Gluttony and the End!

Gluttony took the form of a tree, a beautiful tree teeming with delicious looking fruit and flowers.

and youth and beauty and everything that one desires in a lifetime. Also hanging, is the apple, a 

symbol of temptation- attached to the apple is a tap from which Gluttony unfortunately drinks. 

Below him a strawberry bleeds.

Its that time of the year when long term projects come to an end, and you finally get to see the fruit of the seeds you sow (or something like that :) The Deadly ego series was started many months ago, and each character was a discovery, a lot of research and emotion involved. Im happy with the result and now rearing to start something new and exciting! Once these are printed, they are going up on the walls of the Hidesign Flagship store in Pondi- large prints, I cant wait to see them there.

On another slightly lazier note, got pampered at the gorgeous Le dupleix during our holiday there, and Im just back this morning from Pondi, refreshed and happy :) Im a pondy fan, whattodo.

The Handpainted Tale

Ive been featured on the Hidesign facebook page as the artist behind its new range of handpainted bags! And the response has been overwhelming, im so excited :) visit www.facebook.com/hidesign ( and scroll down a bit, its been a few days now :) to see me grin away at you!

The very first painting of dragonflies and lilies,inspired by the beautiful surroundings at the factory. Yes i spent a lot of time getting lost in those beautiful lakes and trees! They really made me happy.

The drawing was simplified further so it would look better on a bag, with colours that popped !

 And lastly, another bit that Im really proud of, are the LIMITED EDITION tags that I designed specially for this collection. The pink part (the back) of each tag speaks about the artist (yours truly :) and the front is beautifully debossed to look like little drops of paint are sitting on the surface.
The round leather tag says that you own 1 piece of a 100 of these special special products. I love the rustic look of the leather and it looks beautiful hanging off the bag.

Finally, Thank you Ruella and Dipen for putting together a beautiful launch for this collection! And Thank you everyone who somehow found the Hidesign link on their own and for your sweet words of encouragement and love! You had me jumping with joy :) Hope you have a great week ahead, will write in again soon! Much love.

“In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours.” -Mark Twain 

An old sketchbook

Rummaging through my bookshelf i came across a little notebook with many pages in colour and lots of little doodles. I realise its my attempt at keeping a journal some years back, on a trip to London. Its random, but like all diary entries, its always interesting to go back in time and look at it through my scribbles. 

A dandelion takes you to the skies :) 

Self Portrait

Ive always wanted to draw my own self portrait. and Ive tried, many many times, sitting in front of a mirror mostly. I could probably draw yours just fine, but when it comes to me, I dont see myself in a mirror clearly enough, sometimes i cant even remember what I really look like. To me, im a jumble of emotions and hair. 

So this charcoal drawing is just that. a jumble of things, a girl with big eyes and fish. 

Priya Sebastian has a blog, theplumtree2.blogspot.com and she does some beautiful charcoal drawings. After seeing so much of it on her blog I went in search of my charcoal pencil. 

Im finally going back to pondicherry for the weekend. cant wait! The kabir yatra has reached auroville this weekend, so if the fates bring you there, you should stay and wind down.

Frangipani and The Magical Letter!

My book has a name! and a cover! and its finally going out of my hands and into the press this weekend.

I think im going to miss Samina and Skinny terribly, they were such good company these past few weeks!

Ive discovered ( through a dear friend) some pretty lovely indian blogs and been poring through them - feeling completely overwhelmed, and now I think I really need to stop being so lazy and do more! People can be so awesomely creative.

This here is my very very own frangi pani plant. Ive never owned a plant before and its soo beautiful and is flowering so beautifully (touchwood) that Im absolutely in love with it. My green thumb is anything but, so im really hoping it stays happy ! The other plant i bought, a beautiful bird of paradise one, has gone through a hard time and looks like a corpse. But its magically reopened one leaf ! So i have hopes for that one too, Ive been trying to talk it out of its gloom.. maybe it worked :)

Fish And Eyes

This would be sloth version 2 :) I just couldnt feel very warmly towards the earlier sketch. This one though, is wicked enough me thinks ! *gleeful* Ive already said what I had to about how I feel about Sloth, im not going to repeat myself - how i feel hasnt changed- but i just see it differently now, a bit like a kaleidoscope.

Same colours, different sights. 

A lot of rather interesting things are rearing their heads, I shall tell you of them when things are more certain !But life continues to be good. Im settling down a bit in chennai though my heart sobs for pondicherry. But I love the house here. though its far from pretty and im really not done with it, its surrounded by green goodness and flowers and two happy barking dogs and big big windows so i can feast my eyes on leafy wonders all day. So its good for my mind and soul. Pouring all my love into this house is going to drain me completely i think. Its just so big, its going to be one slow process. 

Maybe after im done, i put up pictures for you to see!

Have a beautiful happy week and weekend! Lots of love.

Close your Eyes

 music, all day and all night long -  freedom from your own thoughts.

 If you desire me

give up all desire

Become like me

and all joy is yours

-kabir

Its hard to talk about a trip like this. I think that I was hoping for inspiration, but found something else.
Maybe I realise now that you dont need to search too far to find answers, and they lie within you. When your two mind-hearts meet, its magic that takes over. who needs reason?

Parvathy Baul, during a beautiful satsang one afternoon quoted from a song :

mind, go home.
a world where you roam travelling
why waste your time being a traveller?

Starbursts

Its been soo long since I last sat in front of my laptop. Since then, Ive had an incredible trip to Bikaner,and a very hectic move to Chennai ( which still goes on)  I shall share more about my trip in my next post - need to collect my thoughts :)

But for now, I want to share yet another sin from my series. Wrath. Consumed by its own fury, bigger than itself, and bursting with sheer power. Wrath is greater than a sin, its greater than the ego, It becomes unselfish in its extreme emotion. Somebody once asked me why so many of my characters in this series are skeletal. When I close my eyes and imagine the force of the character, most of the time its no longer human. Its what remains.

The creative juices are really flowing now, after being soaked in music and yes, sufi wisdom :) And thank you everyone for the awesome response to Skinny Scribbles! That was really heartening.
Another piece of good news, my Deadly Ego series has been bought :D by Hidesign nonethless. Its going to adorn the walls of its Flagship store which houses beautiful art pieces ! yay :)