Tag Archives: handdrawn

Polka-dotted brolly and a wiseass tote bag

I am forever in awe of the things I see when I am out sketching.

They are not momentous, life altering events or rare, one of a kind objects. In fact, they couldn’t be more humdrum and yet I am hooked in the deepest and most profound way. Every minute spent observing life and documenting it in my sketchbook feels more honest, real, fulfilling and joyful than any other job I have held and drawn paycheques from. And I often ask myself why that is?

And each time I find myself thumbing through my drawings in search for answers.

These sketches are from my latest sketchbook. All 24 pages filled with drawings of people in different cafes and eateries in Seoul. The sketchbook starts roughly at the time when the city was emerging from the throes of winter. The sun felt warm on our faces, the breeze wasn’t bone chilling and there were leaves on brown spindly branches. We were reaching for lighter coats and winter boots were being stowed away.

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When I saw this girl in my first drawing, wearing a baby pink flowy shirt with her sweater casually thrown over her shoulders, drinking a matching pink drink I felt spring tiptoeing into our lives. And it was. The next couple of weeks were spent hiking, reading books in al fresco cafes and chasing cherry blossoms around Seoul.

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Fresh, new, colourful could describe everything – the weather, our clothes, food (strawberries were in) as well as our soaring moods! The two women in the drawing above wearing whacky, bright coloured jackets epitomized the ‘if you’ve got it, flaunt it’ nature of the season.

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See the guy in the red glasses enjoying his meal in the drawing below? I noticed him from the end of the room and eventually drew him because in a world of distractions, it was interesting to see someone so deeply engaged in just the one thing. He used his hands to pick up the food, admired it and then put it in his mouth very gently. With eyes closed he relished each bite as if to taste the ingredients and appreciate the workings of the recipe. To me, it looked like the food was nourishing his soul as much as his body.

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After the hubbub of Spring, it rained incessantly for days. The skies were grey and everything felt wet, cold and damp. I went out for a cup of hot tea to shake off the gloom and what do I find in the cafe? The brightest polka dotted umbrella resting against a chair occupied by a guy wearing a cap so red that it could stop the traffic. He had ripped jeans on and a t-shirt with a plunging neckline that revealed a tattoo very similar to a paramecium I had once drawn in my Biology notebook.

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This drawing above is also my favourite in this series because here I was looking sloppy, moping around because the sun wasn’t out and my laundry wouldn’t dry whereas this guy was dressed fashionably enough to walk the ramp, rains be damned. And in veritable defiance he was carrying the most happy looking umbrella that screamed ‘in your face, crappy weather’ in bold letters. If something is unacceptable, there can be really creative ways to push back! That evening not only did I feel avenged, I returned home with a better attitude.

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The next drawing is of a bunch of elderlies licking on pink ice-creams. What you don’t see in the picture is how excited they were to see each other when they met at the cafe and how impatient they were for their treats to arrive after placing the order! I drew their droopy posture and wrinkled faces, but what I couldn’t capture and only witnessed was their child-like abandon at rejoicing something so basic and timeless – friendship and $1 ice-creams on sticks.

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My neighbourhood in Gangnam is a shopping mecca, the reason why cafes in this locality receive a lot of customers with shopping bags in tow. Sometimes to entertain myself when I’m drawing them I try to guess the contents of the shopping bags based on the label. It’s a fun game!

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And occasionally educational because that’s how I came to know about ‘8 Seconds’ (see the drawing above) which is Samsung’s high street brand. Did you know Samsung, the South Korean multinational conglomerate that most of us associate with phones and electronics has an established presence in the fashion industry? In fact Samsung launched ‘8 Seconds’ to compete with the growing local presence of global fast fashion retailers like Zara, H&M and Uniqlo.

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On one such day while playing the scintillating game of ‘guess what’s in the bag’ as if to challenge my speculative prowess walked in a girl with a canary yellow tote bag that said, “How to be Popular”. See the drawing above. After finishing her food and drink I watched her walk out of the cafe with the bag held tightly under her arm.

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She didn’t leave a clue about the bag’s contents. But she left me the story – of a wise-ass tote bag sighting in Gangnam! And that I realized is what keeps me hooked and makes me come back for more. The story if you pare it down is an interesting visual which I capture in a sketch and my response to that visual stimulation which I narrate to you in words. And it’s addictive because collecting stories like these on a daily basis makes me feel like I am participating in my own life.

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Like I’m in the field, playing the game and not cheering from the sidelines. Like every day could have something to wonder about.

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Isn’t that something? This sketch above on the last page of this sketchbook is of a woman I saw the other day, probably a teacher marking an answer sheet while talking on the phone. Judging from the red marks it didn’t look good for the student.

Spring in Seoul

Flash Card Illustrations: How I did it and what I learnt

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I rarely talk about the process behind a finished illustration but this particular project I recently worked on also turned out to be one of the most interesting ones! And besides the fun element, a given on a job like this, I learnt some valuable lessons along the way which in the hope that they prove helpful to someone, I am eager to share.

The project was called EREY, an up and coming language learning platform for English speakers who wish to learn ‘Somali’, the language of Somalia, an East African nation located in the Horn of Africa. To make learning fun and interactive, Erey makes use of flashcards, each having a Somali word, a pictorial representation of that word and its English translation printed on it.

My task was to create illustrations for five ‘Somali’ words and

the challenge was to create images that would best represent the country and its local flavours and embrace the client’s vision at the same time.

Here’s how I went about it.

Illustration for Bakhaarka (the store)

From my research I figured that stores in Somalia are essentially these one storey brick buildings with strikingly bright coloured facades that sometimes have hand painted images of the items sold in the store.

Forever the food lover I settled for a tan coloured fast food store for my illustration. The picture of a camel on the facade indicates availability of roasted camel meat in the store. The shop signage ‘Moos iyo Baasto’ translates as ‘Spaghetti and Banana’ which is also Somali comfort food.

What I learnt while working on this was how attention to details gives your work that extra edge. By studying tons of local Somali stores on the Internet, I was able to incorporate relevant architectural elements to my store illustration such as the wooden door, metal shade roof, the decorative air vents and the steps leading to the store with the ‘welcome’ sign, all of which increased the credibility of the final image.

Illustration for Dugsi (the school)

For Dugsi I wanted to show the interior of a classroom. Acting on one of the client briefs I drew some of the female pupils with head scarves and some without (reminiscent of the pre civil war and less conservative days). The co-ordinates on the black board are of Somalia itself and the motivational quote at the back of the classroom ‘Qoriga Dhig, Qalinka Qaad‘ translates as ‘Drop the gun, pick up the pen’.

What I learnt here was to make an effort in understanding the client’s vision for the illustration, which in this case was a stronger representation of women.

I wove that thought into my illustration by drawing a female teacher at the blackboard, taking the lead in teaching the class. I drew her in the foreground to draw focus and in a slightly larger size compared to the male teacher, who is seen helping a student in the background.

Illustration for Caanaha (the milk)

By illustrating Canaaha as such, I wanted to draw attention to Camel milk, a staple food of Somali pastoral communities and also to the traditional hand woven vessels they use to carry and store that milk.

I drew a traditional Somali rug underneath to bring the image together and add some colour.

The challenge while making this illustration was providing suitable context to the image of ‘milk’ which seemed tricky because milk looks exactly the same across the world! I could get my illustration to work by incorporating elements of local culture and lifestyle. Creative prop choices can make your image relevant is what I learnt here.

Illustration for Bilaha Sannadka (months of the year)

I had a few good ideas for this one but was also curious to know what kind of images others had when they heard this phrase. So I asked around.

And concluded that somebody’s mental picture of a personal planner one-upped mine of a date calendar. I provided context by writing the names of the months in Somali and personalised the planner by adding important events like birthdays of Aabe (dad) and Hooyo (mom). It’s interesting how the planner offers a peek into the person’s life and personality! Our planner owner does not want to miss cheering for Somalia at the Bandy World Championship in January and has plans to join a Somali Book Club later in the year.

What I learnt here was sometimes it’s worthwhile to look outside of your head for ideas and inspiration.

Illustration for Buug (book)

The brief for Buug was to create several shelves of books. I could draw a library or a bookcase but instead chose to illustrate my secret fantasy which as a book lover and passionate reader has always been to spend hours in a Victorian study, curled up in a plush armchair reading in the warm glow of a vintage lamp that overlooks a polished dark wood table and shelves upon shelves of gleaming books.

The table has a half read book by a popular Somali author and a loose sheet containing a list of Somali authors whose books the owner of the study plans to read.

Looking out for fresh ideas is worthwhile but what I learnt here is looking in and tapping into personal interests and passions for ideas is also invaluable.

Here’s how the final product looks with the illustration – Somali_Words_bakhaarka

You can see the rest of the flashcards in this slideshow-

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EREY is active on both Facebook and Instagram if you’d like to give learning Somali a go!

Happy New year (of the dog)

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I didn’t really have a reason to draw cute dogs.

But when the Internet has fed you pictures of dog-themed street lightings, of parties, and events, of wine bottles with dogs on their labels and dog shaped ornaments, handbags, and chocolates for over a month all in the spirit of ushering in the Lunar Year of the Dog, you reach a point when there’s nothing much to do except regurgitate all that information.

Only slightly differently in my case and with my own creative spin!

Here’s 6 hand drawn portraits of random dogs, fresh from my sketchbook –

Dog 6

Dog 4

Dog 5

dog 3

dog 2

dog 1

Three seasons, one sketchbook

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When I finished my latest sketchbook, it struck me how this particular set of drawings reflect changing seasons.

The initial pages were drawn when the weather was still warm but not hot. People were romping about in shorts and light coloured tops and ordering cold citron tea, but Bingsu was on its way out from the menu and dainty looking Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving)-themed goodies were filling up the shelves.

Mid-sketchbook you see traces of fall – sketches of people facing or with their back against cafe windows that frame trees ablaze with the most brilliant shades of yellow and red. Temperatures drop but those in denial keep their hemlines low. The rest of us take refuge beneath light coats and wrap scarves around our necks. Hot chocolate drink starts to look tempting but is definitely a good fortnight or even a month away from being the undisputed object of desire.

In the last couple of pages, winter arrives, but in phases. It starts innocently when a few woollen hats pop up on people’s heads here and there. Then with the first snowfall, out comes the cable knit sweaters, duffle coats and hooded parkas and finally on a day like today when it is -12 degrees outside I see people milling about in overcoats, oversized down jackets with faux fur trims, striped woollen mufflers, fitted cashmere blazers and distressed leather boots. And this is only the outermost layer.

Some cafes have their heating so high that it prompts people to peel off their winter clothing layer upon layer as soon as they get seated until everyone has a small pile next to them or on the chair while others have the temperature setting so low that it makes sense to have everything on your body, even the backpack. See the last sketch.

A lot on the mind and on the table

Five friends and a conspicuous bag charm. Seen at Alver Cafe, Seoul

Office meeting in progress. Seen at Angel-in-us cafe, Seoul.

(L) I once saw the most dedicated, zesty, sincere and patient tutor trying to teach the most distracted student who kept texting the entire time.

Sipping the last dregs of Summer. Seen at Paris Baguette cafe.

Seen at Paris Baguette Cafe, Seoul

Fall colours outside the windows of Gontran Cherrier cafe, Seoul.

(L) Fall colours vs furrowed eyebrows (R) This guy’s winter jacket looked like a satin and velour Tudor robe fit for Henry VIII’s court. Seen at cafe TerraRosa, Seoul

Together yet distant. I drew this couple from the most coveted seat in Alver cafe, which is against a beautiful vertical garden. You can see some of it behind the lady.

Interesting woollen hats seen at Paris Baguette cafe

Winter brings out the puffy down jackets.

(L) This lady bore an uncanny resemblance to the actor who played Mrs. Kim in Gilmore Girls! She had the same hairstyle, identical gait and spoke in similar staccato sentences.

Keeping the backpack on for extra warmth.

Furrowed eyebrows vs Fall colours

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I saw this guy at a cafe yesterday in the CBD. Dark coloured tailored suit, slicked back hair, serious looking glasses and still like a statue with his nose buried in a book on finance and investing. And just outside the cafe separated by glass windows were trees in the deepest shade of red and in the brightest shade of yellow, branches swinging in the breeze and leaves flying around like confetti.

It was such an interesting contrast and I was glad I had my sketchbook to document that moment!

Tera Rosa sketch

The Back alleys of Insadong

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are becoming a favourite place of mine to not just sketch but to hang out as well.

What draws me to these narrow and winding cobbled streets is the errant undisciplined, out of control commingling of the old and new that you see every step of the way.

My take on Insadong 14-gil, Seoul

From my corner on Insadong 14-gil, I see two conspicuous and ugly looking air-conditioning ducts slapped across the face of a hanok (traditional Korean house) which I assume like all hanok houses had once looked regal and in tune with its centuries old surroundings.

The rest of the house’s facade is mired in electricity cables, wires, switchboards, gas pipes, drain pipes and commercial signages which cumulatively seem to be swallowing the house bit by bit. Its original tiled roof and sturdy wooden beams are still intact but I doubt their fate. A satellite dish pokes its head from the roof of a jerry-rigged laundry room upstairs, another add on, exhibiting a colourful range of towels and lingerie. Outside, a trashcan stands guard like a dutiful sentry.

Back alleys of Insadong, Seoul

It is not pretty in the conventional sense of the word but the bare-all, guileless stark honesty of it all is what’s endearing to me. It’s sort of like an in-between place. It’s neither derelict or in squalor without electricity or cable nor is it a picture perfect painstakingly refurbished ‘heritage district’ where everything is made to look and feel exactly how it was 500 years ago.

In the Insadong back alleys, you get what you see and you see everything, hear all and bump into everyone. Nothing is staged.

Insadong 14-gil sketched using dippen and ink

For the short while I was there, sketching this view I tapped my foot to a peppy Korean song someone was singing in the shower, got soaked with the plants someone was watering next to me and stopped the traffic when the trash collector parked his cart by me to a take long look at my drawing.

All in a day’s work!

Same same but different

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While working on this particular set of drawings sitting at cafes, eateries and subways around Seoul, it dawned on me, especially after having moved countries recently, how different we are as humans irrespective of our similarities and how similar we are irrespective of our differences!

When we first moved to Seoul (and in the subsequent months) I was fascinated by the large groups of elderly people kitted out with serious hiking gear riding the subways on weekends, by the fearless ‘Ajummas‘ (as middle-aged Korean ladies are respectfully called) in identical solid perms, sun-visors and windbreakers, by the mini portable fans everybody carried in their hands all summer and the copious amounts of Bingsu (a lip-smacking Korean dessert) they consumed; or how most women would pull out a mirror from their bags and freshen up their make up every once in a while, by the raging red lipsticks and round framed Harry Potter glasses worn en masse and how clothing and preferences changed with season.

On the other hand these days there’s hardly anything novel about a couple sitting together, in silence, glued to their phones; or someone taking a picture of their food first before starting to eat! Don’t we all have that one friend who can’t stop talking, so much so that we mentally check out after a while, maybe doze off in the chair even? Look out for that person in this collection.

And a lady with a fetish for polka dots.

And two ‘rubik’s cube’ lovers.

Guy with trekking poles and hiking boots, seen on the subway

My husband on a late night conference call becomes an easy target.

Ajumma on the left in sun visors and lurid pink jacket, drinking coffee

(L) Sketched this lady on a hot summer day. She was wearing white, and carrying a matching white purse (R) Two ladies eating mango Bingsu. This was common sight all summer

(R)From her polka dotted top, hand fan, umbrella and backpack, it was safe to assume that she really liked ……

(R) This guy in green GAP t-shirt was a one man show. He seized every conversation and talked so much that one of his mates dozed off!

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(R) A lot of thought and effort goes into appearance and I see most Seoulites dressed really nicely when out which means I feel underdressed half the time.

(L) From my table, it looked like a “It’s not you, it’s me” kind of conversation. Don’t miss the bright red lipstick on this woman, rather on every woman in these drawings.

(R) Mini portable fan= most seen summer accessory in Seoul. (164,000 of these were sold in South Korea this year!)

(R) Couple that plays rubik’s cube together stays together! These two were relentless in a ‘coffee be damned, let’s solve this thing’ kind of way.

(L) Make-upping should be a word here.

I often see business meetings being conducted in cafes. Here’s one in session. Attendees – 3 feisty women and one man who squirmed in his chair every time the discussion heated up.

The two of us

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Canada sketchbook 1st page

Yes!

I made this illustration on the first page of my Moleskine Japanese album, a 48 page concertina sketchbook I am taking with me on this trip.

This is just a warm up drawing before the real travel sketching begins which would be quick and messy, sometimes drawn in comfy chairs inside nice cafes with a fascinating scene unfolding outside the window or sitting on hard ground in a really uncomfortable position under the midday sun or in a breeze so strong that you have to use binder clips to secure the pages so they don’t fly away and with people gathered around and watching every stroke you make.

In short my travel sketches are nothing like this illo which I patiently created in the comfort of my studio! But that doesn’t detract from the fact that I love travel sketching.

I love its ‘unfinished’ nature and its immediacy. I love that I am able to pin down a moment, a scene, a season, a dialogue, a trend or say an emotion I witnessed on paper using hasty lines and scribbles.

But what I love most is cracking open my travel journal long after the trip is over.

Sure you remember the rice paper rolls and coffee you had for lunch at Melbourne’s Federation Square three Christmases back because you drew them but the joy of remembering how warm the sun felt on your face is unparalleled and the scores of seagulls hopping around begging for food and that the staff at Starbucks who got your name right the first time. It all comes back!

So here I go again for two weeks touring Vancouver, the Canadian Rockies, Quebec City, Montreal and Toronto and I am planning to sketch as much as I can and when I am back I hope to eventually share the drawings here on the blog.

By the way, you couldn’t tell that we love playing Scrabble, could you?

Insadong’s charm

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lies in its alleys as I found out on one of my sketching trips.

I had been waiting to go out sketching for a while but I’m slowly realizing in my first year in Seoul that to wait for the perfect day in the months of July and August is to wait forever. After two weeks of oppressive heat it has been raining incessantly.

Needless to say that I arrived at Insadong on a rainy afternoon and after securing a map with tons of information about the area from the tourist office (out of exit 6 of Anguk Station), I decided to do away with it. The rain was turning it into pulp.

Lying straight ahead was the 700 meters long and 12 meters wide pedestrian (on weekends) street called Insadong Gil, stretching from Anguk-dong to Jogno 2-ga. It has a 7 meters tall Korean calligraphy brush sculpture at the beginning which I had already seen on my earlier visit.

Ajumma standing in front of her hanok and the neighbourhood delivery guy passing by

I was also done browsing through the street’s innumerable souvenir shops, folk handicraft stores, art galleries, Korean paper shops, had tipped my hat to world’s only Starbucks with its signage written in local language, visited a traditional tea house and checked out the quirky Ssamziegil mall.

As per the guidebooks I could have checked Insadong off my list of places to see. What more was there?

A curiosity laden turn away from the main commercial street into the atmospheric side alleys revealed the answer.

What I saw and then sketched seemed like an alternate Insadong, one I didn’t know existed – a watered-down version of the deeply cultural neighbourhood of 1930s selling antiques, books and art, way before its colonisation by coffee chains and cosmetic shops, before Korean war even.

Insadong 16-gil

First thing that hits you when you make this unplanned diversion is how quiet and empty the alleys are, a welcome respite from the neurotic busyness of the main strip. Barring a monk, a school girl and a delivery guy I hardly saw anyone. And then in the course of exploring this labyrinth of narrow arteries, one leading to another and sometimes ending abruptly in a cul de sac, you get a whiff of old Seoul that maybe gritty and rough around the edges but is authentic to the core.

One of Insadong’s many narrow alleys

With Insadong’s popularity with tourists in the recent years, rents on the main street have soared such that it can only be afforded by big commercial establishments, thereby pushing older, smaller businesses and artists to the winding back alleys laid out 500-600 years ago (dating back to the Joseon dynasty), where life is still quaint, unhurried and very ordinary.

Another beautiful alley in Insadong

I saw laundry drying on wires, potted plants outside wooden doors, beer bottles stacked in crates, cracked egg shells lying near a trash can filled to the brim, a plastic broom, a wind chime, music wafting out from open windows, someone napping on a red chair by the kitchen and pigeons hopping around, drinking rain water collected in little potholes where the road had caved in. An ajumma (as middle-aged Korean ladies are respectfully called) was standing in front of her hanok (old Korean cottages) turned restaurant, caressing a snarly lap dog and staring at me with utter intrigue.

I was sitting on the steps of a closed bar in an alley I had just wandered in, and had started drawing. For the longest time ajumma maintained a distance from me, trying to understand what I was doing while pacing outside an imaginary fence that seemed to be between us.

Insadong linework2

I got to work, started tracing lines with my eyes and then put ink on paper.

Slowly but surely. A bunch of Absolut Vodka bottles, window slats and a door emerged.

I am always amazed how drawing makes you lose all sense of time. You surrender to this repetitive cycle of seeing, comprehending and mark making. Everything else becomes invisible. I find this heightened sense of focus the only way to connect with my new environment. You get to immerse yourself so deeply and wholly in the process that when you emerge, you feel a kinship with the place you were drawing. It doesn’t look as foreign as it did when you started out.

I like to believe that by connecting with my environment in such a way I blend in and don’t look as foreign to it too and become an ordinary person sitting in the corner doing something innocuous. That’s when imaginary fences vanish. Ajumma comes over. The dog too. They are thrilled I drew their house. The dog shows its appreciation by not snarling at me anymore and Ajumma by bringing me a steaming cup of coffee in a paper cup.

A sketch and two steaming cups of coffee. I added the delivery guy later.

I must accept it, she insists. Then she takes my sketchbook and shows my sketch to her neighbours. They come closer to meet me. We huddle on the stairs, touch shoulders and giggle at our communicational ineptitude. Another cup of coffee is placed before me. When the neighbourhood delivery guy passes by, everybody raises their hands to wave at him.

I raise my hand to wave at him too, on impulse and realize that it doesn’t look out of place.