The Meal

This illustration wasn’t created to depict my hosts as a rhino and a bird, that would be far too simplistic an explanation. Instead, what I am trying to show in this picture is how much of a divergence into the strange my experiences in Montreal were for me, somewhat like stumbling into a forest full of unusual creatures and vegetation. Of course like most urban Indians who have traveled and are brought up on a diet of Western films, the settings of Montreal were familiar, however actually partaking in rituals within those settings made me sometimes feel like an aberration. I should have been outside watching this on screen.

Montrealers, at least all those kind and lovely people I met, went out of their way to introduce me to their culture. The question I was asked most often was: Do you like it? There was my friend B who looked at me anxiously while I partook my first artichoke, ‘do you like it?’, there was my loony Montreal flatmate who handed me Maple syrup poured into a spoon, ‘do you like it?’, there was The Mushroom Hunter who watched me cautiously try squeaking cheese and asked  ‘do you like it?’, my friend J gave me  green smoothie one morning and asked ‘do you like it?’, there was my kind proprio, benevolent as always, who handed me something, one of the many things she handed me while she asked ‘do you like it?’ Everyone showed me something, handed me something and always asked me anxiously, ‘do you like it?’ while I, new immigrant, utterly, totally overwhelmed and bewildered by it all, never knew what to say…

Curly Wurly

At the park this morning

Sometimes a Wild God

One cold, dark autumn day in Montreal, I read a poem by Tom Hirons called Sometimes a Wild God which made my heart contract and clench a little. I remember considering the message within that poem in relation to where I was at that moment in my life and mulling over it for a while. I remember feeling very uncomfortable. I remember I shifted my thoughts then to wondering how this poem could be illustrated and whether Tom Hirons' partner, the illustrator Rima Staines had considered doing so.
The answer to that appeared on the Hedgespoken website and by the time I had returned to Bangalore I decided I wanted that book. I didn't think I would get my hands on a copy of the book so soon but I did, thanks to someone from England visiting here.
In this post I present a small glimpse of the book with its unforgettable poem  accompanied by intimate and unique illustrations by the absolutely extraordinary Rima Staines.

When illustrating a poem, especially a descriptive one,it is easy to end up making the images repeat the text, something that good illustration should never do. I feel it not only dilutes the message but creates an unnecessary echo which ends up becoming an irritation. Therefore here, as an illustrator, I have to truly appreciate what Rima has done to illustrate this poem which is a difficult one to illustrate. Her illustrations are not beautiful in the general sense of the term but disturbing, as disturbing as the poem; the images are symbols juxtapositioned together to create strong compositions aptly suited to partner whatever part of the text they are illustrating. 
I have long admired Rima's work. She never disappoints. 

I am glad to be reading and admiring this book at my desk in my studio in beautiful afternoon October light :-)

Copying Gorey

The complete opposite of working with charcoal, or at least the way I work with charcoal, is to do cross-hatching with pen and ink. Somewhere along the way I decided I needed to work small and compact and easily manageable and mess free and clean and black and white so I thought I must at least try pen and ink. I decided not to use a dip pen yet and brought out my nice Lamy fountain pen with its fine nib. I decided to copy technique from BW drawings I had collected on Pinterest in order to teach myself, so first I drew this skull which I was rather pleased with. Naturally I instagrammed it.

Then this
I decided that wasn’t so bad either so I got more ambitious. I must learn technique from the best I thought so I brought out a book by Edward Gorey and decided I was going to copy technique from there. After flipping through the pages and feeling rather taken aback by the complexities of what I saw, I settled on what looked like the easiest drawing.

Somewhere along the way, when you copy drawing and technique from great masters, a cloud of humility descends on you and envelops you; not just because they draw as well as they do but because while you are following their lines in an attempt to recreate their image you come into a realization of how they solved a problem in the best possible manner while you laboured through it with gritted teeth. While copying Gorey, it begins to occur to you why this man's work is so much more superior to the rest. You also realize that 98% of all illustrators are bull-shitters who bluff their way through and it is only a miniscule 2% who not only really know how to draw but also know the art of illustrating well. These 2% are almost always grouchy bearded men who have a bottle of wine welded onto one hand while they draw ceaselessly with the other. Thirty, forty drawings a day I am told. They all swear. They are all atheists. Here, one of those bearded blokes has instagrammed Ronald Searle’s collection of pen nibs. After seeing this I want to bury my head in my hands that I attempted to copy Gorey using a Lamy. 

But still in the spirit of being positive and that kind of thing, I have promised myself that I will do at least one cross-hatched image a day so that in about a decade from now I can draw extra small size. Okayfine, now where did I keep that stick of charcoal?

Montreal Sky and Bangalore Color

One early morning sometime at 6am, I ventured outside during a Montreal winter to catch a bus to Sutton. Around me, the world was a desaturation of black, white and grey. And then I looked up and saw the sky. It was this shade of intense blue, the colour I would use as a child to colour in a night sky but while thinking that skies did not really exist in this colour and I was using this shade of blue because it was the darkest blue in my box of crayons. But here it was, that impossible blue as the real thing contrasting against strange shapes in a monochrome world. An hour later, the sky turned grey, then dirty white and everything looked bleak once more.

And then Bangalore where the brightest of bright colours clash and jostle with each other. Montrealers will wonder what the heck I’ve drawn above while Bangaloreans will instantly recognize a Bangalore sky in October - bright orange of African tulip flowers set amidst leaves that are so dark green they are almost black. Rows and rows of them emphatically making their presence felt against a bright turquoise sky.

At an Art supply store in Queen street in Toronto I saw giant bullet-shaped sticks of Senelier oil-pastel obscenely priced at nine dollars each. Here, an artist down the street has an entire box of them in different shades of red which I was generously allowed to use. 

And this beautiful woman standing with confidence in her Sunday best. I quickly hurried home and drew her in her stunning attire.

Fish Curry

Five Lessons from Travelling

Extra Large

I have a hundred thousand problems to deal with but right now it feels damn good to draw extra large once more.

Dogs and Roses

*

I’ll read my books and I’ll drink coffee and I’ll listen to music, and I’ll bolt the door.

~ J.D. Salinger

About a week back, I was trying to complete yet another drawing when I found myself getting into knots over the picture, frantically erasing and redrawing over and over. Then I paused and looked at the work and realized how mentally exhausted I was. And why wouldn’t I be?  I realized I have more or less single-handedly dismantled my life in two different cities on one side of the world and assembled it again in a completely different world on another side. I will be taking a break, a much needed one, from everything.

My website has a new wardrobe. Take a look >

Rangoli

On the way to the shops, I almost always pause for a moment at the gate of this tiny house and admire the colours of the Rangoli on the steps and the vermillion enhancing the doorway.

One does not want to idealize on the blog. Around me there is noise and filth, but beauty like this in the midst of ugliness makes one stop, admire and breathe easily for a moment before carrying on.

India's Chaotic Lesson in Letting Go

Back to Work

"And lastly, when other things in life get tough, when you’re going through family troubles, when you’re heartbroken, when you’re frustrated with money problems, focus on your work. It has saved me through every single difficult thing I have ever had to do, like a scaffolding that goes far beyond any traditional notions of a career."

~ Teresita Fernandez

I am Elephant

This illustration is for my mushroom hunting friends who will be leaving their forest in Sutton to live in Montreal. I drew this picture so that Aaney the Elephant and champignons will be with them wherever they go.

Since returning to Bengluru I find I cannot quite remember whether one has to say le elephant or la elephant (something all students of French will agree has caused them to bang their heads on their Francaise textbooks and die), so when translated from French, the words within the bubble in the picture read ‘I am Elephant’. Aaney of course is the word for elephant in Kannada, the language spoken here.

The card was meant to be a surprise but since it has been well over two weeks since I posted it and since I am fed up with waiting for the package to reach I have decided to put up the picture on my blog.

Ashte