This is how you play the game: the goal is to draw a person and be as innovative and surprising as you can. Start at the bottom or top of the sheet by drawing the very tip of that person. In this case, I started at the shoes. Fold the sheet so that only the tip of what you’re drawn shows so the next person can continue from there. Continue back and forth till complete. 

This is with Sara on the train to Edinburgh drawn on the caffe nero napkin from our take away cappucino.

for 4 days last month i turned my phone off, left it at home and lived as usual. but life felt different. like a reminder that life is worth celebrating even without having to constantly send a text, a photomessage, or call to say this is what i saw, this is what i heard, this is how life felt in that moment to someone else.

for the first time since i got here 9 months ago i felt like what i am- a student onher own a million miles from home discovering a new world.

i loved it!

Well, it’s the week week and I feel compelled to start something.

The last travelling journal I send out is two people away from me and yes, it’s time to launch a new one.

If you want to play, email me.

Or just comment here and I’ll get back to you.

There’s place for all kinds. Come play.

UPDATE:

OK! we’re good to go. Thanks for the emails. This journal players:

M

Sophie

Vatsala

Jen

Wendy

Surabhi

Ian

Lucy

Delia

P.S. Just FYI: after this, the post and the progress of the journal will be tracked on the Projects page (select from the tabs on top of the page)

Also a quick update on the previous travelling art journal:

The players

Willie Baronet

Bluma

Maddie

Chamki: the journal is currently with her. It’ll leave Bangalore, India this week.

Dawn

Nicole

This is from A on a napkin from Pret. I ate the hot meatball wrap and yoghurt pot.

This is a brainstorming map of some ideas for a canvas I want to do for “A”.

[click to enlarge]

I’m always curious about how other people work. How other people do or make the things they do. The working process. Writers. Artists. Journalists. Innovators. I like to know how they came to that final peice.

Most big illustration works begin like this fo rme. on regular ruled paper with a pencil. Just a visual map of some ideas, briefs, possibilities.

I have three main ideas here, circled and roughly sketched. This is the idea stage so everything is sketchy and open and little bits of ideas will clutter every circle.

One of them, in this case the map idea, will be further developed with relevant illustrations, played around with in photoshop, see the light of day. The others will stay on that page, and hopefully also somewhere in my head, until a relevant opportunity brings it out again.

Usually, like in this case, the others may not be created for this particular purpose but their inspiration wil show in something else. Like here, I like the idea of a more abstract peice in which the central subject is actually removed from the picture. I think it adds a different kind of drama. And I like the idea of a comic book style peice, I haven’t done them i awhile and it fits the current writing mood I’m in. So the next person to have a birthday or order an illustration may see something in one of these formats giftwrapped for them.

You’ll see a real-life complete version of this when I’m done.

I rolled out of bed

A touch of rouge

Like blooming

I am blooming into poems

Dedicated to a lover.

Not ordinary ones

Like hooker green cargoes

But like something in between

Holding a hand

And a hot cup of coffee that burns

When you kiss it

Blooming slowly into something sweeter

Something that hums a little,

Dances a lot,

And bares a little skin

That says Yes

To a little smile

Unfurling in delicate layers

Always blooming.

What are you like today?

What makes you bloom?

In the Cross Country from Newcastle to Glasgow Central , returning after a  warming almost-week tangled in the arms and dreams of “A”.

A lot of dirty laundry is waiting for me in Glasgow

it means there’s a home waiting for me there

a table with a view- even though it’s made of moss and stains the paper when you rest of it

waiting, also, is the call I never made before I left and the manganese blue twilight sky.

Newcastle is always

tangled bodies wrapped around

6am bedtimes and 3pm mornings

slightly surreal nights spent cushioned by

his long lean

athlete’s legs.

One of the nights I dreamt of Berwick Upon Tweed

and a boy named Stuart

who wrote me love letters

and stuck them to the sea.

P.S. The image on tp is “A’s” Imagination Cubed drawing sent with much love afetr a little tiff. (it’s incredibly hard to draw with a mouse!)

The Hands belong to us from that day in Caffe Nero making paper roses with napkin and writing our names with butter.

All the lovely emails (and comments) about the blog archives has made me rather guilty (and happy!) for not posting for soo long!

Will be back here with a mindblowing post asap.

..Or at the very least a thought provking one.

Exchanged portraits with Andy DiConti. In my room after a long movie so here’s a crude photograph version of my

 drawing of him.