charts

— Photo: K.Pichumani

COLOURFUL STROKES: Students sketch their imagination at the cartoon and clay modelling workshop conducted at Lalit Kala Akademi in Chennai on Sunday.

CHENNAI: “What do you see in space?” asked the amiable educator, as the responses from the 25-odd kids tumbled in. The kids listened intently to the speaker, even as they kept a close watch on their crayons and charts placed alongside.

A few sample sketches of aliens were shown to them to pick the cue. Soon, aliens of all shapes and sizes – from a sharp-edged rectangle extra terrestrial alien to a 10-armed creature shaped like a heart and coloured in bright red, came alive on the charts.

Asmi, a class I student, preferred to draw the alien as a living spongy green ball with multiple arms and lopsided eyes.

Sci-fi novels

“There were more such wacky imaginations and pretty cartoons. Their pictorial representations looked like characters from sci-fi novels,” said Mathanagopal, who was one among the five, who organised the workshop. The workshop was part of the art show conducted by five artists, including Karthic Kannan, Antony Raj, Santosh Kumar and Anitha, which concluded on Sunday.

True to its title ‘Five parallel lines met,’ the art show was a confluence of five media of arts, with vast differences not only in strokes, themes and medium but also with a striking similarity in thought processes.

If Karthic and Antony came up with bold strokes in oil and acrylic medium, vibrant colours of sky was the signature theme of Anita. Mathan, on his part, captured the photogenic moments of Velachery Lake, Besant Nagar beach and towers of half a dozen temples. Santosh Kumar’s works, doused in radium paints, enjoyed a subtle glow in dark.

The workshop gave the kids an introduction into the world of clay.

Smudged with clay all over, Bhuvaneswari gave shape to her alien.

She kneaded it, sliced it into small balls and expertly imitated her sketch to make a lanky extra-terrestrial being with prominent antennae.

“It is amazing to see the response from the parents. Art is the best stress buster and creativity enhancer. And colours spice up the imagination of kids,” said Anita.

The five-member group will shortly come up with many such workshops to initiate students into cartooning and clay modelling.

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