I’m working on a bunch of desert backgrounds for “Risalo”. I paint them in flat colors in an app called Procreate. It’s very intuitive and I can paint with my finger on the iPad. One of my favorite things about this, is that I showed Umar the basics and he was up and running in no time as well. This lets me work on a design, create a copy and let him make any changes he feels like and then pick up and add some more and go back and forth until we are satisfied. I really enjoy the conversation around shapes and color choices that helps us to get where we want.Umar finished the first background and I think it turned out beautifully. We selected every bit of fabric for its color and texture. Each piece was meticulously cut, then roughly stitched to place them and then finely stitched by hand with care given to keeping the flow of each curve to achieve what we worked out in the concept painting. I feel very grateful that he is putting a lot of love and care into each bit, as I do. What more could one ask of an artistic collaboration.We even got the second background started. It’s time to look for some additional colors of cloth that are needed. I’ll try and finish up some more designs and pick up cloth for them as well. Sunday is the day to get cloth from the Landa Bazaar. We picked up a lot of interesting pieces there. In addition, our friend Imran has a lot of bits of cloth or old clothes that have helped us a great deal, so I will have to stop by to check there as well. Any colors that are left at that point can be hunted for in some of the khaddi shops we visited earlier this week. I’m glad we have figured out our main sources for cloth and the workflow for creating these backgrounds. That is a huge bit of progress this week.