Kashmir

Kashmir,

Such a fascinating place, kindest people on earth and a gem of a place on earth. It took me this long to be here. For the past few years, as December approached, Kashmir was always on my mind. I never spoke about it out loud because it would scare the bejesus out of my parents.

Although its been a month since I went and came back from Kashmir, I just happened to make time to write and post this blog. Thanks to the constant reminders on Instagram as i saw a bunch of people visit Kashmir a week after we got back.

I hope we inspired them in some way (kidding).

From the ghats of Dal Lake in the early hours as we waited for our boatsmen.

I had a different perspective when we left to Kashmir, I was hoping for beautiful blue skies and abundance of colour and green around the Dal Lake. But it turned out the opposite when we reached. Rains followed us til Kashmir and the experience was one of a kind and so was the beauty of this place.

It started raining after we entered the villages on the Dal Lake and this is how it looked.

But then this is what amused me the most, it is the beauty of these people of Kashmir I guess, not that I planned to look for a familiar face but I could simply recognise them in one look and I know he sold me Kaakha tea ,he sold me flower seeds, he offered to sell vegetables to me and so on.

I’m not much of writer you see, same old story nothing new there. I just want you to see the beauty of this place and the people through my lens.

Women overlooking at the market from the Boat houses on Dal Lake.

Clouds clearing after the rainfall on the Dal Lake.

Also I believe you’ve read all my rants about my husbands Steve McCurry adventures and stunts.

It’s hard to get over a few places, Kashmir will be one such place, I want to keep going back here.

Wabi Sabi

Wabi-Sabi: The Japanese Art of Finding Beauty in Imperfect Ceramics

Pottery and collecting ceramics is another hobby of mine that has been slowly garnering as I feed more into it. I have learned that artists do this thing where they explore their creative sides through different artsy activities and I guess that includes me. In the very last few days of my trip to London, the flame had been reignited as I stumbled upon a pottery workshop that I could attend and the experience was unlike any other before. The yearning I had to try it hands-on and learn had been fulfilled and the style of the workshop keenly reminded me of my own set of them. I had documented my wholesome experience in the following series of photographs shot on my Fujifilm Xa5 with a XF 35mm f1.4 Fujinon lens.

mastering the cylinders by a fellow participant

Kolam Prints

“Kolam” is a Tamil word that defines an age-old tradition of drawing intricate patterns using coloured powders in front of our Indian houses. The word perfectly represented the hand block-printing venture I had started. The idea behind it was to create beautiful Indian designs and block-print them in vibrant colours on different fabrics. I started this to try my hand at yet another form of art and to introduce unique pieces of fashion to people’s wardrobes. My experience with art led me to have a sense of appreciation for flattering designs and colour combinations. After watching a lot of videos and research, I finally made it come alive. It started from picking the right material, followed by dyeing them into tasteful colours and then finally having the prints adorn them. Each piece of clothing had been taken care with utmost attention to detail. I loved the creative side of it all, it was my personal playground. But trickily enough, that isn’t the only side of a business and safe to say, I wasn’t the best in the rest of it.

The troubles started right from the landlord who disliked the excess usage of water in the place we rented out, water used for the colours of the print and dyeing fabrics, etc. Then it was the craftsmen who were so used to working with bulk orders that the concept of exclusive pieces and spending more time on each garment was foreign to them. I had a hard time explaining my designs and making them work harmoniously with my ideas.

Finding a tailor was as difficult of a task as it was for any other Indian woman, someone who didn’t turn crop tops into blouses and disappear into the sunset. Meanwhile, the sales and marketing side of the job was a very demanding one. It was 24 hours hustle for orders from everywhere around the globe. And I, being a one-woman army, did not help. Even during break-times and mini-vacations, I would still respond to the customers and take their orders. I didn’t want all the effort and hard work put into this project go futile. Yet I had reached my breaking point, I couldn’t go on doing it all alone and took a month off from it. That pause continues to this day, I only offer the stock that remains and have temporarily stopped the production. At least till I find a proper management team, a key component that seems to have lacked in this dreamy project I started.

To all the requests for garments that still reach me to this day on Instagram and such, I feel pleased to have sparked your interest and hope to get back to you soon. To all the management majors and firms looking to adopt me and this baby of mine, feel free to drop me a mail. I wish to go back to creating and designing more without the burden of managing workers and taking care of sales and all the other no-name jobs that go into play in a design-house.

Images shot by Kishor Krishnamoorthi

Assisted by Suri Vasireddy

Styling by Mandakini Rao

Model - Dheera Pisat

Make up by Smink Up

Source: https://www.kolamprints.com

100 Days Finale: Pastels

The end is here, just like the last season of Game of Thrones (no, I don’t watch the show but I’ve been hearing the buzz), the 100 Days have finally come to an end. But not without one last jolt of art, the final subject in this tedious-but-fun series is Pastels. Yes, how can I forget these opaquely pigmented crayons? Smudging them using my fingers, creating gradients, all of it takes me back to my childhood. There’s something really satisfying from getting my hands dirty in creating something, quite an obvious from an artist I suppose.

Inspiration can hit you from anywhere and everywhere, which is why I always try to capture it through my camera. Pictures from my office window or my home or places I visit during the day, all the photographs I take or collect, act as a guide for me to recreate that moment of inspiration and awe I felt then. I’ve applied the same concept using pastels this time around. One of my favourite pastel work I did during the series, has to be the coconut tree swaying with the wind. I had shot this moment around the time when the monsoons were yet to begin, about a few months back. But the memory of it was still so strong in my head that I had to recreate it. And it had to be pastels because the colours happened to be oh so beautiful.

Now that the 100 days are over, I feel relieved and relaxed like I’ve just completed running a marathon. Many thoughts have taken over my head, like how it would’ve been impossible without the support and push from my friends and family. Especially two people very close to me, at every turn of the way, they were guiding and comforting me. Times when I felt like I couldn’t go on anymore or when I was completely burnt out, these two reminded me of my artistic thirst and that whatever I created, it had to come from within, that that was what was very important at the end. They had even planned my schedule and made excel sheets and calendars and I couldn’t have been anymore grateful. The seriousness they attributed helped me take my work more seriously than ever, ignoring all the societal taunts and pressures.

I feel a tad bit bittersweet about the subjects that I have chosen as they could’ve been simple and easy, and a lot less time-taking which could have resulted in a more successful 100 days and a lot less stress. But because of all the ups and downs I went through in creating intricate and close-to-my-heart art, it feels really special and satisfying that I put myself through this. I plan on finishing discontinued pieces of the project and work on remaining subjects sans the restraint of time.

Lastly, the overwhelming response from people who followed this project closely, I’m thankful for their feedback. It made me look forward to sharing my works with all of you.

100 Days – Fin.

Hyderabad Vintage

Wherever I go, my heart always stays with Hyderabad. With that emotion, this came about to be my second subject in my 100 days project. I grew up in one of the oldest residential locality of Hyderabad. I have seen beautiful old houses disappear and new apartments replacing them ever so often. Back then, it had never occurred to me how much history and culture those limestone walls held. Through the time lapse of change, one day in the middle of all the fresh concrete, I was surprised to find a beautiful little house of old world charm snuggled in between apartments. My love for them grew as I started realising that all these beautiful houses were vanishing in the name of development and metro construction in the recent years. I was fortunate enough to grow up in one of them and now my husband and I share the same love for such Art Deco houses. We would like to have one for ourselves before we are old and grey.

Exploring this subject furthermore, I wanted to focus on these buildings’ specific features. Like what made them stand out from the rest, was it their balconies? Or was it the patterns? Was it the shape itself or how worn out they were yet still standing strong to this day? These were my thoughts during the making of them. Although I wouldn’t happen to know the knick-knacks that an architecture student would know about drawing these structures, I tried to bring them to the canvas as realistically as possible in my perspective.

Hyderabad Vintage has been highlighted as one of my subjects to create awareness around these history-clad constructions and to urge that they need to be preserved. Whenever we visit another country, we always rave about their architecture filled with culture and heritage yet we turn blind eye to all the demolition that has been happening around the city. It is high time we preserve what we have and renovate them from time to time without losing their essence.

Moreover, Hyderabad is my home, my identity. It is diverse and everyone is accepted here. Hence, working on this subject was my personal agenda to showcase the beauty of these good old architecture of my city. Hope you enjoy looking through them!

Art Direction

Trying my hand in different areas of art had always been my thing. One of them happen to be Art Direction. Art direction is what you don’t see explicitly on the screen but is an important process of film-making. It is something that sets the whole mood of the movie, specifically the time frame of the incidents that takes place. Watching movies with the perspective of a professional artist makes you delve deeper into the movie in regards to the sets, lighting, etc. I had always been curious to know the behind-the-scenes of it all. When the opportunity presented itself, I was delighted. The first project I worked on, as a costume designer, was called Contrast. It was a photo documentary showcasing the contrast of a foreign woman in a very local setting of Hyderabad such as in a crowded bus or a butcher shop. The wild idea needed equally wild outfits and I was ready to throw in my two cents. Another project which gave me the most exposure was a short film called Lipi. It happened to be a time-travel movie hence the sets played a major role as they had to be consistent with every scene. The film revolved around an Indian post office and an empty room had to be transformed into one from scratch. I remember vividly working on a shoot, how the perception of the whole film could be changed based off of art direction.

Art direction is not just for home movies but also very significant in documentary-making. Documentation of photographs, although similar to art direction, the work environment of both differed largely. While photo documentation took place more on-schedule and less spontaneous, movie-making was a new schedule everyday as it had to be in collaborative efforts with other departments such as audio, camera crew, etc.

As much fun as art direction can be, it can also be very grueling at the same time. It requires a lot of physical effort such as being present for outdoor shoots, etc. In a way I prefer documentaries over films, if I had to choose, given my schedule as of now. In fact, I would love to have my own production and create certain sets to document different areas of art and life in the near future. I love challenging myself to new endeavors. Here’s a list of few films/documentaries I’ve worked on if you are interested:

1) Contrast by Kishor Krishnamoorthi

2) Lipi by Harikanth Gunamagari

3) Hide n Seek by Deepak Redddy

4) Ranga Veda by Harikanth Gunamagari

Chumbak ft. Mandakini

“Chumbak is a brand that I had the chance to work with…”

All About Prints

Art for me, has always been a source of joy and pride. Be it creating art, or viewing art. Every time I paint a new piece of art, the entire process of creating it elevates me to a different zone where I am at peace with the world. And after I complete it, the joy of seeing my vision become reality is hard to put in words.

And I am keen on sharing this joy with the rest of the world, so I would like to announce that I be will making and selling LIMITED EDITION FINE ART PRINTS of selected pieces of my work.

My 100 Day Project has been a wonderful experience so far, and I am truly overwhelmed with the amount of feedback and praises I have received till date. But most of all, the number of requests from people to buy the paintings of M.S.Subbulakshmi has been the primary reason that I decided to make prints of my work. Only 1 painting will be available for sale as of now and I will be adding more, depending on the response and feedback from all of you.

You can order your limited edition print from here.

As I started the 100 Day Project, I was looking to tackle some interesting subjects and M.S.Subbulakshmi has been one of my biggest inspirations in life. Based on an iconic photo of her by Raghu Rai, this picture spoke volumes to me with her intense expression and lifelike emotions. It was also one of the toughest ones that I had painted till now of her, mainly because I wanted to ensure that I could do justice to the photograph. I spent a lot of time thinking about how I wanted to depict her. Should I make it monochrome or flesh toned? What medium should I use? I knew that I had to paint this with the same qualities as the photo yet adding my own twist to it.

Luckily, on the day I sat to make this painting, I found my process. Initially I had made swatches for skin tones on my palette, but it hit me that this was not what I wanted. I stopped what I was doing and went through all my previous portraits. I looked at them and realised I should keep it in my style, the multi-colour way that would bring all the features alive, and not sway away from my individuality. Towards the end of the day, I was grinning with excitement and couldn’t sit still in my seat. I actually did the final part of the painting while standing over my desk! The excitement was too real and it went by very quickly. At last, it came out to be the way I wanted and that was very satisfying to me.

Making the fine art prints is a whole process that I learnt about over the past couple of weeks. From choosing the right paper and getting the right printer, it was all a new experience for me but I truly enjoyed every bit of it. Once we finalized the paper, I knew that colour accuracy and being true to the original painting is vital so we spent a lot of tweaking minor settings to ensure perfect quality. We made nearly 20 test prints, each one slowly getting to the final level of quality that I wanted. We started printing at around 3pm and by the time prints finally matched with the original painting, it was already 9pm! But it was time well spent as I could confidently say this is the very best print quality that you can ever buy of my work.

The final set consists of:

A limited edition of 25 archival giclée prints, signed and numbered by me.

Here’s where you can find it!

I am glad that I went through this process of madness to make these stunning prints, I am super happy with the results and I hope all of you enjoy your prints.

Art48

“Finally, my very first art project.

Art48 has been an initiative…”

Botanical Watercolours

Ever since I visited the Botanical Garden in Madrid and their gallery, I couldn’t stop thinking about how thoughtful they have been at encouraging their artists. A group of water colour artists in Spain were given saplings of Tulips and had been asked to paint the growth of the plant. The artists took these plants back home and had taken good care of them. And then they had painted a botanical water colour of their own Tulip plant and submitted it to the Garden’s gallery for display.

I was very impressed with the administrators of this beautiful little Botanical Garden taking such an initiative to encourage artists. The art culture that surrounded this place seemed magical. Although ambitious of me, I would love to see something similar in India. It would be delightful to see people accepting and encouraging artists on such a level.

Picture taken from the official Society of Botanical Artists website.

Fujifilm XA5 Review

Day 54, time flies!! I can’t believe its already the end of Feb. And yes, the much awaited review that all of you have been waiting for, is here. I’ll keep it really short and simple for now. I’ve been looking for a good compact camera with similar features of a DSLR camera and I was keen on getting a Sony Alpha, but for some reason it never worked out. On the way back home from our Dubai trip, I spotted the Fujifilm XA3 camera at the duty free store and it was love at first sight. But to my disappointment, it was not available anywhere in India. We wanted to buy it from US and just when we were about to place the order, Fujifilm had announced the latest version from the same series, i.e., Fujifilm XA5. It was released this month on Feb 9th, available in three different colors – black, brown and pink. Fortunately, we had a friend coming from the US and managed to order the very last piece available in a pink color (I missed the brown one in a matter of few minutes). But the color of the camera was my least concern.

Included with the X-A5 is the Fujinon XC 15-45mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS PZ Lens, the company's first electric-powered zoom lens. Regardless, I didn’t wanted to stick with kit lens and wanted something close to a 35 mm lens. And so I ordered Fujifilm XF 23mm f/2 R WR Lens, a wide angled lens with it.

The package had finally arrived and here’s what I think of it:

Shot on iPhone 7 plus

The compact size is what I was looking for my travel and this camera was perfect.
I preferred using the 23mm lens more often than the kit lens.
I found that the camera's auto-focus doesn't always respond as quickly as those on other models when capturing photos and videos. This didn’t happen often but it seemed to happen more in low-light settings.
The 4K video quality was something I was looking forward to but again the auto focus had struggled especially while video recording, which wasn’t the case while taking pictures.
Battery life is pretty decent as well. I would definitely recommend this to the bloggers (fashion vlogs, make up tutorials, etc.) who have been waiting to hear this review from the day I posted about this camera.

Also sharing few of the first images shot with this camera using the 23mm lens:

26 Love Letters

It is surprising how time just slips away when you are married. My art always takes a priority in my life yet it is very difficult to balance all aspects of your life. And sadly, I happened to take a hiatus from art because life happened. But I could not stay away from it for too long.

Twenty-six Love Letters, a collection of letters painted in calligraphy, is kind of an agenda for me to get back into my rhythm. I had been a calligraphy teacher previously as one of my endeavors. And with this idea, I brought that aspect of me alive once again. I tried to bring out meaning of each alphabet through associating it with brands, festive occasions and seasons. I hope you had fun looking at the paintings just as much as I had while painting it.