Sigh

So..I have returned at last. It's been an insanely busy few weeks. Usually I don't write a whole lot. I prefer to just post sketches of what I have been up to, but I lost my sketchbook in all the chaos and until/if it's back all I've got is this photo that my friend Abhi took while I was sketching at the Artwallah Festival.

Basically, I was busy organizing the festival after party, which took place at a really cool venue called Soul Folks in downtown Los Angeles. In addition to this, I knocked out a set of backgrounds for a short piece that my friends from the Post Natyam Collective are working on, and squeezed in time for my personal animated short as well as that whole full time job thing.

It all culminated in this weekend at the JACCC which is where Artwallah took place this year. Met all kinds of amazing people , including other volunteers, artists and many random people. Between all the work, I managed to check out outdoor acts like Micro Pixie, Vidya Quartet, Himalayan Project, My Pet Dragon, Falu. I was too hyper to sit still enough for the films and workshops. I met Ela Shah and her husband a few days before. Her beautiful mobiles were in our visual art gallery. I watched the first half of the evening show which was amazing, then I had to run off and finish setting up for the after party.

We were lucky enough to have a huge lineup of performers who came and partied with us. In no particular order, DJ Ameet Mehta and his wife Lena, Lovely, Anand Subramanian, DJ Dithmar Rualo, Ananda Sen, DJ Nitin Mukul, Himalayan Project, Shalini Rehil, Tanza Dancers and Jason Joseph. I was very busy running all over the party working, so if I missed anyone, let me know! Anyway, these amazing performers kept it all going till 5am. My heartfelt thanks to all of you!

Busy Guy's Room

This is a busy guy's room. He hopes to draw more when he is less busy. It'll happen.

Soul Folks Fuzzy and Crepes

Here are pen sketches I did in a little 4"x6" sketchbook. It's good for drawing at clubs or just around. I didn't bother laying down any pencil lines, so they are kind of crude, directly drawn in pen. It's fun to just scribble sometimes and create shapes out of that. All of them are from a late night party at a place called Soul Folks in downtown LA. I've been helping organize an after party which will take place there on June 24th, 2006. This is for a really fun South Asian art festival called Artwallah which will take place at the Japanese American Center on the same day. Be sure and check out the festival, then swing on over to the after party and say hello! Buy your tickets here!

The last sketch is from a place in Santa Monica that makes crepes. Good stuff.

Six Characters in Search of an Author

Checked out a performance of Six Characters in Search of an Author over at UCLA. My talented friend Meena was one of the actors. It was a lot of fun watching this really fun group play the scene in so many different ways, expanding and revealing more about each character as they went on. The shifts in emotions as the story progressed were really well done too. It's interesting to see that in a play where everything is created and performed in one go as opposed to a film. Here are some sketches.

Mexican Folk Dance

Checked out a really fun Mexican folk dance performance called World City featuring the Pacifico Dance Theatre and Mariachi Divas. I quickly sketched these during the hour of the performance, then inked them later.

UCLA Reggae Festival 2

A watercolor from the UCLA Reggae Festival.

UCLA Reggae Festival 1

Here's a sketch from the UCLA Reggae Festival.

Venice Beach Basketball

Here's a quick sketch I did at Venice Beach over the weekend.

Santa Monica and Venice Beach

Walked around Santa Monica and Venice Beach. Here is an ink sketch from outside the Santa Monica post office and some quick watercolor sketches from the boardwalk on Venice Beach.

Organic Orchestra

Checked out the Organic Orchestra at Electric Lounge tonight. Here are some sketches. Check the schedule. They have several shows this week and next with a different group of musicians every night lead by Adam Rudolph. There were at least double the musicians performing as what I managed to draw.

Child with Bowl

Just a quick watercolor before bed.

Watercolor Face

Here's a quick practice watercolor face. Nice to do some painting again. I'm approaching these in a manner similar to the pen sketches, with some of the color layering I had done with markers in early posts. I may start going back toward that even rougher style. Let's see where I can take it from here.

Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

I've wanted to do a sketch of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan for a long time, but wanted to wait till I could conentrate on it. Did a quick search on google video to see if any kind souls had added more qawwali and sure enough here are two amazing examples.
Nusrat 1
Nusrat 2
Did this quick watercolor so I could sleep. The second clip has him singing some of Allama Iqbal's poetry. I'll have to do a sketch of him and talk a little about that when I get a chance.

Practice Faces

Just put two practice faces on a page. I think it's time for another round of just drawing lots of faces like I did months ago.

Kasur Bazar

Did a quick sketch from a photo I took in the bazar in Kasur, Pakistan last year. I'm trying to incorporate a bit more construction in the figures.

Ustad Amjad Ali Khan

I drew some sketches of Ustad Amjad Ali Khan off of cd covers while listening to some music at a friend's place. He is perhaps the most famous Sarod player around, and deservedly so.

I also did this quick sketch of a mother with her children off a photo on the net.

Santa Monical Festival

Here are some sketches of a dance group called Viver Brasil and a really good band called Quetzal from the Santa Monica Festival over the weekend. I also did a quick watercolor sketch. That last pencil sketch is from a dance performance at UCLA...just scribbled down the audience.

Raj Rang Part 2

The second set of sketches from Raj Rang. I had wanted to see some live Rajastani music for a couple of years now. I'm really glad that I finally got the chance!

Raj Rang Part 1

Took a long lunch from work because I had to go see Raj Rang; a group of Rajastani musicians who performed a one hour noon concert at UCLA. These are all pretty quick sketches. I was so inspired that, well...hopefully the sketches speak for themselves. The pencil work was done during that hour as was some of the pen work. I did most of the pen work later on to finish the sketches. This is the first half. I'll post the rest later.

All My Sons

My friend Tim invited me to see a performance of Arthur Miller's play "All My Sons" at the Geffen Playhouse after work yesterday. It was very fun and quite an inspiring performance. It was too dark to draw, but I did scribble down enough to put this sketch together.

I also did a sketch of children from an Indian village from a photo off the net just for practice.