A wall in a house

hat an absolute delight to make fun things for people when there are very few limitations! Priya got in touch with me after being recommended by one of my friends. She’s got a tiny daughter and has just moved to Gurgaon from Bangalore with her husband. She wanted to commission artworks on themes and poems and text that she has been thinking about and wanted the artworks to be based around these ideas. At first, I went ahead and did iterations for each idea and while some were approved – others took a while getting there as it soon became clear that while she was open to some ideas from my end, she had thought about some images herself and wanted to work those out. So here we are after couple of iterations and to and fros and some artworks are what I like and some are in the middle and some are what she wanted – but all in all they make a happy bunch!

Here’s my favourite from the bunch and some test colour sketches for it. I am happy making comissioned artworks from time to time as I like the dialogue – the encounter of two or more minds and how that changes what the output is. In a way it’s a good collaboration tool to keep the mind open besides the methods we already use for our work to grow. Next up is a website I just made and sketches from the amazing monsoon drenched GOA! Everyone loves a summer break – especially if it features some of the monsoon!

Leaving Home with Half a Fridge

y first assignment of this year was a book by Arathi Menon. I just got to see it fresh from the press! Written with good humour and insight, this book speaks about a woman’s journey through the end of a marriage and her route to getting back to being the person she was. I had a good time creating this with constructive feedback from the author and the Pan Macmillan team. Below is a quick look-through of the cover design’s process.

Notes to self

No time. Not an hour a day to think. Not two. But sometimes an extensive dip into the soul is required. Life’s waters mostly take you along. Sometimes one has to steer, shift slight directions, or gather spirit and scream down waterfalls. All quite exciting really. Here’s some sketching from some time spent lately.

upcoming visual art show

Here’s the poster and postcard I made for our upcoming illustration and photography group show “A Return to Circles”

Doing things for free

At first I thought I’d do freelance work on and off to work on things which I do not get to do. But a similar conversation always follows: “Hey, I like your work. Can you do something like this for me?” “That much?” “Ok, we don’t want it to look that good. Just do anything. But can you do it fast? Really fast. We need it tomorrow. Also we can not give more than this. Out budget is only this much.” So as a solution I sometimes do work thats close to something i’ve been wanting to do as a hobby lets say. And I do it at my own pace ie reasonably fast but without any hindrance. These things are fun sometimes. I was asked if I wanted to do the illustration and then they said the masthead also could be changed! Here’s a cover that might be out soon. Which one then?Here’s what i thought absolutely failed in terms of legibility and chaos, but its got some votes?!