On the 13th of November Amith launched his new album. And I had the wonderful opportunity to design the artwork  and cover for the CD.  I also got to go the launch. My friend Roopa Pai accompanied me. It’s a good thing too… as the whole event was in Kannada and I don’t understand Kannada! Roopa ( thank god for her) translated and told me when to go up on stage and all that.

Mahaprana

Roopa is an author and has recently released her new childrens book- The Taranauts.
Taranauts is an eight-part fantasy adventure series for 8-10 year olds written by Roopa Pai and published by Hachette India Children’s Books.  Do visit her site and have a look see.

I got a call a few days ago asking me to judge an all India inter-college competition on Communication Design. Imagine my surprise and delight!  I said YES. Of course.
The rest as they say is history. It has been a wonderful few days. I am amazed at the talent out there. To see the degree of detail and thought that young college kids  can come up with. Some of the participants had never even heard the term Communication Design. 
Oh, and I also had to speak  for ten minutes on ‘Art as communication’. Which I did. Though it was a bit more then ten minutes. It was a load of fun with a lot of audience participation.

I was certainly in august company. My fellow panalists/jury and speakers were-

‘Communication Marries Technology’
Sandhya Prasad, President, STC (India)
Director of Information Development, BEA / Oracle Systems

‘Communication in a multi-cultural context’
Arundhati Ghosh
Founder, India Foundation for the Arts & Lead India Campaign participant

‘Communication as an Employability Enhancer’
Prof Pankaj Gupta
Director, Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (Bangalore)
Former Prof at IIM-K and IMT,
Fulbright Visiting Research Scholar, Ohio State Univ & University of Washington
(Unfortunately, he was unable to make it for the event)

I almost forgot to mention the contest itself. To design a poster, brochure and user guide for the Apple ipod touch. And yes, the winning team got one for each participant as the grand prize!! Boy, were they over the moon.
You can read about it here and here.

The event was organised and hosted by ‘The writers Block’

“Innovative designers in Bangalore – There are limitless possibilities to design innovations. And Bangalore’s creative lot of designers find inspiration in myriad things like traditions and beliefs to textiles, trees and discarded materials. MetroMela profiles four designers across Bangalore who believe in doing stuff that’s different from run of the mill….  ”

Thank you to  Reshmi for writing such a wonderful piece on my work in Metromela.com. You can read it the entire article  here.

Hi, and Happy Diwali everyone. 
Rekha and Sharon from ‘The Key Bunch’ asked if I would do a guest post as part of their one year anniversay celebrations, I said yes immediately. Now, having said yes, I found myself clueless as to the topic for the post!! So, since I am an artist and I have never done a step by step demo so far, thats what I decided to do.
Here is the finished painting. Its in Pen and Ink and a little bit of Acrylics thrown in. To see the stages, you need to go to www.thekeybunch.com

Just the two of us

Let me know if you want me to do more such demonstrations.

I am happy to say, my work is in Delhi for the next couple of weeks.

Nazar Battoo Kettle

It will be available at-

Maximum Store Pvt. Ltd.,
5-J/1, Ground floor, Shahpur Jat,
New Delhi – 110049
t: +91 11 26493150, 46168026m: +91 98183 18196
e: communicate@themaximumstore.com

Do drop in if you have time.

I am happy to be participating in a three day exhibition in Kolkatta. This venture is in association with F.U.S.S.

 My work wil be available at-

 The Amoda Spa Bar,
22 Camac Steet ( behind Pantaloons),
Kolkatta.

From 11am to 11pm.
6th, 7th and 8th Oct 2009.

Do drop in if you are anywhere close.

It’s but a mention and I have to say thanks to Piali Dasgupta for writing the article.

Bangalore Times

Click for a larger image

The Sattva Art House is a really wonderful and calm place. It’s housed in a 100 year old bunglow in Whitefield, Bangalore. It is filled with children learning to paint and express their inner creativity. This show is hopefully the start of a long and artistically satisfying journey for me. I am looking forward to conducting workshops at their center over the next few months. Will keep you all posted as and when that happens.
Till then, I leave you with a few images from Sattva this morning.

If you in Whitefield, Bangalore…then come on over.

I have been busy with a lot of stuff over the last month. But, I did find some time to paint. These new pieces have been added under the ‘Kitsch’ section. There are also three new paintings added to the ‘Watercolour’ section. And I finally updated the ‘Furniture’ section.

 Yes! I have been busy.

I also thought I would leave you with a few images of the plants I have around the house.

Syngoniums- Kitsch'd

More Syngoniums...

 
And here are 2 mixed media/collage flowers that I did a while back. They are now in my son’s room.