Kannagi - Tamil: கண்ணகி. For the Cheltenham Competition.

From the South Indian 1^st century AD epic, Silapathikaram.

A woman Kannagi marries Kovalan who falls for a courtesan and lavishes all his wealth on her and she leaves him. He goes back to Kannagi who takes him back and they go to the city of Madurai with their only assets, a pair of anklets filled with diamonds to earn back a living. The Queen’s anklets (filled with pearls) had just been stolen and they wrongly behead Kovalan who tries to sell his wife’s anklets. In rage, Kannagi goes to the king’s court and proves her husband’s innocence by breaking her remaining anklet. The king and queen die of shame but Kannagi who’s fury could still not be quenched, rips her breast out and curses the city, burning it down.

Adultery, injustice and vengeance are still enemies of mankind bringing destruction and war. 

Those were the initial experiments. I decided against flat application and did the next in photo ink and it worked well.

First children's book story I wrote and illustrated.

I did my research, read as many children's books as I could get my hands on. But it was hard to write the random ideas that float in my head. So , I decided on a bedtime story. And made added a lot of blue! 

Sneak-Peek into my pocket sketchbook

What do drawings mean to me? I really don't know. The activity absorbs me. I forget everything else in a way that I don't think happens with any other activity.

The process of drawing is, before all else, the process of putting the visual intelligence into action, the very mechanics of visual thought. Unlike painting and sculpture it is the process by which the artist makes clear to himself, and not to the spectator, what he is doing. It is a soliloquy before it becomes communication. (Michael Ayerton)