Lately

Yesterday, I went for the movie - Dhobi Ghat, Kiran Rao's directoral debut under the Amir Khan Production Banner. The one aspect in the movie that really moved me was this relationship of an artist and his/her inspiration. An artist is triggered by a thought, idea, muse, subject, put whatever name you like. Take that source away from him and you leave him in sorrow, a heavy feeling that just looms around. At times, this feeling may devastate him or keep him alive for a closure. This feeling seems familiar to me.

Few days back, I attended the Grad ceremony for my juniors/batch mates. I wish them luck. A year has passed. A year since I graduated with my final project and the time has come to put the pieces together of my inspirations and thoughts. I can't put a time frame on it right now but the important thing is that I have started. Hopefully, a start that will see its end. Looking back at what I had done a year back and starting the book all over again seems like an endless thread. It needs a fresh start as the earlier book is getting a bit descriptive in its narrative. I have the nodes of anecdotes from my previous script and it requires to be juggled around to achieve the right flow. I did some research about how to go about it and read a few inspiring graphic novels too. I think the process needs to be a spontaneous now, after-all it has to be a harmonious play of image and text. So, sketches and storyboard thumbnails will be a good idea to put the base for the finals. I started with the character sketches of my father. 

Mukesh, the singer has always led me into the days spent with my father. His songs are like the bookmarks and when I am listening to him, it helps me alot to connect with this book  I enjoyed drawing these pages and it gave me a good jumpstart on the book. There are many other doubts in my head though - I am scared that too much of an inspiration from great works may kill my own voice. or Do I have a style of drawing? I just enjoy drawing and most of my work are realistic in its appearance. Thoughts like these often put me in a blackhole. But you just got to do what you got to do, right? I have to get some freelance work done too, to pay the bills etc. I hope I manage well and keep up with the book. More updates will come soon, probably some storyboard sketches.