Ho! Ho! Ho!

The Xmas season is here.. Do you feel the happy spirit in the air? I do! :)
October, November, December are my favorite months of the year!
Love the weather.. especially the evenings and love the festivities.. The streets are lit up.. Every one is usually smiling.. It's a very cheerful quarter.
I always thought there was something magical about this season. Santa, angels, reindeer's, elves.. One big fairy tale that I want to believe in.
The above picture is my desktop wallpaper for this season. And here are my wishes for you..
Ho! Ho! Ho!
Keep smiling! Be happy always!
Merry Xmas! :)

Feel free to use it as your desktop wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use the picture for commercial purposes. :)

Lights Out!

An hour of darkness.. For a world of brightness!
One hour of electric participation. A world of difference.
What you have to do is simply switch off electricity for an hour 7.30 p.m to 8.30 p.m on 15th December.
If you want to read some more details you can check out this post on the MID-DAY site.
http://www.mid-day.com/news/city/2007/december/167617.htm

Hmm so I am in. . Are you?

Feel free to use it as your desktop wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use the picture for commercial purposes. :)

One for the bulls!! :)

This one is all laughs!
A friend visited New York city and there he saw this huge big statue of a Bull on the Wall Street (called the wall street bull). Very tickled he took some pictures and posed in a couple of them too.. The photograph used in the above picture is one of my favorites. Brings out his personality completely. Crazy and bull headed!! :P :D
I wanted to give the picture a postcard feel with a touch of retro...
And I wanted to caption it " Bull headed".
Well in this case he has a whole bull on his head so I thought maybe " bullish love" ( no pun intended) :)

Feel free to use it as your desktop wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use the picture for commercial purposes. :)

Wah SRK Wah! ( Hindi for Wow SRK Wow!)

Hey I just saw Om Shanti Om.. Did I like it? Yes.. Will you like it? I dont know! :P
I just thought that these guys must have had a lot of fun making the film. It came through to the audience.
Anyways I like Mr Shahrukh Khan in the lover boy roles. I remember being glued to the television during his "Fauji" days. I say chaps you rock! ;)
I loved the spoof (in OSO) on himself during the award ceremony) :) If he can laugh on himself then he must be a good human being.
Anyways there is a certain drool factor in this movie. His fab abs.. Wow me thinks he looked his best in the fireman do..
Hmm so I visited the OSO website. And they have given away free posters of SRK. While I think he looks great I chose to modify the poster a little to grace my desktop!
You can get the original here www.omshantiomfilm.com.
The site warns people that sale, duplication or transfer of any material on the site is strictly prohibited.
So I am not selling it. Nor transferring it. And this one could qualify as a semi original because of the edits.
And the above picture is my version!
Ain't he an angel!!
So gals Drool all the way! ;)

Ahh! Here I go with the sea again. :)

The quote says..
'Endless are your ideas.
And endless is your dream.
They echo through the darkness, shining light in between...
and neither fate nor the hand of God can interfere...
whilst in given time,
you'll spin a yarn of what we saw in the ocean.'

A little poetic note written for me by a very talented friend.
"Thanks a million Abby" :)

Feel free to use it as your desktop wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use the picture for commercial purposes. :)

Is it too late to wish Happy Diwali? :)

Hey-lloo! And I am back!
Not that I went anywhere, however its been a really busy week. Besides work I have been visiting friends and family for Diwali and eating lots and lots of sweets (especially the Bengali kinds...hmm yum! ).
I am not into burning crackers, however I like looking at the fireworks burst in the sky. They look so pretty. Me thinks they add to the star value of the heavens above.. what say? :D
The picture above is my Diwali special! :)
The flower represents the lotus ( like the lotus goddess Laksmi stands on)
And the design above the lotus represents the soul of the flower, fragrant, bright and beautiful.

So here are my Diwali wishes for you...
May you get what is best for you..
May the year ahead be filled with lots of love, luck, brightness and colour.

Feel free to use it as your desktop wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)

" Thank You"

This one is for my angels.
A very thoughtful gesture brought big smiles to my face this week.
hmm .. so my little angel.. This one has kind of left me speechless ( and thats a first) ;)
Thank you is all I can say again and again.. :)
The picture is a combination of brush stroke scans. I was having what one would to call a creative block. Whenever I face one of these I bring my paint brushes out. I find this very therapeutic. Gets me back into the design mood anytime. :)
This one is not for sale. Can create something on the same lines anytime though. :)

Something Fishy...

After a crazy and hectic few days, I catch myself fantasizing that I am on a holiday by the beach where I am either snoozing or taking a dive in the sea and paying the little fishes a visit.. Well though the holiday is far away my fantasy is still intact .. So I dished up this illustration to grace my desktop.
When I *sea* it, I *sigh* and I *say* " Wish I was here!". :)
Feel free to use it as your desktop wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)

Puppet to your dreams

The quote reads.. " If you can imagine it, you can create it. If you can dream it, you can become it." So me thinks that makes us a puppet to our dreams.. or is it vice- versa? ( maybe its like the chicken and the egg question)
Anyways.. Feel free to use it as your desktop wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)

Bea-u-ti-full

"Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror" Great quote ain't it . :) Me like!
Hmm Trying my hand with the vintage look. An experiment of sorts again.
The textured background is actually a picture of a really dilapidated wall I clicked. I used it as the background.
Feel free to use it as your desktop wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)

A snooze in the clouds...

Like it? I am trying to experiment with my style. Curves with a little of grunge n scribbles.
Hmm so are you wondering who is that little angelic creature up there.. Well.. That's my workout fairy. She's absconding.. Taking a snooze up in the clouds.. Thus the name..
Ahh.. I call to thee madame.. come back pretty please! :)
Feel free to use it as your desktop wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)

Somewhere over the rainbow, dragons fly.. :)

I have had a difficult couple of days... The blue screen monster showed up on my workstation... Not once but 4 times and corrupted some files . :'(
With a lot of help from a friend we managed to slay this monster and get everything to work fine. Thank you blue screen monster slayer. ;)
I read Eragon sometime back and I wanted to create something with a dragon in it. Me thinks the above illustration would look great as a book cover for a fantasy fiction. Hmm illustration I have created, anybody writing a book? ;)
Feel free to use it as your desktop wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)

Chakde India..

Did you watch the match today? Then you will have to agree with me, it was wonderful. And I bet all of you said Chakde India. :) India-Pakistan matches are always entertaining. :) But for this one I must say they kept us on our toes till the last ball. Extremely entertaining! Hmm.. What a comeback after the world cup. Don't you think?
And Mr Dhoni agrees too. He said it! Quite a feather in his cap.. Team India winning the first 20-20.
I quite enjoyed watching the display of fireworks after the match. On the television and in my locality too. Everyone was so thrilled. I could hear people clapping and whistling on the road. Wow.. everyone loves a winning team.
Completely thrilled and feeling too patriotic I did a quick wallpaper.
Chakde India!

By the sea..

For me one of the perks of living in Mumbai is that the sea is just a ride away. I could spend hours at a stretch sitting by the shore gazing into the sea without getting bored. Time just flies when I am by the sea. :)
My favorite sea spots in Mumbai are Bandstand and Worli seaface.
I try to carry my camera whenever I go these spots..
This one is one of my favorite pictures. It's not clicked in Mumbai though. However its beautiful ai'nt it? I call it "The Rocky road to paradise" ( Kind of like the alliteration there ;))

The image above is my digitally modified version of " The rocky road to paradise" and as a bonus you get to see a girl at the end of the path, lost in her thoughts.. contemplating.. what you ask me? Hmm.. don't ask, I just put her there cause it kinda completed the picture. ;D
The quote in the image says " Whatever we lose, it's always our self we find in the sea." :)
So maybe she is searching for her soul? What do you think?
Feel free to use it as your desktop wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)

Got my eyes on ya!

Ever been to Egypt? The land of the larger than life pyramids. Hmm I had gone there for a vacation once. And I say every artist should go there at least once. And while you there spend a minimum of 3 days at the Cairo museum. That's where all the awesome looking goodies are. Don't forget to carry your drawing pad and paper. :)
On my trip there I visited the Valley of the kings. The Valley of the Kings contains many of the tombs of pharaohs including Tutankhamun and Ramesses the Great.
In one of the tombs there, I think Ramesses VI's tomb I saw paintings done by the Egyptian artists on the ceiling and the walls. And I was struck speechless at the quality of the detailed artwork. The same motif was perfectly hand painted time after time with a steady hand. I was completely awestruck. It is here I noticed a lot of "eyes" painted all around. Apparently according to an Egyptian assumption the sun and the moon were considered to be the eyes of the great god who created the world and sustained it. That's why they have eyes painted in most of their pictures.
And knowing my habit of drawing eyes all the time I turned to my sister and proudly told her " I must have been an Egyptian artist in my last life" ... Tee hee! I can have my fantasies right? :)
The illustration above is a Digitally modified version of one of my doodles.
Hmm someone asked me why convert all the artwork to desktop wallpapers.. Well cheeky me replied " This way I get to swoon at my artwork" :D
Feel free to use it as your desktop wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)

Shree Ganeshaya Namah!

Shree Ganeshaya Namaha!
The Ganpati festival is here and I have been visiting the little bappa at the homes of various friends and family who have welcomed him into their homes.
Yesterday I went for one such visit. The gorgeous looking Ganesha was sitting so very comfortably on the specially designed throne. :)
A priest sat besides him to help all the visitors to perform the pooja rituals.
There was a little Kirtan session after that, everyone chanting Bhajans. And a small talk about Lord Ganesha followed that. One little angel sat there explaining the lord in simple terms.
He said " Ganesha as a whole sends out a message to us. Each part of the Lord represents something. Ganesha looks like the elephant. When you see an elephant what's the first thing you notice about him..The size..The walk.. So Royal, Unaffected, Fearless! Thats how we should be. The Big head represents knowledge. Ears big enough to cover the eyes, these represent analytical thinking. The message here is do not just judge things only by seeing them or hearing about them. Look listen and think. Then judge. The trunk represents sensitivity that one must have. Big stomach, full of joy, happiness, generosity and acceptance. There's a snake around his waist, that represents awareness. Joy and alertness need to go together, this is the art of living. Hands, One offering the the Modak(sweet) which represents happiness and one hand blessing, both together indicate the promise and assurance of happiness. The Rat, uses Logic which leads to happiness, the rat breaks up the big problems using Logic (Tark) which lead to the Modak(sweet) representing happiness"
He said a lot of other things however this is all I remember.
Well the picture above is my Ganapati Bappa! :)
Feel free to use it as your desktop wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)

business card

I designed a business card for a fashion stylist. With her permission I am putting it up on the blog. Her number and email id is changed though. :)

Patterns

One of my artistic characteristics- I see patterns in everything. In nature, in humans and in the events that happen in my life. :)
So.. Today I decided to do a little experiment.
I picked up my camera looked out of my bedroom window and clicked some pictures.
As you can see below, the first part of the image is the picture I decided to use for my experiment.
Second part of the image is a digitally edited version of picture.
You can see that the realistic leaves have now become more a pattern that could be used for some cloth or even a wallpaper(that goes on the wall and not on the desktop )
And the third part is an isolated motif that I identified in the picture.
With this done I wanted to develop the picture further in to a sort of illustration using the motif and the digitally edited picture.


And here it is the the final finished illustration. Hmm.. Me thinks pretty.. :)
Feel free to use it as your desktop wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)

Say No TO Drugs

Say no to drugs! And yes to life! :)
That's always been my mantra.
I did some social campaigning on this issue back in high school (made some posters to be put up around, they were copies of the Archie comic posters, you know the one where Archie with the whole gang holds this board saying " Say no to Drugs").
The Left side of the above picture is a hand painted poster that I had done in Art school (still a subject that I felt for, we had a list of subjects to choose from, I choose this one). And the one on the right is an digitally edited version of the same. Something I tried a while back (and the saga continues).
Me thinks the base line could be better though. Got any ideas? Write in!
Mean while Say no to drugs and stay high on Life! :)
Contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)

This is for me!!

Did I not already write about my butterfly fetish? We-elle I just can't get enough of them.
The quote in the picture says "I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky, then I woke up.Now I wonder.. Am I a girl who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a girl?"
I cannot take the credit for the quote, it was originally written by a philosopher named Zhuangzi. And the original quote is "I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?"
So I modified it to suit me. ;) And I used lotza of blue and curves. Me like that too.
Hmm if you like too then feel free to use it as your wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)

Meeow!

Meeeow!! I am not a great fan of pets, however I like Cats.
Me thinks they live the coolest life, totally pampered. :D
This little kitty belongs to a relative, and is not at all camera shy.
When I clicked the picture it looked right at me, posed and when I was done it looked away. So much attitude I tell ya! Don't you feel like it's saying " Yo there quit bothering me or else"
That's another thing that I like about cats, no matter how much attitude they throw on us humans we still go ahead and adopt them, feed them and pamper them.
Hmm and long long back we even worshiped them. * roll eyes*
And there is even a superstition that if a "Black cat" crosses your path at any point in your day, the rest of your day is doomed. So I could even add " Humans fear cats" to their list of virtues. ;)
Okay.. so after I clicked the picture I put in my two bits in Photoshop et voila!
Feel free to use it as your wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)

Collage..

*Collage*- a technique of composing a work of art by pasting on a single surface various materials not normally associated with one another, as newspaper clippings, parts of photographs, theater tickets, and fragments of an envelope, a work of art produced by this technique.
So simple isn't it. :)
I made a collage of all "B" grade Hindi movie posters some time back.
Was done for a event celebrating Hindi movies. This was the stage backdrop.
Why B grade movies you ask? Well beat's me.. that was the brief I got.. :P

A page from my book of memories..

Disclaimer:- No one was frowning when this passage was written.

There was a time when I saw everything as black and white. There were no Grey shades no in-betweens in my life, things were either right or wrong. Well the right things got a smile and wrong always got a frown from me. So I spent a lot of time frowning.
During this phase I used to be part of this social organization for young people who organized events and collected money to donate for a good cause. Hmm So I was doing the right thing.. right?
Ha.. we used have weekly meetings. All of us young. All in college. One would expect everyone to have some fun eh? Well everyone did .. except for me. I wondered why we meeting day after day to plan an event and not plan any. Such a waste of time. This was so wrong. [ :) ] So I always had a frown when I attended these meetings.
One day I was traveling back home with a couple of friends from the club. All chattering away. And there I sat in my little corner lost in my thought and a frown on my face, that's when one guy quite nervously came up to me and asked" May I ask you a question?"
I said "Yeah sure!" he then cleared his throat and asked "Why?"
I asked "Why, what?
He then asked " Why you such an angry young woman?"
Hee I can just say that if looks could kill mine would have killed him that day. :D
well here's a wallpaper I did with the devil as ma hero.. One from my angry young women days ;)
Feel free to use it as your wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)

Spirituality.

Spirituality, its a growing phenomenon. Its always been there. Just that everyone now wants to be spiritual. Everyone wants a bite of the pie. Not everyone knows how though.
With so many spiritual camps out there you really don't have to look so hard for finding out where you could learn how to be spiritual, how to get in touch with the light within and how to seek energy from the universe? They all teach the same thing. Only the styles differ.
The question is do we have to join one? Aren't there enough books on spirituality out there that could teach us?
Well the answer according to me is Yes and Yes.
I have some angels in my life who coax me into reading a book or two sometime. And though I really like what I read, I do not understand some of it. Or you could say my mind was not open enough to it.

Sometime back I took up the Art of living course. I don't have any earth shattering experiences (like some people who have done this course have experienced) to share however it did change a lot up things for me. All the knowledge that I earlier read in the books suddenly made more sense. And to add to it the course taught me some wonderful breathing exercises that can be really good stress busters (I can swear by this). And while we at it I must tell you that going to the class and sharing some experience with some different people helps too. And I got to meet some really great people :-)

The above picture is a wallpaper that I did inspired by spirituality.
Feel free to use it as your wallpaper, contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)

T-shirts..

Ever run out of ideas about
what to gift people.
Or maybe want to give
a special something for
a special someone( psst.. doesn't have to be diamonds).
We-elle what arty does is paints T-shirts n Gifts them.
Here is one of my painted Tee's.
This was a gift for a cousin.
And its the only tee whose
picture I have so a request to
everyone who has any
painted by me.. Can I have a picture
please.. It would be really kool if
you pose in it. :)


And the picture below is a T-shirt design that I had made for a contest.
I call it "Gurl on the dance floor".
Hmm it did'nt win. :'(
However me likes. ;P
p.s:- I recieved my first painted Tee from A very dear friend. That's what inspired me to paint T-shirts. So Gee thanks Hari. ;)

Doodles...

Everyone likes doodling. Artist or not, give them a pen and paper, thats all that is required..
I actually did some reading on doodles.
I draw eyes all the time (realistic, ornamental) and I wanted
to know why. So I purchased this book called
"Handwriting secrets explained" by Ruth Gardner. It has a complete chapter explaining various doodles- why, what where.. etc...
So I looked up eyes.. It says.." A doodler who repeatedly draws eyes is a lover of beauty and impressed by such"
Well I agree with that. Was a little disappointed though after reading it, all the mystery just disappeared. (I fancied myself to be a reincarnation of an artist from the Egyptian era. :D )
So here's a doodle I did. Very ornamental. A take off on Heena Art and I wanted to use it some where.

And I did! Its the background for my card which is a combination of a visiting card and a bookmark. You have to tear at the perforation to separate one from another. Use the book mark save the visiting card. :)

Flutterflies..

Butterflies.. One of my favorite motives. Me thinks when God was in a mood of having some creative fun, he brought out his paint brush and splashed some colour on nature's canvas and gave it life n voila what we got were pretty pretty butterflies.
This is one of my creations dedicated to these flutterflies.
Feel free to use it as your desktop wallpaper.
Please do not use it for commercial purposes. Contact me if you wish to use it for commercial purposes. :)
;)

A little bit of craft.

I just love to get my hands in a bit of paper and glue. And if its coloured paper then my day is made!
Some people know about this strange fetish of mine and kindly place craft orders with me. :)
This is a result of one such order. It's a baby book.
The theme is sunshine. ''Our little sunshine''

tickles ma phunny bone..

Well illustration is not my super skill however when I hear something that's amusing an image just pops into my head n refuses to go till I don't put it down on paper. This one is one of them.. :D
So here's the story..
A friend joined a company a while back. He swears by it.. It's the place to be.
However ever since he joined, he has been playing musical cabins there. (The place is undergoing some renovation.)
Every time he settles down in a cabin he's gotta give it up.
This little comic strip was inspired by an incident he told me.