Some Paintings

that no one asked for (ie, they were for fun)

Before I show you paintings I want to tell you about something cool I’m raising money for! Many of you Bombay folks are familiar with Bombay Underground/Fluxus Chapel/Dharavi artroom (ALL run by reluctant superhero Himanshu and artist Aqui Thami who also runs Sister Library.). For everyone else: Himanshu runs some of Bombay’s only dedicated art/zine spaces of this kind. In their own words:

Dharavi Art Room: “The absence of positive educational and extracurricular activities for children in marginalized communities leads to lack of safe spaces and resources with which to explore personal and neighbourhood issues through artistic mediums. This narrows exposure and communication between groups in society, perpetuating negative stereotypes and constraining opportunities to shape one’s life

vision : an inclusive society where the least powerful members use art as a medium of engagement to learn, create and share and take initiative in transforming their own lives”

Fluxus Chapel is a versatile art space that houses zines from makers worldwide. You can read about the spaces at the link below + a breakdown of how they will use costs. The fundraiser is in rupees so for those of you donating in dollars, even a small amount makes a difference. They are raising money to keep their spaces running for 2024-2025.

Okay, now some art:

Study of a Bierstadt painting

Portrait of an ungrateful boyfriend who has drawn me a grand total of 2 times in his whole life. And one of those was really a portrait of Andy Serkis’s Gollum if we’re being fair (my celebrity doppleganger)

My agency has monthly challenges that I haven’t previously had time to participate in. However, the Fitting Indian ball is in my editor/AD’s court and my other picture book projects haven’t started up properly yet so I could get in on the June/July prompt! This time around, the challenge was to illustrate book covers based on prompts from the authors that the agency represents. I don’t know why this has excited me so much but it has and I’ve got 3-4 other sketches in the works from other prompts! This one is:

a middle-grade magical realism story about Lora, a budding environmental activist who must convince Serafina, a feisty old forest-guardian fairy that there is still hope for the future and her “mother tree” is worth saving.

My in-house designer slapped some type on it this morning.

A super super wonky (this version is with some straightening on procreate) painting of a deli near my house. People who do plein air paintings of buildings: how on earth do you deal with needing to have acceptably straight lines on buildings????) I caught this crazy lush lighting situation a few days ago just before a lovely summer thunderstorm.

(Have these paintings made it on substack yet?)

In other news, my family and I are going to watch the olympics in a couple of weeks! I am excited for one reason only. I’ve been enjoying painting sports (a subject I know nothing about so these are abstract paintings as far as I’m concerned.) and have just been informed that the track for the Athletics events is PURPLE.

I am prepared. ^