Cocooned

“When you find yourself cocooned in isolation and you cannot find your way out of darkness…

Remember this is similar to the place where caterpillars go to grow their wings”

Necole Stephens

Butterfly concertina (Photo Credit: Rohan Mathias)

One fine morning, we noticed the hordes of butterflies migrating. For some reason, I had never paid attention to this phenomenon but these slow months under enforced lockdown has made me more aware of the surroundings and this sort of migration was new to me. A friend, also a crazy butterfly enthusiast, told us stories behind it. His eyes lit up talking about these delicately beautiful creatures and his birthday happened to be around the corner. So what better gift than something to do with these winged wonders.

For a few months now, I have been thinking of working on a concertina, only thing missing was the subject for it. And here I had few butterflies to draw. Both put together became a butterfly concertina. My apprehensions of using any kind of colour has been dominant as ever but what fun would be butterflies without colours. In the process of research for what species to draw, a whole new section of the natural world opened up for me.

Needless to say, most of us are going through a tough phase in life dealing with the pandemic and the roadblocks that come along. All of us cocooned in our houses trying to stay safe yet that doesn’t mean the confines of the walls doesn’t affect us mentally. Nature comes to rescue again! Cocooned for a while until we emerge out of it with wings.

Birthday in lockdown

A lot of people (family and friends) that have had their birthdays during these lockdown months have wished this year away. But this man is one of those individuals who has found his love for nature once again, in different aspects of nature, apart from wildlife during this period of isolation – the skies – clouds, stars, moon, storms are a few of them. In between the sunrises and sunsets before the stars shine brighter in the sky, the animal diversity gets some attention. I attempted a timeline of his day, during the lockdown era, as a birthday card for him.

Birthday postcard

Obsession with handmade paper from Pondicherry led to making a birthday card for a fellow stationery hoarder. This time a 0.1mm rotring pen replaced my regular fountain pen. And over a period of six hours, I managed to finish this piece realising that irrespective of how fine a nib one picks, the choice of paper matters too.

Yawning tiger

The consistent blotting of the ink on the paper didn’t help and there were parts that I had to go over again and again because the blotting diluted the effect of white. Despite the challenges, the effect of the yawning tiger in white on the dark blue paper was better than I ever imagined. I am glad the birthday girl liked it and this piece adorns her living room wall.

Of jungles and birds

I am sure I am not the only one who loves birds. My way of imprinting the sight of these birds deep into my memory is by drawing them. And ever since my first stippling piece (when I didn’t even know that putting together these dots had a term for itself), I have stuck to this way of drawing.

When I was asked to make a card for a friend’s birthday, my first thought was a bird in stippling. I love colourful birds but with the restriction of specific inks that one finds for these super fine nibs, I narrowed down to one which is easily recognisable and not very colourful.

Lesser golden backed woodpecker

 

My pick was a lesser golden backed woodpecker sitting on the ground and looking up instead of its usual place on a tree trunk.