Heart gallery: The newest add-on at weddings is a painting of the couple, created live

For the artists, it’s a race against time. Step away and someone may doodle on their work. Even worse are those who say: That doesn’t look like the couple, beta

Pritesh Rangole likes to arrive at a wedding hall at least two hours before the bride and groom. He sets up his easel, canvas and colours, studies the light. Plans the dimensions of his painting, and decides which elements of the decor he will incorporate.

A live painting created by lawyer-turned-artist Noor.

Once the couple arrives, there is no time to do anything but sketch (really fast) and take the odd photograph as a visual aid. Rangole, 27, draws quick outlines of the newlyweds, taking special care to represent their outfits, jewellery and make-up. He adds more details as the ceremony gets underway, and as the family and group photoshoots begin.

Then he steps away, finds a quiet corner, finishes his painting with great care, and hands it over to the couple before they leave.

It’s hard work completing a canvas in real time. “Particularly with the loud music, the crowds, and subjects who are never still,” he says, laughing. It is often so busy — what with requests from relatives, and children wanting to see what’s going on — that there is no time for food or even toilet breaks.

The appointed hour can be an added adjustment: painting at ceremonies conducted at 3 am, in biting winter, hands cramping as the artists clutch their brushes.

But the money is good and the demand for such work is growing. Rangole says he has worked at 40 weddings since he started in August, for rates that start at ₹35,000 per event.

As artists offer such services across major cities, the throwback to the pre-camera era is complete. Wedding portraits were a popular method of recording significant events from about the Renaissance era in the 16th century to the dawn of the camera age about 300 years later.

In the current era, the trend of bringing artists back to weddings emerged in the US about a decade ago.

In India, it is a throwback to something far older too. For thousands of years, traditional folk-art forms such as Warli, Pattachitra and Madhubani recorded celebrations in art works. Rajasthani and Mughal miniatures would later do the same, representing in intricate details festivals, hunts, coronations and (usually royal) weddings.

Labour of love

Keerthana Adepu at work in Hyderabad.

Today, most couples and their families get quite involved in the conceptualising of the wedding art, says Delhi lawyer-turned-artist Noor, 25 (who goes by only one name). Some want deceased relatives to be represented. Others want pets woven in. Some submit reference works collected off the internet.

“Even if a couple just wants us to surprise them, it helps to have a discussion with them beforehand, to explore exactly what they mean,” says Keerthana Adepu, 23, from Hyderabad.

The more lavish the wedding, the more complicated things can become. Arriving for a ceremony being held in Abu Dhabi, Chetan Advirkar, 30, from Mumbai discovered that the airline had lost his luggage. “I had no time to buy new art supplies. I was panicking,” he says. After much wheedling, several calls and some pulling of strings, the airline compensated by acquiring a set of art supplies for him.

Most artists comment on the cold. Wedding season stretches through the winter and “my hands become so rigid, it’s hard to hold the brush,” Advirkar says.

The pranks can be painful too. Noor and Rangole have both left canvases unattended for a few minutes to take some photographs, and returned to find doodles and scribbles on a half-finished work. “The damage was fixable, but at first I thought I had lost two hours of frantic sketching and painting,” Noor says.

“Guests unfamiliar with the concept of live painting think it’s a canvas for everyone to draw on, or that it’s a game or an engagement activity,” adds Adepu.

Quick on the draw

The live commentary can be even more disturbing than the doodles.

“Before the painting is done, relatives will tell you that the portrait doesn’t resemble the couple, ‘at all’,” Rangole says, laughing. Some will sympathetically ask what went wrong, or smile and say there is still time to fix it.

The worst moments are when you know they’re right, says Adepu. “Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, either the painting isn’t finished on time, or the clients are not happy with it. In such cases, I take their suggestions, go home, make the changes and finish it to their liking. After all, it is their big day and you want to do your best to make them happy.”

In most cases, though, the response is pure joy. The paintings are greeted with gasps and laughter, affectionate jibes at those in the frame, and sometimes emotional tears. “The reactions are the most satisfying part of the job,” Advirkar says.

These are such happy events filled with love and hope, Noor adds. “It feels good to be part of a person’s best day rather than, as a lawyer, being part of some of their worst.”