IF: sneaky

Coco thinks she's being damn sneaky when shes about to attack her bone. Like a jungle cat (dog?).
I don't have the heart to tell her its only made of felt and pollyfill. Don't want to take away her doggie dreams.

watercolours and dry pastels on cartridge paper.

t-shirt and genes

Family has this way of ribbing you into giving them free stuff. And you can never really say no to them.

In this case it was more like family and extended family (well, they are actually friends, but when people are this close to you, 'friends' just doesn't explain it) who wanted me to make a t-shirt for them.

First a little background story:

Back in the 70's a group of groovy young lads decided to make the banyan tree near the Mangalore lighthouse their chill out spot where they escaped the prying eyes of their college padris and small town Managlore to smoke some cigarettes, drink a few beers and make merry.

They thus came to be known as as the Lighthouse boys or the LH gang.

These LH boys till date remain the best of friends and will still act like a bunch of crazy 18 year olds whenever they meet up.

One of them, is my father and the rest my father's closest friends (or my closest friend's fathers if you look at it that way).

Anyways, last summer a couple of these friends of mine and I decided to paint a wall in Mahim, Mumbai (as part of the wall project) as a dedication to their legacy of merrymaking.

(Oh! and in case you're wondering what that bacardi-esque bat is doing there, just ask your self, 'what could be their favourite drink?')

And they had been asking me to make a t-shirt graphic for them for a really long time. And since I was still quite high on the excitement of painting a wall, I converted that image into a T-shirt.

The ever responsible Jason was entrusted with the task of getting the t-shirts printed in time for all of us to wear for our next get-together. He and I spent a few days fighting over the phone over number of colours, image size, printing techniques etc etc ( Producers, no matter who they are, will always give you a hard time!!)

finally after reducing the colours to a miserable eight.

Here's me wonderfully modelling the printed t-shirt for you :P

And here are the original LH boys wearing them.

Yes, these are adults, with families and jobs !! But they happen to be the craziest/funniest/funnest bunch of people I know. And I know all of us kids can only wish to have this kind of enthusiasm for life when we are 50+
But with t-shirts and genes like these, i know we will.
:D

Of lesser evils

Of course, I already was an addict...

further and beyond...

A friend recently asked me to make some illustrations for cards that would capture the spirit of his new venture. And venture be true, he started ' Further & Beyond' (link here ) and I can only describe it as a travel/road tripping/adventure seeking/ nomadic attempt at life.

these were some of the illus. I came up with. The first one was just something I tried out, and I was a little excited about this one since it was a collage after a very very long time, but unfortunately they weren't too keen.

these were the ones they finally used. the bikes were hand drawn with a crow quill (my new favourite drawing tool) and back grounds were done digitally.

Happy Birthday Sister

To my leetill sister...
who refuses to act her age :P
Happy 20th!
many many hearts and sparkly whees'

please click to enlarge and do leave comments.

digital, my first screwing around with different layer options on PS

rainy day blahs

she liked to sit at coffee shops until they begged her to leave.
its funny, she dint scream, throw tantrums
and neither was she a painful customer
maybe they were discomforted by the storm cloud around her head.

*painted version coming soon, please do look out for it.
ball point pen and inks on cartridge paper

Illustration friday: Double

ah well.... happened during a recent trip to Pondicherry with friends. kinda self explanatory.

exept maybe why i was wearing a snow cap in the middle of summer in the indian tropics. But thats another story.