Art for everyone

There are many excuses that people give for not taking up art as a vocation or even a hobby. But ask amateur artist Snehal Patil and she says there is only one reason why everyone should take it up — “It’s a lot of fun”. And this is also the reason why she started Bombay Drawing Room, a community for art, which she founded as a hobby to supplement her corporate career.

Snehal, who will be hosting a workshop on art this week, tells us about the idea behind Bombay Drawing Room and says, “It actually started as a simple house party. Unlike other forms of art, people are often very closed towards visual art, especially painting. So my idea was to get people to open up about the format by making them more comfortable with it. So it started as an experiment when last August I called a few of my friends over and conducted a small session cum house party. I got them to recreate a painting to see if it could be a therapeutic experience. The response was amazing and from then on I’ve conducted over 14 workshops.”

Telling us what it will entail, Snehal says, “It’s not a regular art workshop, in the sense that anybody could attend it; even if they’ve never held a brush in their lives. The painting they have to recreate is pre-decided and the basic idea is to make them shed their inhibitions about painting. You often don’t realise how easy something is until you try it for yourself and this is the basic idea behind this workshop.”

On April 3, 11 am - 1 pm, At Somaiya Centre for Lifelong Learning, MG Road, Fort, Registration: Rs 1,500