Instagram: Have We Now Reached Saturation Point?

A good majority of these photos are poor. During the infancy of Intragram, we might have thought they looked better because of the filters, But as more people post other photos with the same or similar filters, it neutralizes that earlier novelty effect. It is now clear these photos are, to put it mildly, shite. And I say that with love, as an occasional poster of shite phone photos myself.

I apologize for publishing this post a mere 24 hours after the last one. I’ve resolved to post max twice a week, no more, but I really couldn’t restrain myself. It had to all come out. 

This is a public service message.

I’d really like to start a petition to get people to stop using Instagram for every single photo.

Sure, I get that some things looks better with Instagram.

I get that it’s a handy little tool with a sweet interface.

Boring food photo? Hey Instagram! Wow! That’s suddenly an exciting food photo.

Ugly child? Hey Instragram! Child with soft-focus blur obliterating face.

It’s a winner I get it.

But Instagram on all photos?

Come on! A little variety won’t hurt anyone.

In fact I hear that this ‘variety’ schtick is the spice of life.

Mostly I’m just bored with looking at the same filter effects on my Facebook feed.

Everyones photos just look the same. Generic.

Fake soft focus, random blurs, rounded corners, the ‘negative’ frames, the yellow ‘retro’ tinge, the over saturation. Some of the filters are subtle, some are way over the top.

Sometimes neither type of filter adds to or improves a photo. Every photo in an album doesn’t need heavy, black mock film negative borders or a violent fake soft focus blur (Blurred everywhere except in the middle. Looks utterly ridiculous). Really they don’t. Sometimes a photo doesn’t need any kind of border at all.

So please, pretty please a little restraint.

Some photos, Instagram. Some photos, au natural.

How hard can that be?

Thank you for your time.

End of public service message.

Apassionata: A Review

This poster couldn't be stupider if it tried. Magic Encounters my ass.

The ex made me go see Apassionata at the O2 a few weeks ago.

For the uninitiated this is a 2 hour horse show.

Just look at that poster. It’s so ….

The word I want to use is ‘gay’ but since that I’m trying not to use it in that context anymore, let’s just go with ‘cheesy and slightly camp’.

And so was the show. Cheesy and slightly camp.

Th ex being passionate about all things horses had begged me to go.

I say begged but it was more like,

“Do you want to come with me?”

Translation

“I think you’ll find that you will be coming.”

Of course, being the soft-hearted gentle soul that I am, I couldn’t bear the idea of the poor ex sitting all alone in the O2 area, watching horses and crying…

“I love horses so much. I really love them! No one understands!”

So of course, I had to go. Support and all that jazz.

The show was just as tedious as I thought it might be.

The highlight was ze German announcer repeatedly saying

“Please feel free to app-lauws. You may app-lauws now.”

I don’t know why, but the way he said ‘app-lauws’ made me giggle a little.

But I had no strength or will to lift my hands together in a clap. I sank into a stupor that lasted until the show ended.

Let me sum up the show for you (from a non-horsey person’s perspective) in a nutshell:

- Horse walks around the ring, shows paw.

- Another horse walks around the ring, shows paw.

- The end.

It was 2 hours of interminable boredom set to the worst music ever.

I plugged in my iPod.

I’m so glad I took a book too.

We rounded the evening off with the ex taking me to Gaucho grill.

I ordered the steak, done ‘blue’.

I imagined it was a horse.

High Tea or The Picnic: Picking Up Where I Left Off

Work in Progress with Jonathan Ross playing on my laptop

This isn’t a new piece. In fact it’s been lying around incomplete in my folder for ages.

I stopped drawing for nearly a year. Not sure why. I just was reading a lot of Barbara Cartlands mostly. Inhaling them like they were cocaine, (Just to be clear I don’t, haven’t and won’t ever inhale real cocaine. I don’t approve of anything stuck up anyones nose after the time my brother got a red crayon stuck up his and I laughed so hard I cried) and I suppose I took a sabbatical.

I wish I was a kept woman (like some people I know), then all I’d do is draw all day. But I imagine that system only works if you’re willing to breed or happen to be a good housekeeper. One thing is certain: I am neither willing to breed nor can I housekeep.

So I’ve picked it up where I left off. Sometimes my focus wavers a little. I come home from work and find myself frittering away 2 hours on the interweb.

It’s been quite frustrating drawing on this desk. Right now the desk is smaller than the drawing. Paint brushes roll off it, pens drop off it, my ear phone cables keep getting yanked. Nothing fits on it and painting in certain places that don’t fit on the table (like the corners) are a right pain.

I have to turn the paper vertically and move the desk and chair back so the drawing isn’t rammed into the wall. The ex keeps yelling that I’m taking up too much room – It’s both aggravating and uncomfortable. There is a lot of huffing and puffing now and then.

Do other people have these problems? How do they cope? Is it just me?

I’ve developed a serious case of ‘desk-envy’. People post pictures of their desk – Spacious tables with place for their printers, scanners, pen holders, brush holders. Plants! What now seems like the height of luxury to me now.

Regardless of these small, trifling difficulties and my complaints (At least I haven’t lost my ear or got syphilis from a life-model) I’ve resolved to finish all my incomplete work before I start anything new (So hard!)

That includes the first 2 Goddesses and this one. Then I can start some other ones.

Nearly there! I just need to paint all the tables white and maybe touch up the sky.

Trying to finish it tonight or tomorrow.

Alrighty, back I go to the discomfort desk.

High-End Lifestyle

Printed on the first page of a beautifully bound, hard-back A5 booklet type thing.

It looked expensive.

Lets hope those High-End Lifestyle people don't spell too good.

Business Card: Round 2

Ok here we go. Round 2.

I did this vector thing when I was re-designing my website.

That all went to shit. I mean, Flash is like, so over man.

Also it was a head-ache to update. So I took it down.

Then I stopped paying Streamline.net because their customer service sucks and only newcomers get the good deals while everyone else gets shafted.

So I have this vector thing I might as well make use of it on my card, since it’s kind of relevant.

Yellow is cheerful no?

I probably will never use these, but it’s good practice designing them.

Text Arrangement 1. Centered

Text Arrangement 2. Can't decide.

Back card 2

My Business Card

Business card 85x55 Front Final

I occasionally enjoy designing a business card for myself.

I’m not sure why. I never use them, even the ones my work hands out. (My boss told they’d be printing out fewer cards for me this year after I told them I’d been using my business cards as roach material.)

I suppose I like to indulge in the vague illusion that I am running a business.

I’m not. Drawing is a pleasurable hobby. As soon as I try turning it into a business for business’s sake I lose interest and it just galls me.

The ex only recently grasped this. The ex is constantly telling me to sell out and make loads of money – As though money will just rain down on an illustrator who likes to draw things like this or this or this.

I need to draw cute things, happy-happy-joy-joy things, to sell well. I don’t mind, I secretly follow ‘cute’ artists. You know the ones – They draw cats and flowers and pretty girly dolls. Shit like that. But I don’t think I’d enjoy that all the time.

I also enjoy the even vaguer fantasy that I will go around handing out my business cards at social functions or parties. I really should you know, but :

1. I never remember to take them with me until the details are out of date.
2. Even if I do remember to take them, I stuff them somewhere so the edges get scuffed. Then I feel too ashamed to hand them out with scuff marks.
3. I’ve never noticed an opening in a conversation which has ever prompted me to say;

“Oh, really? Well here, let me just give you my business card…”

I need all my grit just to make it though the polite chit-chat at social events much less be suave enough to be handing out business cards willy-nilly like some smooth operator.

I never took to freelance (For somewhat just reasons.) I’m in a country that is trying very hard to squash all small businesses, and immigrant businesses in particular. This is a country really determined to give immigrants the boot while freely handing out dole money left-right-and-center like it’s candy. (If you are British, have the right pair of ovaries and the will to breed, I mean really breed, you need never work again.)

So there is no way you can realistically support yourself on a freelance illustrators salary nor any way that it will enable you to get a visa to stay and work. Nor do I have a safety net out here if I fail to make ends meet month by month.

Additionally I do not enjoy uncertainties. I don’t enjoy them in my reading material (Barbara Cartlands‘ for example, have guaranteed happy endings, however improbable they might be.) and I certainly don’t enjoy them in my life.

Freelancing is all about uncertainties. Will you get any work this month? Will you even get paid?

A full-time job is slightly restrictive, and will most likely eat into your personal project time but you can be sure you will at least get a salary at the end of the every month. (Unless you get fired)

Perhaps if I was in Bombay I might do this. Go freelance I mean. I’d be living with my folks, so I wouldn’t starve or be homeless, I’d just have no junketing around money.

Which would be fine because without Riddhi & Leo I hardly have any real friends left in Bombay.

(Leo is in London and Riddhi is in New York. Shanaya & Mads, my college buds, are also in London. Various other people are also abroad or I’ve lost touch with them because they may not be as ruthlessly active online and as hopelessly inept offline as I am.)

Most of the people who come to the garden come as orbiting satellites to Riddhi’s Death Star. I merely bask in her warm, Death Star glow while she is around.

So here is the back of the card. I wish I knew a way that I could make the QR code on the right actually make the user’s phone download a VCF card with my details on it (I’m sure there is one but I haven’t figured it out yet.)

Right now the QR code would just take you to my Society6 Shop. (If you have a smart phone you need to download a QR scanner app.)

Although I think QR codes are a bit of a hassle and slightly useless.

Back final. QR code for my Society6 Shop

Let Us Eat Cake

Had a fight with the ex about cake a couple of days ago.

Birthday cake.

Every year we fight about cake. It is utterly ridiculous.

I’m checking bakeries and then with the ex about the cake, and feeling frustrated. The margin of error is high and the risk of having the cake flung at my head in a temper tantrum equally so. The window within which the cake will be graciously tolerated is small.

The ‘ideal’ cake is difficult. It’s not even just about the flavour. No no, that’s far too simple. No icing, No chocolate, No marzipan, No cream, No cupcakes. It’s basically a long list of ‘don’ts’ and I’m supposed to navigate my way through.

“Look, if you’re going to make this cake thing a big deal, then just forget about it.”,

says the ex to me when I momentarily forget myself (stupid creature!) and hint at my frustration. (Last year I ‘forgot’ about the cake, and let me just say that turned into a big deal.)

That would be a perfectly fair and reasonable statement to make, if it hadn’t immediately followed this rather more tyrannical threat:

“I’m warning you now – If you don’t get me the right kind of cake, I’m going to be really upset…”

Gosh, no pressure then.

But not to worry.

I have ordered the minions to shower the roads generously with rose and hibiscus petals. The ex will then be carried, lounging delicately on a palanquin, about London. The minions will serve the ex haunches of roasted & basted chicken, followed by sweet white grapes that have been gently washed in mountain dew and have had their skin removed. The feasting is capped with a refreshing champagne and baby’s breath sorbet.

A procession of painted and decorated elephants and horses all with bells and cymbals jingling gaily on their feet follow the palanquin. A 100 strong marching band, will accompany them and will be playing a variety of Madonna and Kylie songs loudly and with gusto. After all the day the ex emerged from the womb demands celebration!

After the magnificence of this procession all the way down Angel and through Farringdon, the palanquin will finally reach St. Paul’s where there will be the usual ritual of the burning of incense and the blood-letting of a sacrificial snow-white lamb by a virgin maid. This will promptly be culminated in an orgy of bacchanalian excess of epic proportions.

Also I baked a cake.

My first cake ever. So domesticated of me no? (It was from a packet. Baby steps.)

It rose rather proudly. I’m quite pleased.

I have a singing candle to place on it’s bulging center.

Here, some photos.

I made a right old mess all over. Also I accidentally read 210 ml of water as 120 ml. I wondered why the batter was so difficult to beat. Luckily I caught the error in time.

Look at it rising! All that beating did the trick. And I beat it by hand!!

Not bad for a first attempt, if I do say so myself. The ex was pleased.

Rape Rick Finished

Rape Rick Final (I scanned it before I stuck the sequins on, as they won't scan)

So I’ve finished the Rape Rick at last.

By the by, in case you were curious as to why I drew this, please read this post here.

The reason it took so long is that I sort of lost interest half way through making it and it stalled for ages.

Partly because of that app project which started eating into my evening hours as it wound up to a close. (Which I ought to post about at some point but I’m scared that people might find my blog via it. Is that paranoid? Can people do that? I don’t know but I’m nervous.)

Then I started setting up my shops and put up the Enthu Cutlet & Indian woman prints.

I was discussing this with the Fourth A, who is simultaneously doing a PhD, a jewelry class, house-hold DIY and also plans to open a chaddie (underwear) business.

I said she needs to focus more.

So do I. I also need better time management. I spend too much time faffing around instead of knuckling down and just finishing a project. I have 4/5 other projects and drawings that are half-finished. I need to make a list and tackle them one by one, and not start anything new until they are done and dusted. (Mighty last words!)

I had a wretched time painting the Rape rick. The first coat of yellow came out too wishy-washy.

Then I coloured in the black lines and promptly smudged it accidentally. So I had to paint the white again and add another coat of yellow.

So I did a second coat. Then I thought it might be too flat so I added some orange.

Too much orange I think

Then I wanted a gradient so I added more orange on the 4th coat. (I know, madness)

Then I started painting all the leaves and flowers, until on review I decided it was now far too orange so I spent the better part of 2 evenings fixing the orange back to the yellow.

Then I needed to re-paint all the flowers and leaves. Argh!

However I think the chrome yellow is a marked improvement. It had to be done.

Then I scanned it all in, and then finally stuck on the sequins. I love these sequins. The glitter didn’t work on the heavily painted yellow acrylic but I had bought the rhinestones you get to stick to bling up mobile phones and those worked really well. I’m dying to glitter something else up.

You can’t tell from the scan, but the flowers also have gold glitter on them. The text is also coloured in with a red glitter pen, and the thick black lines with a black glitter pen. The glitter pens are quite subtle. When you move you see it glinting.

Penis Close up

Text & Sequins Close up

Girl Close up

Rape Rick Photo

Rape Rick Sequins

I also bought a Gouache set recently, in a fit of New Years stationary madness, that I’m now beginning to slightly regret.

I keep putting my hand on the paper before the paint has dried. Or dropping water on it.

Or even ash if I’m smoking and painting.

Even my ear phones are now covered in yellow and orange since I’ve been watching TV on my laptop while I paint and the wires tend to drag over my palette.

So I don’t know why I bought the Gouache set. (Gouache will move if you add water. Acrylics once dry, set solid.) All that will happen is that I’ll make an unholy mess all over the place. At least acrylics don’t shift once they’re dry.

God painting is so hard. I have no idea what I’m doing.

Flight Back to London

Flight back was not as bad as the flight out. 

At Heathrow I was off the plane, through immigration, collected my baggage and in 30 mins flat was on the Heathrow Express. Not content with this I called my cab company who were there waiting just as I got off the Paddington Express.

I have never been this efficient in my entire life.

Noticed this sign on the loo door on the plane.

There was turbulence so I couldn't get a steady shot of the 'No Smoking' sign.

But as you sit on the pot, lower down the loo door is a little ash tray. How odd.

Mixed signals or really old plane?

I Got Picked For An Etsy Treasury!

I’m not exactly sure what that is but it feels exciting.

It’s also always nice to be picked for things.

Etsy Treasury Link. Click here.

The theme is ‘Keep it Green’

They have some cool stuff.