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.

Creepy as Hell

A while back, I retreated from life into a lovely farm somewhere in a village outside Benglur. Directions to the farm went something like this, "At the mango tree, take a right turn, then where the cows are sleeping, take a left turn..." 

The setting is all very idyllic,

until you come to the Anthill!

And you see hair growing out of it -

So you cautiously move a bit closer to examine this hair 

And the hair starts moving!

And you just...just...slowly back away...

Before We Visit the Goddess

I was very pleased when the Art Director at Verve magazine invited me to illustrate a story by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. I had wanted to illustrate for Verve ever since I saw their beautiful magazine years ago when I returned from Australia. Then, during pre-internet era, when I contacted them with samples of my work, they sent me an article to illustrate almost immediately. However, because of the logistics of couriering actual work across during those pre-digital times, it was an exercise in futility and nothing came of it. Therefore I was pleasantly surprised when I received a mail inviting me to illustrate for them this time. 

I haven’t received my copy yet, but a walk along Indiranagar with a friend and a bid to escape the heat by plunging into air conditioned Crossword assisted me in getting my hands on a copy and photographing it.Do check out the April 2016 issue of Verve. But you can also read the story here >>

The story is a beautiful one about young lovers, a red sari and stars in the night sky on the terrace. It was a pleasure to do and it is one of my favorite assignments to date. The focus of the illustration is on his hands cradling her and her sari enveloping them. The resulting shapes remind me almost of a foetus within a womb, safe, loved and secure.

For those of you interested in such matters, this illustration was done on Canson Colorline paper with the rich pigments of Daler Rowney pastel. I love the grainy texture and the rich but muted, sophisticated colors that resulted. This has been one of those rare moments when there is a sense of satisfaction with what has presented itself to me at my desk. 

A Moment of Beauty

P, S and I went on an impromptu sketching expedition to Ramanagaram today. 

At SRS Betta, we started climbing up the hill, 

up each step consecrated with a dot of vermilion. 

P was climbing the steps in front of S and I. He passed through the porch of the small white temple in front of us. The darkness of the doorway was smeared across the old white walls like a  black stain

Suddenly, we heard a voice speaking through the darkened doorway. 

Then we saw this -

S and I gasped at the beauty of this moment.

Till the flame died down.

The three of us came back with lots of unforgettable memories and lots of drawings. 

While making this blog post, I received a message from P telling me he couldn't forget the Obbattu we all savoured at lunch. I don't yet know what S found unforgettable, but for me it was this, this moment that I quickly wanted to place here on my blog lest I ever forget it.

Prabha's Falooda

After an intensive Corel Draw tutorial, P and I went around searching for a much needed sugar high. We decided to have chocolatesandwiches. When Hari’s super sandwich joint was closed, we went to the Lassi bar nearby to mitigate our disappointment. I ordered Royal Falooda. It was a nice baby pink colour as a falooda should be. P took some time to make up her mind and then ordered the same thing.  She had to wait a while. In front of our eyes the falooda man carried a strange poisonous looking brown bottle, opened the freezer and poured a generous amount of mysterious stuff out of it into one of the containers inside. Then he mixed it well. Then he poured some more brown bottle stuff and mixed some more…

 ‘What is it? What is it????’ Prabha frantically craned her neck to see. 
‘That is what he is going to serve you’ I said.
‘No! No!! No!!! Please God no!’ said P frantically, ‘I want to know what is in that bottle!’

We knew what was in that bottle when her falooda was served. It was bright pink in colour. At least 6 times more pink in colour than my falooda.

I hope she is still alive.

Depth

Over the weekend I was talking to P who like Paula Abdul in American Idol tries to find something good to say about everyone's paintings. She was enchanted by a certain watercolourist’s work much to my annoyance. The certain watercolourist’s work is superficial, I declared. It lacks depth!

What is depth? asked P

I found the meaning that Dictionary reference.com gives for depth in relation to art:

depth  (dɛpθ): intensity or profundity of emotion or feeling

Still, in spite of the nice technical definition of depth, I’d like to think ‘depth’ is something which is better experienced than described. The art needs to have a certain amount of darkness in it to bring out its beauty.

Here are three works of art which for me are the very essence of depth:

*  Vladimir Horowitz playing Traumerei in the video posted above
Or anything played by Horowitz for that matter.

* OdilonRedon’s Shell in Musee d’Orsay in Paris < click here >
We often forget that what we see on our screens is but a pale shadow of the actual picture itself.
In real life Redon’s work sparkles like a jewel.

*  Jean Giono’s small story The Man Who Planted Trees < click here>
What can I say except read it.

These days we are bombarded every single minute by hundreds of thousands of images hurtling towards us. Thanks to the blog world the amount of art we see is so plentiful that for me it becomes a blur. I space out. I have to confess that the more I see, the less I like. I keep going back instead to my three eternal favourites. And I regain my equilibrium once more.

“The outward work
will never be puny
if the inward work
is great.
And the outward work
can never be great or even good
if the inward one is puny or of little worth.
The inward work invariably
includes in itself
all expansiveness,
all breadth,
all length,
all depth.
Such a work
receives and draws all its being
from nowhere else except
from and in the heart of God.”

- Meister Eckhart 


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