Seventh Post

Well, it's again been a long time. It looks like I'm finding my pace here. A slow pace it is. Getting down to the real nitty gritty; I had mentioned in my last post that I had been working on some really exciting stuff. Here is one of them.

A first for me. Graffiti. I am not sure if this really classifies as graffiti. I m actually not even sure of the spelling. Ah, so I find that it is two 'f's and not two 't's. So two 14 feet walls and a 3 feet of small board was my assignment. The style had to be on the lines of the famous Herge. If you don't know who that is, please sign out and never come back. There is a swamp somewhere beyond the backwaters of a small village in a remote island in the middle of the pacific ocean. Please go there. For the rest of you, please refer the images for a bit by bit of my nail biting process. It is no cistine chapel, nevertheless it is quite an experience for me. In case you don't know the cistine chapel, please refer the process to follow described above.

My learning from this? How to use emulsions and enamels of course. But more importantly (dramatic music begins), the fact that however hopeless your design seems to be going (dramatic music enters higher octaves, bass is really picking up), don't let go (dramatic music nearing the crescendo, bass is booming, cymbals are crashing), keep understanding and adapting (dramatic music nearly at the peak, bass is going wild, cymbals are all over the place), it is never over, till YOU say it is (Trumpets blaring, cymbal player on ventilator, bass player vibrating, strings are having a seizure). I leave you with these images. The next time you are in Goa, go on to Vagator beach road. Half a km before you hit the beach, you will see this place. It is called Haddocks Cafe. Check their awesome burgers and sandwiches and the mouth watering sauces. If you don't, then please refer to the process described in the previous paragraph.

Sixth Post

Its quite a long period for a blog to remain silent. It is probably wrong too. But then I am on a quest; and in a quest it is quite routine for the hero to exit stage right and remain out of action long enough for the audience to miss him. And just as abruptly as he leaves, there he flies in to save the day, the damsel and the occasional comedian. So how goes the quest? Well it is moving forward with learnings popping in from the most unexpected quarters.

Here's a small collage of what has been going on. It of course misses a few more important ones, but... dramatic isn't it? All shall be revealed in good time. But here's the most important learning from all these. 

Reference from life. However philosophical and dramatic that sounds, I think this will remain one of my biggest learnings. Not that I didn't learn this before, but the way it hit me during these projects, knocked the wind out of my socks... and i don't even wear socks! Get it?

Draw and design from reference. Always!

Fifth Post

Trying to learn so many different forms of design, sometimes feels a bit like being drunk. You get a high that keeps you happy and carrying around a silly grin, and get the feeling that your friend has a twin he has never introduced you to. I guess currently, I am in that phase, where my head is reeling under the first few shots. The next one is about to come. It is approaching in the form of graffiti. Well not the highly exaggerated forms that we usually associate that word with. Nor is this going to make a statement that will turn me into a fugitive. It is a big illustration that I will be doing on a wall in Goa. And this is the first time I shall be attempting that. Come to think of it, this seems to be a good time to get tensed.

I think I will leave this here to soak in my tension to keep my senses on the edge. There goes the drunken feeling.

Fourth Post

Speaking about design, there seem to be two key factors. At least for me, there seem to be two. I am sure the number varies for others, but for me... two. Spontaneity and perseverance. Both words big enough for me to have to check their spellings through dear old google. But these two seem to work well for me in designing good visuals. Take these paintings from my not so distant past for example. I chose these based on the fact that, when I painted them, I don't think I really thought, as much as I relied on instinct. The thinking came when I had to persist in making the initial set of instinctive strokes into legible and something distinctive.

I read this after sometime and had to come back and edit it. Instinct, I believe takes over after a lot of practise. And even then, it becomes rusty when the practise, slacks. So that's a note for me. Practise, practise, practise.

Third Post

So in this quest to become an all round designer, there seems to be a very strong pull towards the comfortable. Whatever offers me comfort seems to be the first thing I immediately sit down to do. Sketching, day dreaming, clearing my nasal passages seem to be my areas of comfort. The bid to be a good designer shall not be fulfilled when ones hands are dirtied with snot balls. With this in mind, I pulled my finger out of my nose and decided to do the first thing that scares me. Watercolors.

Painting with watercolors feels like being in a thriller movie. As you put the colors down on the paper and they flow downhill, drying up as they do, the painter is rushing against time to merge them with the right colors and create a scene of perfect beauty and harmony. For an outsider, I am sure I looked like I was having an epileptic attack. 

Second Post

So I sit here fresh from reading an infuriatingly stupid mail. There comes a time when you are forced to question whether intelligence really did evolve in humans. And suddenly you realize even you are a human and the question is quietly put to rest. Neither the question nor the mail is really important in the current context, but the action taken to release the scalding heat built up inside, is. To convince myself that the brain really has some function other than making sure we breathe and walk on our two legs and not hands, I fall back on my one corner of solace. My sketchbook. Draw. Let the pencil off its moors. And cool thy fury, lest somebody shall have his undergarments pulled over their fair countenance. Here is what unleashed.

The ugly, violent and stupid place that the world is, there shall be more instances where the pencil shall keep the peace.

First Post

The title probably reflects on my abilities to think out of the so called box. But with the box growing bigger and bigger, what was outside the box earlier very soon stands the chance of being tipped into the box. This very box is sort of the reason for me to start this excuse for a rant. So for the past few months, I had been debating with myself, people around me and the wall in front of me as to when does a designer fulfill his/her destiny. Is it when he/she has specialized in one discipline of design, or is it when he/she becomes an authority over the discipline called design? So what all does the box actually contain? Why the hell did I say that? Well, it has come to my notice that design has to be considered as a discipline and all design is one. And the whole world seems divided over it. At least the world around me definitely seems to be. So this blog is going to be an exploration, if you will, into this very question and yours truly is going to be the explorer. I know, I'm most probably walking a well trodden path, but whoever has walked here before, did not care to leave the lights on. So it will be my endeavor to find the switch and cast some light, mostly for myself, but you are welcome to satisfy your voyeuristic tendencies. So I shall proceed with the hypothesis that I will be able to master all the forms of design in this lifetime. Disregarding the sneering remarks of the naysayers, here's a step forward.

These are all studies done, some from movie stills and others from my imagination. The primary goal here was to understand the nuances of composing a good scene and lighting it interestingly. As can be clearly seen, the scenes from my imagination seem to have a long way to go before I clearly understand the process of lighting them much more dramatically. So these are all done in under 40 minutes with the intention of not focusing on details but only on the gestault. Startled as I am at my ability to articulate so much in words, I shall say that was a beginning much needed for myself.