Sketching in Goa: Part 4

Fisherwomen are fun to draw, with their brightly printed saris and dresses, hair decorated with flowers, gold jewelry and often-colorful language. I spent a morning sketching in Panjim market, with the Sunday morning crowds often blocking my view.
 

This lineup of women sold shellfish, clams and shrimp, cleaned and sorted out into measures.

A little section of the fish market is set aside for meat and poultry stalls. The mutton shop is where you buy goat meat. You select a piece from the meat hanging overhead from large hooks, and the butcher chops it up to your specifications on a large wooden log.

The sketches below are from a fish auction, held twice a day- when the fishing boats come in- in Devgad, Maharashtra.
See the guy walking away with the huge swordfish to the right of the frame? He just won that in an auction.

These wicker baskets are filled with silvery ribbon fish. Two men hold up a bamboo that suspends a weighing scale from which a basket is hung and weighed before it is auctioned.

Ribbon fish are dried and made into poultry meal or fertilizer. Baskets of fish that have been weighed line the shore and the sea is filled with boats waving saffron flags and the Indian tricolor.

Me? I sketch and then I go home with some fresh crab and pomfret fish.