Artists at work at the Lake Land Country Club workshop. Picture by Anup Bhattacharya

Autumn will soon set in and trees will change colour. The green will slowly change to yellow and imagining this colour change, Malay Das painted a colourful canvas. Reckless rickshaws running on the road, an enlarged view of busy city life came to life in Swapnesh Chowdhury’s pen sketch. The faces of nature in different moods was Balai Karmakar’s subject and the mythological story of Sitaharan from the Ramayana was the story on Ashoke Roy’s canvas. The subjects were different but the artists were of the same group.

Lake Land Country Club played host to a group of artists, called the Canvas Artists’ Circle on July 18 and 19 for a two-day art workshop. The 52-year old group, based in Calcutta, chose the quiet surroundings of Lake Land Country Club to sit together and paint. “We generally organise two to three workshops a year. This one is the second workshop this year. We do this just to sit together and paint, without any particular intention in mind,” said Malay Das, the secretary of the group. Eighteen members of the group participated in this workshop.

With no particular theme assigned to the artists, members were free to paint anything of their choice. “The idea was to highlight each artist’s own style of painting and expression,” said Balai Karmakar, the assistant vice president of the group.

“Painting at a workshop is different from working in one’s studio. There is less scope for detail here but doing group work is important,” said Prithwis Sikdar, a participant.

Dalia Mukherjee