The crazy caricaturist went AWOL again.
She was finally found this morning, sitting in a corner, drawing a cute little monster with her Micron 005 pen. Why? Because she was inspired by a monster-drawing artist on Reddit.
Yes, she’s trying to tell you that she’s checking out Reddit. Her handle is: u/spinningtopSRA
Anyway, here’s the ultra-cute monster. Isn’t he lovable?
Cute Monster – A Pen and Ink Drawing (6″x8″)
That’s all for today.
Hi friends from all around the world,
This post is to simply wish you all a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year 🙂
At the beginning of 2020, I thought that life was dark enough…and then it became the darkest. The pandemic and the lockdowns just added another coat of black to the inky deep darkness that had welled inside my heart… but I’ve got my fingers crossed for this new year.
This prayer goes out to all those who have been hit by life…in five days, another year begins. I’m going to make my new year resolutions this year – and I’ll post them here 🙂
More later…but still quite soon 🙂
Take care,
Lots of love from your caricaturist.
Dear friends and followers of this blog’o’mine,
I find it odd that when too much happens in life, too little gets written about it. It’s also odd that when you are being your strongest, you appear to be weak and damaged.
But then, on the blog of this caricaturist, oddities abound. What is it that she hasn’t yet pushed and pulled and distorted out of shape? You, me, actors, politicians, singers, animals, even words…
But not recently.
Recently, it’s been she who was tossed about and who got all dented out of shape.
Oddly, for no reason at all, I am reminded of this cover-artwork I did some years ago.
I remember doing this cover-art for The American Spectator magazine. The requirement was complex in its simplicity – the Radio family of the 1930s/40s.
Think of it for a moment…
The toys, the clothes, the hairdo of the lady, the radio, the wallpaper….
It was fun…mostly because of my client – who gave me as much rope as he could.
But what reminded me of this cover-art was the radio.
Remember the Radio? What a wonderful thing it was. I still remember how my mom would put it one every morning while she worked in the kitchen.
Those were the days.
Sigh!
Magazine Cover for the June-July 2013 issue of The American Spectator Magazine
That’s all for now 🙂
Now that title tells a lot about you and me…both.
We lefties, I believe, were left in a lurch by the right-swaying, right-loving, righty-world – and, possibly to spite us, they built everything in the world for the righties…
But hey, lefties!
Don’t let them pull us down. They do it because they’d give their right hand to be lefties, because you see, lefties are different. They don’t need to get tattoos or get pierced or even get a Lady Gaga hairdo to appear different. All they have to do is be themselves.
I am Unique…I’m different…I’m…
Hermaphrodite or Robotaphrohermit?!
So you know now, don’t you, my dear lefty. You are blessed. Let the cynics go to devil.
I have been toying with the idea of writing some tutorials on drawing and how to use lights, shadows and textures to change your two-dimensional flat sketches into well-formed realistic drawings that have volume and depth.
A drawing has form when it convey depth, or in other words, looks three-dimensional. When a drawing presents only the outlines, it has a shape – and while the shape might be identifiable and extremely well-drawn, it keeps the drawing from conveying realism.
The problem that self-taught artists face is that they are very good at capturing the shapes, but not so great at establishing forms. The reason might lie in the fact that the play of lights and shadows must be learned through careful observation and analysis (where the light-source is, how different textures reflect lights, and so on,) and the self-taught artist draws mainly for the love of creating his own representation of what he sees. He wants to do it quickly and then move on the next drawing, and then the next.
I’ve been through the same grind, and I am still learning, but as I once noted, we all are learners situated at different points on the continuum of learning, and each of us has something to contribute to the learning of others. This is why I wrote “Evolution of a Caricaturist-How to Draw Caricatures?“, which has been performing rather well despite its infra-niche audience, and this is why I have started writing this series.
It begins with the basics. Here’s a rough outline, which might change as the series develops.
The History of Art posts will continue…though erratically, because I must write and teach and to teach through virtual sessions, I must practice a software.
My dear blog readers,
While I come up with more caricatures, cartoons, portraits, drawings and other visual stuff to enchant you, why don’t you visit my instagram page and check out this writer-artist’s candid thoughts. (What? You thought that artists didn’t think?! Oh, we do…and we often think a lot more than you think we do!)
Please come visit me at: http://instagram.com/shafalianand
I’ll be back in a jiffy!
All artists, caricaturists, cartoonists, photo-shoppers, grasshoppers, nitpickers, felt-tippers are on Instagram. They post an average of three pictures a day. They garner likes in hundreds if not thousands. So you see, Instagram is like a galaxy that had a million solar systems that have a billion stars with their planets that together have a zillion satellites. (Read about a Billion Instagram users here.)
Insta-Confusion!
And I don’t disagree that one should be on Instagram, because that’s where a lot of my audience is.
The answer to the question, “Should I be on Instagram?” lies in another, more practical set of questions.
Question 1 a: Do I have the energy to make, say 3 posts a day?
Question 1 b: Can I actually make 3 posts a day – because that would mean making three caricatures/portraits? And if I can’t…will I be fretting over who is going to find my feed interesting?
Question 1 c: How much time will Instagram demand? 1 hr a day, 2 hrs. a day…
Question 1 d: How long will it be before the time-guzzling Instagram will begin to yield in terms of artistic satisfaction (measured these days in number of likes (or hearts as in IG)?
So you see, questions abound – and the answer is hidden under their fog.
That brings me to the next main question.
Question 2 a: As an artist, will it help my work reach more people? (And I mean as the “introverted, stay-in-your-corner-even-on-social-media artist.)
Question 2 b: As a person, will it help me feel better? (I don’t think there’s a lot of interaction happening on Instagram. It’s mostly quick comments and heart-ing.)
I also found some posts that preach the opposite, for instance “I Gave Up Instagram. Here’s why?” and I find myself nodding to a lot of what the post says. And then there’s “What is Instagram an Why should you be Using it?“
Pressure-cooked in the corona lock down, feelings made tender, absorbed the news that trickled in and simmered in its aftermath. The effect of the lock down on us, who could stay in the comfort of their homes, was different from that on the ones who couldn’t and found themselves on the roads. For many of the migrant workers of India, COVID-19 became a destroyer of hopes and dreams, and for some it also brought along the fear of starvation. The trickles of their pain froze in our isolated minds and turned into icicles that pierced through our hearts.
Drawing Details: Pen and Ink Art on 23.5″ x 16.5″ Derwent 300 gsm sheet – Artist: Shafali Anand
About the Great Indian Migration of 2020
On March 24th, 2020, India effected a nation-wide lockdown to control the spread of COVID 19 or the Novel Corona Virus. The lockdown stopped all travel (air/train/buses/autos) and required that people stay inside their houses. According to some estimates, India has about 140 Million migrant workers who travel outside their home-states and work in different industries including construction, garments, hospitality (mostly the unorganized sector – in dhabas and small restaurants,) and others. When India came to a halt on March 25th, these migrant workers faced the biggest dilemma of their lives – whether to stay or to return to their homes. Millions took to the roads and traveled hundreds if not thousands of kilometers. Some were asked to go back, some found ways to continue on their journey, others were stopped at the state-borders and given shelters. Men and women who had left their homes to earn and feed their families found themselves accepting giveaways – their self-esteem left in shreds – so when one man with dried tears in his eyes said, “I hope COVID gets me, because if it doesn’t, starvation surely will,” he spoke for the lockdown-hit Indian migrant worker.
Two days ago (on April 28th, 2020,) the Government promised to bring the migrants back to their home states. It’s not going to be an easy task. It would require the states to work together, but when it’s done, it would be remembered as an act of kindness by the affected migrant workers and also by those whose hearts bleed for them.
In the preface of “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” Oscar Wilde says,
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
I’ve been drawing for decades. My earliest memories of drawing are from Kashmir. I was five. We lived in Ramban on the bank of river Chenab. In mornings, my mother would give me a bath, comb my hair, hand me a slate and sit me out in the porch so that I could get some sun. I could see the violently white waters of Chenab beating against the rocks that glistened as they reflected the morning light behind the green front yard that stretched between me and the river. I’m sure if the house was any closer to Chenab than it was, my mother wouldn’t leave me on the porch alone.
I would sit on the steps, wait for my Mom to bring me my breakfast (a fried egg and a glass of milk,) and draw. I wasn’t supposed to draw though. I was supposed to “write,” but I drew everything. The alphabet, the numbers, the steps, the flower, even the egg. (My mom used to tell me that when she asked me what it was, I told her that it was an “O” inside another “O.”)
So that’s where my artistic journey began – in a land that’s today torn by politics, terrorism, and separatism. The land that in my hazy memories is still the most beautiful place that I’ve ever lived in.
But I began this post with an Oscar Wilde quote, and I shouldn’t stray too far from what I intended saying.
I’ve been painting. Not caricatures, nor portraits – but I’ve been painting my consciousness. I don’t classify my art, mostly because I can’t. How do you classify a vision, a half-dream, a sub-conscious feeling so strong that it takes me by my spine and shakes me up…?
I don’t know if an artist can express everything – but as an artist, I attempt to capture those fleeting moments that scream with emotions. The violence of these moments, like the violence of Chenab, froths white and blue and red – and to express it, I need not just lines but colors – and so I sketch fast…the madness of those first sketches is so complete that the painting competes with the sketches to express it all… if it does it at all.
The galleries have long waitlists and it would be at least an year before my paintings are exhibited – until them, I remain their captive creator… until then, I also remain your absentee blogger, whose mind and heart never see eye to eye – but then whose does?
Lady Gaga won an Oscar for “Shallow” from “A Star is Born,” a romantic music-drama. As a visual person, I react more to what I see than to what I hear, and so…
You can read the original Gaga Post here.
Lady Gaga and the Spider Colony!
Presenting the caricature/cartoon of President Donald Trump, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, and the said wall.
Never has a wall generated so much interest and speculation before, except perhaps the Berlin Wall – but the hullabaloo around the Berlin Wall was about bringing the wall down while in this case, it’s about raising it.
But this post isn’t about Trump’s wall. It’s about Donald Trump, who is perhaps the most spoofed President ever. He’s also the most adamant, most mis-political (for want of a better word,) most impulsive, most irksome President too.
He wanted a wall between Mexico and the United States, and he was clear on it from the very beginning. I remember the debates, and I remember that he always wanted the wall. Then the election results came out and he won. it was obvious that he’d want to build the wall. Unfortunately for him, the wall wasn’t going to be handed to him on a platter. The United States, is now a beast different from the one that it was when Trump was growing up.
According to this Wikipedia page – “As of July 2016, Mexican Americans made up 11.2% of the United States’ population, as 36.3 million U.S. residents identified as being of full or partial Mexican ancestry.”
Add to these those who are married to/are friends with Mexican Americans, and you have a huge bunch of non-Mexican Americans who can be called sympathizers. If Trump thought that he could nail the immigration problem shut by getting the Congress to nod like a trained pup – he was in for a surprise.
And yet, Trump being Trump, wouldn’t accept their disapproval as sheepishly as they’d like him to – and so the government rationing and now the National Emergency. He has played an open hand. While Nancy Pelosi and team were extrapolating the behavior of the past Presidents and expecting Trump to back off when they waved $1.4B under his nose – he went ahead and declared a National Emergency that would allow him to mobilize military funds to construct the wall.
Now the game is on. Sixteen states have filed a lawsuit against Trump. Pelosi says that there won’t be a wall. Trump says, there will be a wall. The country stands divided. I can’t imagine why there shouldn’t be a wall. I understand why the Mexicans, American-Mexicans, American-Mexican-Pros won’t want a wall; but I can’t understand why the government wouldn’t want to protect its borders? I understand sympathy and empathy, but then there are hundreds and thousands of others who “need” to be in the US, more than the illegal Mexicans.
I read the stories of battered wives and mothers who want their children to have better lives – but they don’t exist only in Mexico – they exist elsewhere too. And so do walls. The concept behind countries having borders is quite the same as that of having walls around our houses. Guests and family members and even those who we feel charitable toward – they all enter through the gate. It good to be magnanimous and philanthropic but would you feel similarly for someone who breaks into your house? The law applies to our actions, not to our intentions and reasons. But then each country has to figure out what they want to do (or not) on their own, and quite like families each country too must go through the cycle of wealth and poverty – khattu, nikhattu, udharichand, bechumal. The US is now experiencing the udharichand (borrowing against its assets) phase, if you please, and doing paropkar (philanthropy) on udhari (borrowings) isn’t a sign of wisdom.
Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, ex-Prime Minister of India, Padma Vibhushan and Bharat Ratna awardee, and a statesman par-excellence, one who was regarded across party-lines, is no more.
Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee – Ex Prime Minister of India (1924-2018)
I write this post with a heavy heart, because with I’ve always been an admirer of Shri Vajpayee, the same as my parents and my husband.
I created this portrait of Mr. Vajpayee in 1998 – twenty years ago, and since then it has always graced the wall of either my living room or my office. It’s a reminder that a poet, an intellectual, and a man with integrity can be a respected statesman and rise to become the Prime Minister of India.
Today, we haven’t just lost a great man, we’ve also lost a symbol of clean politics, a confluence of art, intellect, and statesmanship, and possibly the last of Indian political giants.
May his soul rest in peace.
A couple of days ago, I sketched this caricature portrait of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House Press Secretary to President Donald Trump.
This is a quick ballpoint pen sketch (I was driven to tint it a bit after scanning,) which happened between two bouts of writing madness.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the daughter of Mike Huckabee, who had also run for President in the last elections. I had done a full-page illustration of Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee for the Talk Business & Politics magazine (one that I like a lot,) and you can view it here 🙂
The controversy that’s been raging in India for a whole month lit a fire under me and made me find this portrait of Queen Padmini or Padmavati from my archives.
The lore tells us of a beautiful Srilankan princess who crossed the Indian ocean to be with her husband and beloved Ratansen, the king of Chittor.
Recently, a Bollywood period-drama based on the life of Queen Padmavati found itself in choppy waters, presumably for tinkering with history. The movie, say those who claim that their sentiments were hurt, shows the queen dancing. A queen who tread such high moral ground that she not just immolated herself but led all other women of Chittor into the funeral pyre to ensure they died with their dignity intact, couldn’t stoop so low as to dance. They are also of the opinion that the movie shows some romantic moments between that creepy invader Khilji and Queen Padmavati, which the producers say, actually show Khilji fantasizing about the queen.
There are too many moot points.
I’m sure the list is longer than my tired brain can produce.
A Portrait from the Mists of Time – Queen Padmini of Chittor (Size: 18″ x 22″, Medium: Graphite Relief Work, Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved.
Actually, upon reading the stories, I do believe that they are more fantastical than historical. (A question that keeps perplexing me is what happened to the children of the women who immolated themselves? There’s no mention of children anywhere. In the days of the yore, I’m sure that in the absence of any birth-control measures, children were aplenty. Silly question, I know. Yet, I’d like to know how they were whisked away from a fort that lay under siege for so long that people had begun to starve.)
Anyway, the long and short of the Padmavati story is that eventually the dust would settle. The movie-makers will find a way not only to salvage their 300 Cr. investment but also to make it bear fruit. It’s only a matter of time.
In the meantime, lose yourself in the lore of Padmini.
I am what I think, and because art is an artist’s expression, my art too would have a bit of me in it. If it has then by logical extension, my art is my thoughts. When my thoughts stretch beyond the realm of cognitive thinking and spill over its boundaries, they become my feelings and emotions, so my art should also be my feelings and emotions. This is why my art would be the outcome of my past interactions with the world, for they shaped my thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Some of these are buried in my subconscious, but most live in a twilight zone that exists between my conscious clarity and my sub-conscious nebulosity.
In my paintings, I sometimes return to caricatures. Mostly because the watered down version of reality that we often deal with in our lives, doesn’t let us experience life completely. Evil exists, and often its darker than black. Goodness too exists and sometimes it brighter than white. We usually choose to experience life in moderate shades of gray.
A boy we’ve known from childhood can be a little wayward, but he cannot be the rapist who pulled out the entrails of a girl he violated. A bow-legged nephew who is always so charming in his manners, cannot be a pedophile who molests a woman’s daughter. An eighty year old frail woman couldn’t have gotten her sons beaten black and blue by her husband because she liked seeing her husband beat his sons whom she had hated bearing.
We choose not the believe the darkest grays and the deepest blacks, because believing would lead us to question everything around us, and our virtual safety bubble that allows us to sleep peacefully at nights, would vanish.
We also raise eyebrows when a billionaire decides to spend his billions in research and development that doesn’t turn his billions into trillions but helps the masses that hang from the cliff of their existence by their fingernails. We don’t trust his good intentions. We find ourselves at a loss of words when a client doesn’t try to bargain our skin off our backs.
We see the hand of God at work when anyone goes out of his or her way to help, because such bright and light grays and such brilliant whites appear impossible in our imperfect human world.
I think that as an artist I attempt to capture these two ends of the human spectrum, for what lies in the middle is a diluted version of life. I believe artists must think and feel, and then reach out to pull the two ends into their work.
Last week, I was down with viral fever. The whole week, all hundred and sixty-eight hours of it, went up in a puff. Then, yesterday, I happened to meet an artist and my conversation with him, fueled up my thought-process.
All these years, I had kept a lid on my need to paint my soul and its connection to the world. I had done everything that wouldn’t let me feel the pain of seeing my own vulnerabilities. I had boarded shut the window that opened into my soul. The connection of my soul with the world is, as you might surmise, full of knots and tangles. It is going to perhaps be the most difficult thing to paint. But I must paint it so that I can see it as much as others can – for only then will I truly understand it.
Recently, since I’ve begun to connect with contemporary artists, I’ve been learning things that I hadn’t known all this while. That illustration, cartooning, and caricature-drawing don’t qualify as art, and that an artist’s past as an illustrator or a cartoonist, in some way makes the artist’s art less palatable.
Oddly, I cannot nod a blind yes to it, for in my books an artist and his art is the sum-total of the artist’s past – and whatever colors that artist chooses to put on the canvas are made from his sweat and blood, and those countless hours that he spent perfecting his skill. I believe and I seriously do, that we cannot have artists popping out of pre-approved molds.
Yesterday, I stood in a gallery looking at works that didn’t speak to me. They made me feel dead inside. I’m sure the artist felt otherwise. She, in fact had reasons for every little thing she had put into her works, and she was animatedly describing them to her audience. She spoke of her experiences and how it made her art what it was. The art was her expression, but the world that it connected to, wasn’t mine.
I am beginning to think that one of the important characteristics of art is the soul-connection. It should be born from an artist’s soul and then it should embrace the viewer’s. Without this connection, art would never find its patrons, and without patrons, the artist’s work will never be seen.
Artists are classified. Period.
Ironically, periods are what classify artists, as do schools and styles. And if you apply paint on canvas, you’ll automatically be classified as a kind of artist, or your art shall be called a mix of styles.
In past several days, I have had the opportunity of interacting with an amazing young woman. I draw and paint what I want, and having never set foot in an art school until recently, I’ve been both positively and negatively blessed. Positively because I still think the way I want to and I continue to question what I don’t understand, and negatively because the techniques of art are difficult to come by.
This young person is a vibrant combination of intellect and creativity, and her thoughts on art are mature beyond her years. My learning from her has led me reflect upon what My illustrations done for the purpose of exemplifying articles and news, and my caricature renditions of people for the purpose of satire and/or humor notwithstanding, I draw and paint:
My young friend tells me that the artist within me may have surrealistic leanings. I do love Dali’s surrealist renderings, but I’m not sure if I would eventually paint like that. Dreams are different from thoughts – thoughts are anchored in logic; dreams break those anchors, allowing the thoughts to fly aimlessly, meeting other thoughts that they were never supposed to meet, and populating a landscape to give birth to surrealism. The elements of surprise, the realistic treatment of people, animals, and objects – they were the hallmarks of Dali’s paintings.
Oh, now that I’m reminded of Salvador Dali, I must show you the caricature that I did of him a few years ago. A simple pencil rendering, nothing much – but one day, I shall paint him the way he would’ve painted himself, surrealistically.
My take on Dali’s work has always been of wondrous respect.
Right now, I stand on a spiritual event horizon. If I cross over, I may not return; if I don’t, I won’t know what lies on the other side. But from the windows of time that rush past me at lightening speed, I’ve been able to catch a few glimpses and those glimpses must be translated into sketches…those sketches might get me my visa to the other side. I just hope that it’s a tourist visa and that it comes with a free return ticket.
“Father’s Eyes” Pen & Ink Art Dimensions: 9″x 12″
(Reposted from 2014.)
When she was pretty and lissome, and spring followed her everywhere,
when she was carefree and life was fun, when she smiled at everyone,
when her hair was thick and lustrous, when her skin glowed unblemished…
but that was, when she was young.
Those days are now gone.
Her bones now squeak a little more each day, and she wakes up with a new wrinkle every morning.
Her hair has turned gray, they are grayer than the smog that hangs low outside her apartment window.
Her nose gets bigger, her ear lobes dip lower, and her lips are now thinner than the heels that she wore…
when she was young.
Those days are now gone.
Her breasts that were once her pride, now sit upon her stomach, hidden under her loose floral robes of silk.
The dull, dead strands of her hair, are dyed a color they never were; ashamed of being seen, they seek shelter behind her tiara.
Her chins that roll upon one another, find refuge behind her many necklaces; her swollen feet are now thicker than the waist she had…
when she was young.
But those days are now gone.
Title: “She” (Pen and Ink Drawing – Size: 5″ x 8″ Approximately.)
You must’ve noticed that I’m terrible at getting words to rhyme. I apologize for it…but if I don’t try, I’ll never get there.
The caricature was inspired by a lady I saw at the mall. She must’ve been very pretty once, but she was clearly not able to cope with aging. She was unhappy, perpetually complaining, even bitter, but she was laden with jewelry. I’m not a gemology expert, but I could see four solitaires, a couple of rubies, one emerald, and a lot of dazzle around her neck. The tiara, I confess, is my addition.
India stands proud and tall today. The Indian Army went across the LOC early this morning, targeted 7 terror launch pads, eliminated about 38 terrorists and 9 Pakistani army men who were defending the terrorists. Our soldiers returned safe – no casualties. They avenged the Uri deaths. They got an opportunity to do so only because there was a will on the part of our government. Instead of throwing empty words on our faces while keeping the hands of our defense-forces tied, unlike the previous government, this government did something tangible, and they did it the right way.
There’s a limit to be patient with ignorance and vileness; and with the Uri attacks, that limit was breached. We cannot continue to play with those who hobnob with the ones intent on killing us – India was forced to act to contain the terrorist attacks that were carried out from across the border, under the aegis of Pakistan.
Today I was reminded of the day two years ago when I voted for change, and when I rejoiced with a renewed hope because after such a long time, we would have an Indian in the driving seat.
I want to thank our armed forces for keeping our borders secure, and PM Modi and team for taking decisions that uphold the pride and honor of India. For once, I am glad to have voted.
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