Is a patron supposed to patronize?

I can’t seem to get my head around this issue. The answer for me is a clear no. Why? You chose to look into the arts/design and offer an assignment or a project or a frog. You are looking for a logo. You are looking for something to come up on that wall over there. Yes. I am looking for a good butcher -I’m dying to make an excellent stew. I want good quality meat which I trust. Do I now go ahead and tell the butcher, “Hey you know, there’s a hundred meat shops in this city – if you want me to buy your meat you will have to make it cheaper and better than the rest!”(?) Please if you come to me for work that you need, understand your ethical position and don’t behave like a moron! Surprise me! I have been fortunate enough to receive a few grants and scholarships but none of the people who gave me those behaved condescendingly. So dear Indian clients, grow a little gentlemanly or gentlewomanly else walk back slowly (f*** off). Conditionally yours, Samia.

Animation in the making

an’t say what it is about old school frame by frame 2d animation. These days all I need is some empty time, a glass table, a clip-on lamp, tons of A4 sheets, a fine nib and ink. I remember enjoying this throughly in college and now here we go! As things are progressing now – all personal projects will be done with slow time and good quality. Will be back with more soon!

The Intercontinental Rollercoaster Club

Hey all! A&Y made this incredible video in the Uttarayan Art Foundation in Baroda where we spent close to a month in an artist residency in October 2014. Enjoy!

Packaging and the world it unfurls

Here’s my friend Jeebs, short for Ajibo (not really that short). Ajibo was the inspiration for The Animal People.  I wanted to make a tiny sculpture of her to sit in the house someplace on the dining table or on the work table.  It has become a larger project now but dear Jeebs is it’s President so I felt the need to let her know that her personality has been incredibly stimulating. Here’s a sticker for the sculpture series. They come packed with love and stickers.

walrus and gang. Photo by A&Y

 

New animals and old

o many kinds of days have passed. The new year/holiday season does something strange. You are shedding an old skin and yet it is essential that you remember what it looked like. Age old lessons of routine, productivity and good humour will be put to use again. Every year somehow you are getting more aligned to that vision of your work and yourself. That’s the only way forward right?

I’m glad to have met many many creative people over the last few years and re-connected with teachers & friends from way before as well.

It is heart warming and inspiring to see everybody push themselves in their own ways. Some people (my idols) wake between 6 and 7 in the morning and are fit as hell and cook food that is fit as hell and their work really somehow gains a power from that.

There are many things I have learnt and would like to include in my daily living besides the things we already knew. Number one on that is to have a good productive day everyday!

These dear animal people are part of that target as well as some new newmedia things that have been sprouting in the back on my mind. By the end of this year there should be a fair number of the animal people and one or two shows based around them. Wish me luck! I wish you the same!

Will update with finished pictures of the animal people along with some website designs I’m currently working on, Oh and a book cover that’s nearly published! Happy winter from Delhi! We here are enjoying the weather while it lasts, before we are in hell for 8 months ugh-ain.

Its ready!

can’t explain enough what a great feeling it is to have finished a big piece of work. A part of me lies all the way in Carballo, A Coruña, Spain. I have hope that I will see it again sooner than later. A lot has been learnt painting in this ENORMOUS scale. It’s addictive too! I bring lots of learnings back with me along with a ton of beautiful memories and proof that many many many many wonderful brilliant genius hard working & kind people exist. Here’s a short interview and background about the mural. I’ve been busy sketching and writing songs and keeping up the fitness routine. Here’s some recent sketches I posted on my Instagram. Going to start on a small indoor mural now. Next update about that. October’s here! Winter is the season of my soul! Can’t wait.

In defence of the Naïve

 

love storms. I love rain. I think a lot of people sweating it out in 48 degress centigrade in northern India share this love for rain, clouds and stormy weather with me. In my first sketch for the street art wall mural, I drew our dog Ajibo with me and Vaibhav flying out, away from the storm. For me this was an image to communicate how I was feeling with a new addition of this love-crazy puppy to our lives. That’s one layer of content: the personal. Then, this sketch was shown to the head of the city council of Carballo, Spain – who heads the street art project and is responsible for the funding, the production et all. Then the initial sketch was shown to the lady who owns the house whose wall I would be painting.

The initial sketch, in my delighted escape from the Delhi summer was cloudy, windy and stormy. The mausam of my soul. But the lady found it dark and depressing.

I had other ideas about the mural but I had only mentioned them in text and who can imagine a painting from a few lines of text? I did the second draft using warm colours. I never use warm colours. I don’t know why. I love the mystery of blues and greens. For years these are the only two colours in my wardrobe. Its natural that they are the colours I always pick for the pallete too.

But this is not my sketchbook, it is someone’s house and someone’s money and together this wall will become an experience for someone else who walks past it. Here is where it comes in. ¿How can you use your work to make people smile? It’s a naïve question, yes. But it’s also a fundamental one.

I always find myself between two points. I love realism but I also love surrealism. I love to see the sun break the sky into a hundred shades of orange red pink yellow and purple but I also value the hundred thoughts inside my head. What you see and what you think. Truth and humour. I don’t want to show you a beetle that I drew 20 times and have mastered. I want to show you all my memories. I want to show you all the things that touched me and I want to show you how I feel here. But that’s not it, I want to you feel something too. I want your thought that you carried in your mind to be forgotten when you see this wall. I want you to stop a moment and look a little closer. I want you to smile.

This of course will continue, the communication. Slowly the aesthetic will evolve, maybe it will get more cartoony, maybe it will get more realistic, maybe it will continue to sit right here in the middle.

Is it enough? Is it good? Is it okay?

o you think you have something – an idea – something to start. You think you have a timeline – you think you know when its going to finish and be ready. Hahaha, always starts the same way. So ready so sure. As one progresses and thinks and makes stuff more ideas start popping up. What if there was a seal? What if the fish are taxis? What if they are metaphors of release from sadness, coming up ? Right. So we add those new details, and more. Slowly things are changing, for the better. More details, more stories. Oh but the deadline. Flight out in 29 days! I want to put everything! Energy levels vary everyday, some days are for giant brushes and painting backgrounds and covering ground. Other days are for tiny details and small point and adding depth. Very exciting very exhausting. I know this feeling from graphic design too, adding flourishes – making things more functional, more memorable, more beautiful. What keeps your brain and body ready to perform well? Exercise, good food, good friends – good breaks make good work. Now I rest, until tomorrow.

 

A video from the mural: one of week one

Life and Times

ood things have been happening. I am now much more comfortable being a non office goer. I am happy to say that I did not die without routine. I thought i would wither into a corner of the world and quietly perish because I would be “all on my own”. I have been spending time equally on design projects, personal projects and commissioned illustration/art projects. Some scholarships are on the horizon, more about that soon! Oh but as always work is never-ending (in a good way) and everything is still difficult (in a good way).

I made the album art for Ramya Shankar Bhat’s The Indian Lullaby Project -1. These nap tunes are composed from Indian Karnatak Classical style music.

Also, its been a while since I made posters as part of my personal work. Here’s oneto re-begin them.

Some process photos from a wall mural I recently made for Max hospitals.

And snap shots of a commissioned painting in progress

I love working on a couple of things at the same time. I feel the brain has to be a little overwhelmed, (like in a tennis match) in order to really churn out those creative juices. Cant say I’m always relaxed with this approach but it works 90 percent of the time!  See you with more work soon!