Love to sing? Love to listen to music? Love to figure out songs on the guitar? Cant tune your guitar yet? Tried but didn’t quite get the tuning right? Love Bob Dylan? Fighting a deep sense of lull by singing? Like to do things away from the computer? Want to go for a run? Can’t find time this week? Did you find time last week? Do you want to find time? Are you saving any money? I hope you are not spending it all. Are you? Want to bake a cake? Or shall we roast some pork? Do you want to go to the mountains for the weekend? Wont it be too short? Cant you take some days off? Of you just had a holiday? How long?
Music breaks time into segments, memories. Went to listen to Lou Majaw on sunday. A tribute to Dylan. Very nice to hear some quiet some rough songs in a small gathering. He even asked me to join him for some songs on the mike! What gates of wonder music opens. The best thing to do in your free time. Or for a living. Or for pure joy.
Gary Groth introduces Crumb as a miserable hillarious existential slob.
Crumb says he enjoys lettering and layouts especially in covers.
I’ve been working on an animation for the past week besides the usual work. It’s sad that its too short, but thats all we need for the credits. You can see it 
kay, now. We have a problem. I have working on improving my skill and concepts and adding a bit of humour sometimes to my work. But one thing I still fail to work on is patience. The ability to sit and sit and sit and keep on polishing your work till it has reached just the level you expected it to reach when you started out. This, I believe is the biggest hurdle for me. I am more patient than before, but God knows I have a long way to go. There are many ways one can build patience. I have started on an animation. Due to the things one has seen – my mind tends to imagine these beautifully intricate scenes and moments. All with timing and sound perfectly in sync. So that experiencing the story unfold would be like an encounter with art. But right now i’m at a 60 percent finish with my animation and it feels like pushing an elephant up a 90 degree slope. Here’s hoping for a wave of patient molecules entering my brain and living here till I die. Whoooosh.
nforgettable, that’s what some images are. Perhaps the use of colour, perhaps the tragic humour, maybe the twisted idea or perhaps its the sheer beauty. You will see some things that just make you want to stop and look at them. That cut across all thought in your brain and make sure that you want to think about them. Where do you get your inspiration from? I look and look and look through images Sometimes when an idea or an image is striking I note it down, or draw it in my diary. Now when I get a fresh assignment, I sift through these things hungrily to make some sort of connection. Sometimes its synonyms to a word. At other times it’s other artists’ works. But I do love it when there is just one electric spark. From the concept to the thumbnail. Just one stupid fun idea which your boss finds interesting. I love it, then I feel.. hey …to the millions of beautiful or funny things in the world – this here is my tiny dot, to add towards it all. Mine…my precious. Nothing is original but anyway, there’s a humbling warmth in knowing that you have a brain that sometimes works quite well.
Some of these are sketches done on the way to my village in a train. The rest are places where I like to sit around on the farm where I grew up. My village is called Preet Nagar, its near Amritsar. Punjab, Northern India.
or every boring neverending routine there is order awaiting you. A possibility for your brain to get used to the necessary things so you can slot exciting things in the day. No matter how small.
ery thrilled at painting this wall. I find it a bit deflating that until I am asked, I hardly do self initiated work (except computer illustrations)< Bad Behaviour. Since I got my new house, I have been planning things for little corners – sculptures and painting the walls and all sorts of fun things. You shall be seeing some new sort of stuff – handmade is the key word. So, without further delay I invite my friend the octupus, he is still a bit shaken at being pulled out of the water and is still gathering all of his self. But all the line work is almost done, some more things are coming with him and I will update you on that once he feels a bit more together. BONUS* a special photo of this weeks favourite book.
ver feel like all your nerve endings have begun to fray? I tend to forget to take that occasional walk you are supposed to take away from the computer when at work. And if you have had one of those days when you begin to see two pencils where there is one. ( Nothing to do with beer.) Your eyes cannot come to terms with the computer stare. Thats when you go for a run or go and eat a bun or just put off your computer and make space for some fun.
ketching wasn’t always a part of me. I started doodling behind pages of my math book in school because I hated math and scribbling random things was a great way to drown out my math anxiety. Then the next thing I remember enjoying drawing was diagrams in biology. I rendered them when I couldn’t remember answers in my exams. I started keeping a journal in Kodaikanal when I went there to study in class eleven. I wrote everything- lyrics of nice songs ,birds on the school campus, lists of things to do, habits to grow into, recipes, angst ridden notes, sorted advice to me straight from my heart, versions of my future, drawings. At Srishti, (College of Art & Design) we were encouraged to keep a logbook. Assignments, more angst, autobiographical delvings, romantic anguish followed. So did the discovery of many kinds of books. Nice ones to buy, hand made ones using only select paper for all mediums. Various sizes. All these books have different personalities. It’s interesting to find how I have changed and remained the same. My views of the world. Its a special place a sketchbook is. I think very differently when i”m working on a book than a computer. So it’s a good place for ideas to begin and sometimes get carried into my work. I’m never proud of any sketchbook. One always begins with a very high goal and its a quiet ceremony beginning a book. Sometimes pages can dissapoint and even after trying they do not rise up to the level one wanted. But here is my latest one, almost near its end. Thought I’d share it with you.
