Portrait

It had been a while since I sat down and did a painting. I was really really rusty, but I'm glad I did this. Its much larger than what I'm used to working on (19 by 25 inches) so I had a lot of fun completely immersing myself in this.
Sorry about the low res image, I could only get a photo from a phone for now.
Oil pastels for the portrait and some soft pastels on the background.

Ajji

After much crankiness, I decided I'd draw this adorable old woman. I've been feeling a little stuck in my style so I thought I'd start drawing faces, and this is an attempt over three quick sessions.

This is...

Five months of non stop entertainment. You boys will be missed, thank you for everything!
Click to enlarge image.

For those of you wondering what the title means, check this out :

This song was the effective soundtrack to all our weekend (and frequent I-cant-handle-this-workload Tuesday) debauchery.

Cheers!

And dined ~

Close family friend asked if I could redo their menu. I din't have much to start with since he only handed me a couple of print outs with the dishes listed in some loony font. I think he expected me to only retype the menu, in some other font and add some splashes of colour, you know, make it 'designery'. But I've always wanted to do a menu, and was excited enough to dig up some old photos I had of Mangalore and use them for reference.
Quick overnight job, but it was quite fun to do.
Shown here is just the cover page and center spread. Click on the image to view details.

Cheers!

Strummer

Boy plays the guitar.
I like to go overboard with photoshop.

Also, just realising that working on a very excellent monitor can get you carried away with colours and textures that might just get lost on other screens. *makes spoilt brat face*

Of plants and trees

Click on image to view full details please!

Some work I had done for the good people over at Vriksha nursery. Illustrations for their blog background. Unfortunately the project fell through, I was crazy busy shifting home/life base. I had super amounts of fun doing these though!

Space gypsy

I've been fussing over this one for quite a while. She started out as a tiny outlet to my frustration in the corner of one of my notebooks. The type had me bothered for quite a while too. But I decided to let go at one point, and here she is, beautiful. Just as she was meant to be.
Hopefully her three eyes provide me with some insight over the weeks to come.

Im thinking of converting these to prints, or maybe T shirts. What do you think?

Much love, hope you have a wonderful weekend!

9ft*10ft

THE WALL

(Do check out the link, its an unlisted youtube video, so I couldnt post it here)

Early feb.
I'd promised Adu that I'd paint the wall in his new home quite for quite a while. Finally made a quick trip to Mangalore for four hot,, sweltering unventilated days of wall painting. Did I get a head rush from all the paint fumes? Yes, yes I did. But its turned out really beautifully and I'm so glad I took some time out to do this. First mural *YAY!*

Just to give you a feel, the White Tara is almost as big as me (5ft 4in, thank you very much) and the painted room is small enough for the painting to loom over it all! I still need to add some finishing flourishes, just waiting to get a few days off so I can do it.

Sorry about the shaky video, Adu's handywork. The boy does take brilliant pictures though! Go look!

Megha cycled for water!

Megha contacted me recently to very very quickly make an illustration for this wonderful initiative she's working on. Working with Milap she hopes to raise money to provide clean drinking water to villages in southern India, by participating in a cyclathon. It sounded like a really fun idea for a really great cause and I agreed to do the crash assignment.
Over an evening of giggles and tea, this is what I finally came up with.

Check out her page over at Milap, and if you're feeling generous enough, DONATE! (the donations work as a loan, so you get 100% of your money back, which I think is a much more dignified way of helping people out)

Why I love the beach...

After several restless weeks in a Bangalore that refused to let go of the wintery chill, a few of us decided a beach trip was due.
Ive never been to Gokarna, even though home town is just a few skips away. My first visit there and I'm in love.
And as is must of all trip-happy-hippy beach places, there was music on the beach.
Boy, leftmost on guitar along with two French gypsy jazz playing fellows made lovely music while I sat right next, sketching and trying to draw as much heat from the nearby bonfire.

And a customary sketch dump from the two wonderfully lazy days.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Hello lady!

She's been sitting in my computer, scanned from an old sketch, for a very very long time. One semi drunken evening, I decided to colour her.
She smiled, sang to me all kinds of wonderful, strength filled love letters, stroked my hair and then gave me one big push when I needed it the most.