Drawings for Your Boobs

I tried submitting my Gola print to this T-shirt company.

They didn’t want that but liked the font, so asked if I could do some lyrics or quotes in that font.

I really HATE having text that some company has decided represents them stretched across my breasts. I don’t know why so many desi companies think this is a good idea. Stuff that some idiot will tilt his head 45 degrees trying to read.

But what the heck! I figured I’d do it anyway. This lyrics/quotes thing is a bit cheese-balls for my taste but I decided to treat it like it was a challenge (or a procrastination opportunity from my work) to make it interesting for myself somehow.

And on the plus side, if it does get approved, maybe some day I’ll be reading lyrics I picked off someone else’s boobs.  (Whee!)

The chosen theme was ‘Summer’. So I choose the only 2 lyrics I could think of (see below), because all the quotes I found on the internet just were just way too poncy to write on a tee.

Stuff like

“A life without love is like a year without summer.”

You can’t wear that on your boobs!

Paul Weller Weller Weller HUH!

I like to sing this to myself now and then. Mostly I sing the Adam Buxton version.

I did think about Zombie Nazi Penises while I was drawing it though.

I know, I know.

I know.

My ex M.A teachers would be so disappointed in me.

But I rather enjoyed drawing it. Soothing. Un-confrontational. No rape. No bird people. All nice, all happy.

Now I really need to get cracking on my 2012 Drawing To Do list that is nearly as long as my arm.

First things on the list.

1. Finish certain incomplete parts of Arsonist’s Ball.

I sometimes get bored just before the end of a drawing and then it lies with tiny parts incomplete for ages.

2. Scan Picnic & Goddesses.

3. Make Olympic’s poster.

Coming soon.

Kala Khatta Gola

Kala Khatta Gola

I once ate 5 of these one after another.

I couldn’t speak the next day.

But god they are delicious.

So I bought some ice lolly cases on Ebay and made the concentrate from the Rasna packet.

The ice lollies are pretty good, but the texture is just not quite like the real thing.

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 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 gotten 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.

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

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.

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.

Indian Woman – Prints and Skins

Indian Woman Portrait Print

Prints! Skins! Good shit! The T-shirt! Go on! Click here! 

This is the final version of a little drawing from my sketch book.

I scanned in the line drawing, converted it to a vector shape in Illustrator and then imported it into Photoshop to colour it in.

I find working in Illustrator nearly impossible and extremely frustrating. I don’t understand why they can’t allow you to use the same tools and method as you do in Photoshop to create and edit vector shapes. Illustrator is so fucking non-intuitive.

I just use it for the bare minimum and then do the rest in Photoshop. I also got some textures from my favourite texture repository Lost and Taken just for good measure and used them for the background. They took a week of fiddling about, leaving it, looking at it later, then some more fiddling to get it right.

I’ve not been as prolific with my sketch book as I should be.

My rape rick drawing stalled after 2 weeks because that app project (which has been going on for over a year) finally reached its long overdue climax. Even though the client made various attempts to impede progress by changing their mind constantly. (Sigh. I can’t even bear to go into it.)

So my bosses said the other say that they wanted to have a chat with me.

“Uhm…is this a good chat or a bad chat?”

I felt dubious about this so-called ‘chat’.

“No no it’s a good chat, to discuss your work and stuff.”

“Oh good, as long as I’m not getting fired…”

They said they were very pleased that of all the people in the office I stay behind and work late and want to reward me so I keep it up etc etc.

I said since it wasn’t going to a bad chat we could have it when I come back from my holiday.

The ex said I was a dolt and I should have had the chat right then and there. The ex is constantly collaring the bosses to ‘chat’ about the ex’s inevitable world domination.

That’s all very well (working late and so on), but my illustration is being severely impeded by all this enthuness in the work department. I’ve been too tired when I come home to pick up the illustration slack even though I’ve populated my shop and have been doing stuff like this. (Digital illustration I mean)

Indian Woman iPhone Skin. I don't know how many people want flowery lotus breasts on the back of their phone. Should I remove them?

I’m rather pleased with myself for colouring this in digitally. All the shapes inside the woman are vectors, so she can be stretched to fit nearly any format.

I also wanted her to be printable on colour T-shirts (I don’t know how colour prints turn out on pre-coloured T’s). So there’s a black and white line version for the green, red, blue and yellow T-shirts.  I think I’m going to buy this or the red one.

Indian Woman Line T-Shirt

Indian Woman Unisex sweatshirt

Indian Woman Laptop Skin

Then I was so carried away I even created a landscape version for the Laptop skins. (Which I rather preferred in the end to the portrait so I made some prints of those too.) It it cuts the boobs in half so they don’t seem so…uh…booby.

I could probably change the letter in the circle. I dunno.

Indian Woman Landscape Print

Ooof so much effort! Reward me by promoting me, pretty please! 

The Arsonists Ball – Now Available As Prints & Skins

Arsonists Ball

So this is the prequel for the Turkish Bath drawing.

I’m not sure how I feel about this one if I’m perfectly honest.

Parts of it I really like, but parts of it make me feel slightly claustrophobic.

I guess that was the plan (or part of it) so that’s a good thing.

The children in the corner are pouring petrol down the stairs in a bid to get attention.

The lady in the center, behind the queers toasting and in front of the lady holding the dog collar and leash is the hostess of the party (I think).

I researched all the outfits of the era and drawing the stair-case was a right bitch. The perspective was really hard to get right. Still not sure I got it right either.

Ok so go get a print! 

Put it up somewhere.

Maybe the loo?

You can look at it while you’re on the pot and then you can tell me if it makes you feel claustrophobic or not.

Maybe it’ll just constipate you.

Feel free to tell me that too.

(I’d recommend a slightly larger size than the smallest which is A4 = 8″ x 10″ or letter-paper size. )

Framed

iPhone cases & skins

Laptop skins

 

Illustration July Summer

Buyers Sale Card Illustration Commission.

An illustration someone commissioned me for. (I think it’s a buyers invite for the new collection)

I wasn’t sure about posting this one, since it was so out of my usual style and comfort zone, and I think it looks a little clumsy. (They were happy with it thank god.)

When using water colours your hand needs to have a really light, casual touch. Almost as if the colour just fell off your brush accidentally to make this picture out of the swirl of paint. Another difficulty is there is no margin for error with watercolours. It either works or it doesn’t.

To make matters worse, I was using acrylics (dries quickly, sets like oils). I really must buy a proper paint set.

I’m too controlling to execute this kind of style with ease, so it was a bit of a struggle. (But a good exercise I think)

I haven’t used watercolours, well since my 10th standard art exam.

You know, my art teachers in school were fucking cheaters.

They made us practice this one still-life, over and over and over again in the weeks/months leading up to the exams. It was a ketchup bottle with some other crap on a hideous drape of purple fabric.

I do love that the approach to art in school was to ‘practice’ a drawing, and then regurgitate it, like a performance, for the final exam.

The teachers also had their own tuitions classes. So their pupils were also taught a secret second still life. Anyone who didn’t pay for private classes wouldn’t be able to ‘practice’ this secret second still life. (I didn’t take classes for art, my mother was pretty sufficient. More so than the teachers, I thought.)

So when we walked into the examination room, I was rather surprised to find a new still-life set up in the corner. A kettle, some mugs and a fruit against a much less offensively mis-matched drape. A relatively easy composition compared to the one we had been ‘practicing’.

The students could pick one still life or the other. After months of interminable boredom of the one still life we’d been forced to paint, I was perfectly happy to take a punt on the new one. If I couldn’t do it, well, it couldn’t be half as bad as drawing that stupid frickkin ketchup bottle (Maggie; Other brands are available) for the umpteenth time.

Luckily it turned out well.

Two of the teachers later asked me, deeply suspicious,

“Who do you take tuitions from?”

“No one”

“No one??”

“My mother paints”

“Accha. Very good still life.”

I felt as smug as a cat.

HAH! Foiled you cheater teachers! How about them apples??

The Result of a Semi-Productive Weekend: Enthu Cutlet

Unisex Version

Had a fairly productive weekend. Or at least a very productive Sunday evening.

Painted my rape rick, painted a page in my sketch book AND scanned and vectorised my Enthu cutlet drawing.

Whew!

An Enthu Cutlet is defined by Samosapedia as

“..an earnest eager beaver who is able to muster up inordinate amounts of energy, inspiration and enthusiasm towards a variety of things.”

This was a drawing requested by The Fourth A who has very lately appointed herself as my artistic manager and coach (Since I am seriously lacking in business skills; A4 was horrified that I was charging someone £10 p/h for illustrations. That’s the same rate as our cleaner makes.) – Giving me many pep talks and goading me into to setting up a shop.

Really, the very personification of an Enthu Cutlet.

It was also a fun drawing. Dead quick and jolly.

Now, a query: I really like my veggie pattern (A little Wallace and Gromitish perhaps? ) and if I wanted that pattern on a top, lets say, how would that be achieved?

Does anyone know?

Any of my 5.2 blog readers?

Do let me know if you do.

Desi Eshtyle Version

 

Update:

Prints (Framed, Unframed, Stretched Canvas), T-Shirts, Sweatshirts Laptop & iPhone skins of Enthu Cutlet now available!

Boy do I feel like a proper legit business type person.