Dream Dust - Illustrations for a Poem

I miss illustrating, so although HELLO EVERY SUNDAY is up and running again and I am drawing daily once more, there is the desire to interpret words into images. I asked my Instagram Followers for a small poem and one of them immediately gave me Dream Dust by Langston Hughes. I wanted to experiment with different techniques and try and simulate the print making effect. Here I used rice paper and graphite powder which I embedded onto the sheet my pressing on it using a small blunt instrument. I had no idea what would emerge but the effect reminds me of lithograph without all the bother. I have a few more small poems which I will try out this technique with.

The Ancient City

Gooseberry Jam

There has been a resumption of Hello Every Sunday after exactly
one year. I am glad for it since experimenting leads to all kinds of surprises like the illustrations in this post where I've tried to create a comic out of an unusual encounter. With the progression of each panel I found that my drawings gathered strength, much like I did. Rather than going around feeling dead after the previous project, I found myself reviving once more.

Giants

On my way to the gym I walk beneath giants -

Dark and Stormy

These two images are preparatory drawings made for a book cover.They have nothing whatsoever to do with America.I dislike America thinking that it is the centre of the universe and I find it tiresome that people make it seem so. The best statement someone said to me in these two days is: Fuck T, now let's get on with ourselves.

After a long time I got to work with an art director whom I really like and respect and who gets the best out of me. Her responses are prompt and she knows what she wants. It was she who suggested I make some sketches first so that there was an option of clouds to choose from. We were all pleased with the way it turned out. While I cannot show the final cover yet, I am quite happy to share these with my blog readers.

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Illustration for The House of Worship

Do you think an artist has any kind of social responsibility?

No. Because an artist has more important responsibilities which have to do with the creation of works of art and works of art are not sociologically motivated nor are they even particularly useful, I mean what is the use of Alice in Wonderland? The use of it is pleasure. 

People often tell artists that you have to be responsible but that is always a way of telling them not to do what they want. The thing that people value in art is that nobody owns it. It is just the artist’s voice (or I) doing what it wants because that is how it sees things and I think you want from art a unique and particular vision of one person. And we value that because you can’t just say, ‘Oh he’s just pushing this line or she is enthralled to this or that ideology or political grouping or whatever it might be. 

The point about the artist is that nobody owns you. You just say what you have to say because that’s how you see it. And that is the value of the thing. And if people don’t like that, I’m sorry but that’s what it is. You can’t ask it to be another thing. Art is irreverent. It is not good at keeping to the rules, it doesn’t do what it is told or supposed to do. 

~ Salman Rushdie

Read entire quotation here >

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Sometimes we don't even realize we are insecure about something. It takes an incident or an intense experience to bring us face to face with the gigantic gaping chasm of insecurity that lurks inside of our minds. Drawing it out in my sketchbook helps me confront it and process what I feel about it and when I do that, I realize that my insecurity, a result of mental conditioning, is nothing more than a mirage.

Fishing in Troubled Waters

This time's comic for The Big Picture at Livemint. 

You can read the entire story by clicking here >>>

I enjoyed drawing the illustrations for this story. When I requested him for one, it was almost immediately written and sent to me by my long time virtual friend Slogan Murugan of Mumbai Paused fame. Not only that, it had my favourite subject - fish (or rather lack of fish, which is why I got to draw only one fish), but still, drawing the sea, boats, troubled wives...all was good to do.These illustrations have been done with pastel and graphite on absolutely lovely pre-cut C a grain Canson paper.

Here are some of the illustrations -

You can find photographs taken by Slogan Murugan about this subject here>>.

The Indian Witch Hunt

The Indian Witch Hunt

In spite of having put this up on Facebook where it got some 3000 hits and so many shares, one feels obliged to put up these pictures on the blog as well, since this is after all a platform for my work and there are a few regular readers I know who are not on Facebook.
The editor at Livemint sent me an email acknowledging that there were many, many queries and compliments for these illustrations. He certainly paired my style with the right story. The feedback actually encourages me to attempt a few more comics.Who would have thought that would happen?

An Exercise in Curiosity

 There is a lot of difference while working on large sheets of paper with charcoal and when working on smaller squares of paper and graphite. While working with charcoal, I am standing at my desk, exerting pressure and practically hurling my entire body onto the paper, cutting, tearing, blending, coaxing...The complete opposite seems to be the state that I am in while completing these 13 illustrations for a story about barbaric Witch Hunts in India.I have posted two other illustrations for these in the previous post as well. 
While drawing these I have been seated at all times during the last two weeks in the same position and the only movement has been my wrist as it builds up layer upon layer of graphite on textured paper (Cretacolor 6B graphite on 180gsm precut Canson). The only sound is the kich kich kich kich as the lead moves while shading yet another area.

I took on this graphic novel kind of short story for The Big Picture in Mint, out of curiosity, to see whether I could do this, if I liked doing it and if I had the patience. This platform is a great one for amateur illustrators and writers and I only wish I had had something like this to work on in my early years as an illustrator. However for professional illustrators this is a wonderful way to try out and experiment with what they have never tried before as I am doing now. I directly began the fair work without rough sketches or planning because you are compelled to work at a fast pace. In this case unlike the highly professional editorial illustrations that I do which involves so much thought, planning and conceptualizing, a completely different mindset is required. It seems that here the illustrator is a tool rather than a voice.

Will I attempt this again? I am not sure. I find sitting chained to my desk for lengthy amounts of time exhausting and frustrating. Also, there is not much if any thinking at all for the illustrator because you are told what to draw. I found the trite visual interpretations given to me tiresome and while I did what was wanted of me for some of them, I also did what I wanted for others. If I do attempt something like this once more, the story will have to be a very good one. However I must say this, doing this has left me with nothing but admiration for illustrators of graphic novels, their patience and tenacity is to be lauded.

Outside, the Bangalore winter results in cloudy weather and beautiful diffused sunlight in which I took the first three pictures at my desk. Naturally my thoughts go back to last year especially when I see blog posts of friends in the midst of winter. Some of the pictures are beautiful, like this post from The Cassandra Pages and these haunting and moody pictures from the same blog.  Winter can be beautiful when you are looking at it in photographs.
But when I look at my own pictures like the one above (this is a color picture btw), I am reminded of how I removed my gloves, quickly took a picture and quickly, quickly put the glove back on again over my freezing hand at -20 degrees in Montreal last year beside the St. Lawrence river. Immigrating to Montreal too was an exercise I took (a mega exercise perhaps) to satiate my curiosity and yet again, I wonder how I ever did it all.

The Indian Witch Hunt