Its a pale resemblance

From Baner Hill, Looking west.

Biodiversity park. Reforestation planting on Baner hillside. Looking south.

Looking north on Baner Hill

Two things drawing and painting from nature will do for you.

Firstly, instil a sense of humility about nature and hopefully admiration. All the High Dynamic Range processed digital images, graphics, 3D movies, computer games, all pale in comparison.  I cant bring myself to write about it as it seems so silly and obvious and slightly embarrassing. But I am sure there are people who need this reminder. Go stare at a sunset and accompanying skies.  Or an insect in your garden. It's always amazing.

Secondly, it creates an appreciation of the difficulty of drawing and painting from nature.( All representations for that matter, including photography).
As it is, it is hard to do watercolors.  The golden rule, that all great watercolorists follow and excel at, is knowing what to do. With that one brush stroke, lay down a color or shape a form or cast that shadow or perhaps do them all at once! And then to be done with it. No pecking around and fidgeting.  No "do overs".
And its even harder and impossible to capture things you see in nature.  But its always worth the effort however terrible your results may seem. You will LOOK, for once, and see stuff you otherwise miss.

You must attempt it in your life.

Waiting

Kera, a very tiny restaurant that specializes in food from the state of Kerala in India.  Fish Thali.

Linger On, a multi cuisine restaurant.  Lemon grass cooler and pasta lunch.

Tsai Shen Yen, Hong Kong Chinese restaurant. Rice and noodles. Veg Wontons. Coriander soup.

I spend time waiting in restaurants.  Waiting for food to be served, friends, take away...  Then, if no one is watching I draw.

Cardamom tea in tiny glasses

Amrutalya tea shop. Dandekar Bridge , Pune

Amrutalya tea shops are an old institution in Pune.  They are small shops that serve tea in tiny glasses like the one next to my pen and notebook.  The tea is milky, sweet and cardamom flavored. The tea is brewed every hour or so depending on the customers. For a quick sip, they also offer a "cutting chai".  It's half of that tiny glass. It was a slow afternoon.  The owner was sitting and staring out into the street.  Laid back fellow.  Cheerful. He saw me drawing. After a bit he sang a Hindi song from an old movie, " Yeh kaun chitrakar hai?..."("Who is this artist?")  The lyrics describe the musing of a farmer as he surveys the glories of nature and rhetorically wonders about the artist( presumably the Good Lord) that rendered them.  This guy just loved singing that lyric over and over.  And then he would grin at me and go back to staring at the road smiling to himself pleased about remembering the song with a reference to an artist.  I grinned back and kept drawing.

I drank three glasses. He crushed the cardamom for his brew in the brass pestle and mortar on the upper shelf.  The brass teapot and the stainless steel milk urn are typical.  When the place is full of customers he sits crosslegged on the brown seat on the platform. The drawer is where he stashes his money and makes change.  He asked me to come back.