Hello All, this is 1st, 2nd & 3rd illustration and text from my NEW illustrated picture book. Keep in mind both the text and art are not completed. I am trying a different approach of sharing these while they are being developed rather than waiting for a completed product. All the images are done in colored Pencil With Graphite 2014-2015 ***please do read the text “Serendib’s World” Illustration 1: “Benrali at Sunken Meadow Park, New York” Illustration 2 : “Peacock Tree” Illustration 3: The Crown Appeared To Benrali I. Say the word “oracle”, and the images that come to mind are quests and journeys to forbidden islands to gain some valuable clue, map or guidance to something even more valuable, even priceless such as the Golden Fleece. The small shrub that sprang out of nowhere this Spring near the beach at Sunken Meadow Park was my own personal “Golden Fleece” and this desolate part of the beach I would trudge to in the sand with my books and etching plates felt like an oracle. In truth studies show that sitting next to large bodies of water stimulate creativity. Maybe there is a connection with the fact that we are over 70% water and being close to the ocean? The Sea Rose is considered an invasive species from Eastern Asia but what a sight it was to see it growing among the wheat colored fields. The shrub seemed to grow there fueled by some magical underground cave. When I went to Parsons School Of Design I always drove out to Sunken Meadow Park in Long Island. I always believed I would get amazing amounts of work done, but most of the time I just kicked back and read or stared endlessly at the citrine mountains in Fall. The book I brought with me here with me was an old book my mother had, “The Book Of Good Counsels”. It is a translation of the Sanskrit text : Hitapodesa . At this time in my life I had not yet read the Quran. Islam eventually came to me but at this time Quests, Fantasy and Fables were of interest to me as I was pursuing a degree in book illustration. The Hitapodesa or the Book Of Good Counsels is a series of fables that offer wisdom through the characters of animals. It is not a famous text but Akbar himself even read it and praised it. I had recently come back from one of my father’s trips to India. Whether we went to the north or south there were endless tailors there who had access to most unusually patterned fabrics. In one night they could make a mans shirt for you at a fraction of the cost of what it would cost you in the US. I had one of these shirts made but I was far too embarrassed to wear it in public because the blend between vine patterns, gold and it being mercerized made it too bright. But here at Sunken Meadow Beach with no one watching me reading who would know? When I saw the inlaid vines all over the Taj Mahal I thought of another deeper meaning to these seemingly decorative and floral patterns; time. Wearing this shirt reminded me of the passing of time or the Buddhist saying of the death we bring with us when we are born. Those vines creep over us with such quietness who can accept that every day we’re simply getting closer to death? At this time, one of my teachers, David Passalcqua wanted me to do something I never thought I could do. He wanted me to break out of the decorative, break out of the organic and design something futuristic even industrial. How would I take a children’s book style, a decorative style and even an organic and multi-cultural style and develop something futuristic or industrial? This is a story of just how that came about; a rare, mystical, futuristic and mechanical design for a machine. II How many forgotten trees exist within the rainforests of the subconscious mind? Trees that are montages of images, trees that grow from a cluster of memories surrounding a powerful event. Anyone who experienced the death of anyone important can remember all the memories surrounding that event. The death of Themis was like a tree that grew backwards from the bloom and leaves first, a memory of all those brain cells exploding and then it reach down to spread roots which anchored itself without me even knowing a new species of flora was growing. Within this tree montage would have to be King Jewel Plume and King Silver-Sides. In college I was starting to illustrate a section of the Hitapodesa; the war and peace between the Peacocks & Swans. As I started to research peacocks I became awestruck at the symbolism of their tails representing star clouds and their hypnotic eyes, the galaxy. In this montage would also be the ocean adventures of Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan explorer and adventurer. But all these thoughts, even the futuristic and mechanical design I had to come up with were dwarfed by the news Of Themis’s death. As the sun started to set at Sunken Meadow Park I sat on the dunes thinking of her cerebral meningitis and the rapid death of brain cells like a network of stars flaring up and dying. Another part of this montage that I brought with me here to Sunken Meadow Park was Toru Dutt’s poem; “ The Tree Of Life”. Toru Dutt was a Bengali poet who died at 21, 1877. In the back of the “ The Book Of Good Counsels” there were several obscure writers who were included and there I discovered a poem from her I wanted to illustrate. The “Tree Of Life” is about a magnificent dream she had about a tree that became an angel, when she was dying of fever in her father’s arms. In my sophomore year at Parsons School Of Design I found the discovery of the Hitopodesa right at that time Themis died and the fact that both of them died at 21 strange. Themis herself was born on 04/21. 21 become a number of mystery for me. The only person I knew born on that day is Queen Elizabeth II. Page III The afternoon sky became punch, the sun settled like a yolk in a drink. The sandflies whirred around my ears like tiny spaceships. The eyes from hares coming out to eat grasses appeared bloodshot in the glaring light until my flashlight’s batteries died out. The roti and dahl I bought on Liberty Avenue became cold and the CD players batteries also ran out. I misplaced my keys somewhere in the sand. As it got darker I was scared if I groped around in the sand the keys might go deeper and swallow them like quicksand. With no one else around, no electricity, no music and all the night animals coming out it felt like the beginning or the ending of the world. Many places where you are totally alone with nature can make you feel like that. I fell asleep as the sun set and didn’t notice the night fall. In my mind I kept replaying the name “Serendib” over and over. I got hooked on this name during College, deciding whether or not I wanted to illustrate sections of the story; The 3 princes and Serendib. It is the origin of the word serendipity. It is a actually a collection of stories within stories of 3 princes stumbling upon discoveries through serendipity. I was curious whether I would come to the solution on how to make the jump to light-speed from decorative to futuristic and industrial would come to me through Serendipity? Maybe I was trying to hard? Would I get an answer by chance on how to transform the organic, decorative, children’s book style into something more modern, industrial and even mechanical? As I drifted off I repeated the name, “Serendib”. If you say any word over and over, sometimes a color appears or an image appears that has nothing to do with the real meaning. If I say the name Sri Lanka, the color that comes to mind is a vast field of green with a black splotch that bleeds over like a watercolor. When I say the ancient Arabic name for Sri Lanka, Serendib, the colors that arise are gold, burnt oranges, and shades of gold. One is not better than the other and its personal, everyone comes up with their own images and colors. As I fell asleep on the dunes the image that came to mind from “Serendib” was mythical; a cloud city; the great tutelary angel of India? A giant angel appeared that could not even fit on Earth with a giant head like the colossal stone heads that enigmatically stare down at you at Cambodia’s Angkor Wat. And on the head of this most fabulous of kings sits a crown with Serendib’s most famed gems; pearls from the Indian Ocean and Padparadascha sapphires. Sapphires that appear to have fallen from the Sun.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 03:21:22 +0000
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