Yakshagana - Folk Opera (Documentary)

Topic : Folk Art
Subject : Art & Design Aesthetics

This assignment was a group task. We were asked to study the various Indian Folk Arts. Out of these we were to select any one performing or fine art and study in detail about it.

Being located in Karnataka, we chose to work on Yakshagana which has its roots based here. This way we learnt a lot while completing this assignment as we had an opportunity to meet famous personalities from the folk art industry. Interacting with them at a personal level helped us gather a lot of information and also influenced to focus on Yakshagana as our topic.

Yakshagana is basically folk opera. It is a musical theatre popular in the coastal and Malenaduu regions of Karnataka, India. It is believed to have evolved from pre-classical music and theatre during Bhakti movement. In this theatre form, they usually enact out excerpts from Mahabharata.

I also created a documentary on Yakshagana which I hope you all will enjoy watching.

Special thanks to Ms. Nesha Barahmand for shooting the videos.

The voice over, editing and direction are done by me.

Here is a link to the documentary :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlJmsBgMDLM&feature=youtu.be

Enjoy :)

Summer Intership @ a Fashion Magazine!

Hi Guys,

Been long since I posted on my blog. Well, well! Today I am going to tell you about my exciting summer internship!! It was just a dream about 6 months back and I didn't think it would really happen since I was just a first year. I slogged my way through with innumerous phone calls and e-mails and seriously, and finally landed as a fashion intern at Verve (just as I wanted!). I was at Verve from 1 June- 30 June 2012

Verve to put together in a few words was lots of fashion, style, travel and yes, food! Lol.

What was really amazing there was the warm people! Seriously, I wasn't imagining it to be that way. But everyone at Verve is very very welcomng and closely knit which is probably the main reason this experience will always remain very special :)

Now about my work at Verve...
I applied to the Fashion Department so I joined as a Fashion Intern working under Ms. Nirali Mehta, Senior Stylist. Throghout my stay there, I mostly reported to Ms. Shrin Salwan, Fashion Writer & Stylist and Mrs, Rachna Subherwal, Head of HR Department who gave me the opporutnity to be a part of Verve.

Shirin constantly appreciated the research I did and suggestions I made to contribute to Verve's upcoming issues. I also dealt with the pre and post arrangements for the Fashion Shoots which involved sourcing material from fashion designers, handling it in the Fashion Room, returning it carefully with recorded invoices of course, and assisting at the shoots. Shirin was very friendly and guided me with each and every step. Being a NIFITIAN herself, Shirin and I shared some very jolly moments chatting away about how awesome NIFT is. :)

The Fashion Director, Ms. Nisha Jhangiani was very very well...fashionable. She had this great sense of style and professionalism. As she was mostly busy and travelling, I hardly had a chance to interact with her. Though for a short period, I enjoyed my experience with her at one of the shoots.

The Fashion Room

Rachna was an extremely sweet and ever smiling lady. She always met me with a smile and always asked how everything was going. She was one person I could go to for guidance. In that professional environment it was lovely to have someone like Rachna!

Mrs. Falguni Kapadia, CEO was a stern when required but very down to earth lady. Being the big boss, she was one powerful lady who kept everyone at Verve on their toes! I really look upto to her, especially because of this quality of hers, she was so friendly with everyone at office but at the same had this way of getting the work done, perfectly! I had brief interactions with her during my stay and I enjoyed every bit of them. There was so much to learn.

Apart from the Fashion Department, I also had a chance to assist with work in other departments.

I had a chance to work with Ms. Bijal Mehta, HOD Marketing. I prepared presentations for her and during this time I found Bijal to lovely to work with.

I also assisted the Art Department for a short while where I interacted with Ms. Ashima and Mr. Sameer.

For the Editorial Department, I assisted Ms. Shraddha, Executive Editor, with preparing questions for interviews and other little tasks like poof reading articles and checking for typos.

What really makes me happy is that during my brief stay at Verve, I had the chance to interact with so many different people and work with so many different departments which gave me in depth knowledge as to how department in the magazine functions!

This one month was filled with lots of fun, new people and yes, I fell in love. With Mumbai :)

Cheers!

My Recommendation Letter

Fairytale Music - Elements of Design

Subject : Elements of Design
Exercise : To create an abstract 3D Model.

This was one of my most challenging assignments which ultimately led to one of my best creations.
It was assigned to us for our First Year's Final Examination under Elements of Design.

We were to select a certain type of music which was to be clearly depicted by creating a 3D Model:
We were to follow certain steps :

1) To begin with, we had to create a group of 3 words depicting the kind of music we were going to create the model on. So I selected - Fantasy, Tinkle & Fairytale.

2) On the basis of these 3 words we had to sketch out  first 2D & then 3D extruded drawings of an intangible form which could be co related with our theme.

3) Now this intangible form had to be created using any materials except thermocol. I chose to work with wood. This was the first time I worked with wood in so much detail.

4) We were to use minimum 10 of these forms (could be in different sizes but not dimension) and join them together to create the final model.

5) Lastly, we were to sketch out isometric views of the final 3D model, and then create the model using the chosen materials with reference to these sketches. The model had to look exactly like the drawing from any of the perspectives.

CATCH: The catch here was that we could not use a base to balance the final model. It had to be done by experimenting with the kind of extrusions we add to our intangible form and then how we decide we attach them to each other, keeping in mind the theme of the model.



A single unit of the Intangible Form created using wood and nails.

I carved out 10 pairs of such forms on wood and extruded them by attaching nails between each pair of the forms.

The reason to use nails was to show inspiration from stringed instruments like the harp which is usually shown to depict heavenly fairytale music.

Further, I created 10 of these forms in various planned out sizes and attached them together to create my final model. I also made use of Photoshop in this assignment to create exact drawings of this form, only different in sizes in order to carve out on wood.



The use of the nails to extrude the form can be clearly seen in this image.


For the finishing, I decorated each form with pink spray paint on the inside and silver on the outside. Keeping the theme in mind, I worked with a colour panel of blue, pink and silver. So, I also used blue glitter to outline the wooden forms and decorated it with pink shiny polkas.

The Final Model after being displayed to be examined

To enhance the beauty of the final model I displayed it using a blue satin cloth as a base.

Materials used :
Wood, metal nails

Softwares used :
Adobe Photoshop CS4

Kitsch (Art & Design Aesthetics)

Subject : Art & Design Aesthetics
Topic : Indian Kitsch


To be able to understand design in greater depth it is very important to understand the prominent role of 'Aesthetics' in it.

The aesthetics come in when we make our elements and the entire design more than something utilitarian and functional. It’s the extra details put in to make them visually appealing. Aesthetics are the artistry. In some ways it’s the eye candy who’s function is solely to generate a wow or other emotional response. It’s an added layer of beauty on top of the usable and functional.

At NIFT, we are taught to understand Art & Desigm Aesthetics at a very early stage i.e. in our Foundation Programme. As future designers, I feel it is very important to understand the concept of aesthetic appeal.

Here is an excercise where we were to create a poster using the concept of Indian Kitsch.

What comes to mind when you think of Indian Kitsch??

Bright colours, old advertisements, flouroscent fonts, exaggerated human features...

So after researching in detail and doodling down a couple of keywords my groupmates & I decided on work on a Lipstick Advertisement and the "Sadhna Haircut" being so popular in olden days we decided to call it "Sadhna Lipstick".

We used the form of a fish and gave it lips just as those that were considered beautiful in olden times. The colour RED has always been considered very sexual and attractive so we decided to give the lips a dark shade of red.

          

The eyes were exaggerated to look like big almond eyes which is how they were perceived beautiful in Indian mythology.

The font and spellings were done with great thought insipred from old posters that we cannot even imagine of seeing in today's world of sophistication and modernism.

                                    

Constituting the elements of Indian Kitsch this is how the final poster looked.

The Final Poster - Sadhna Lipstick

With a little extra effort we also created a 3D model of the lipstick that we were advertising for. You can see this lipstick in the poster as well.

This was one of the very interesting excercises we worked on.
Mediums used :  Paper, acrylic & poster paint

Planning a Fashion Week (Mindmapping Exercise)

Assignment : Mindmapping
Subject : Creative Thinking Skills
Topic : Planning a Fashion Week
Purpose : The primary purpose of this excerise was to enhance our Creative Thinking Skills & to teach us the concept of Mindmapping - how it could be used to solve certain problems or find a systematic yet creative solution as and when required at work.

With an extremely exciting and in depth working experience at the Bangalore Fashion Week 2012, I chose to work on 'Planning a Fashion Week'.

The Mindmap

The various important elements to be kept in mind while planning a fashion week :

• Designers
• Models
• Schedules
• Media
• Location
• Passes
• Guest list
• Backstage & Front Desk Commitees
• Sponsors
• VIPs
• After parties

These are all inter connected amongst each other and provide us with a simple solution to plan a systematic fashion week.

 Below are a few images from the Mindmap that elaborate and inter connect these basic elements :

These are a few Afterparty and show passes I kept as memory from the Bangalore Fashion Week and seriously, I couldn't think of a better way to use them :)

Materials used :

• Images from the BFW 2012 Magazine
• After party & Show passes from BFW 2012
• Cardboard Sheet as Base
• Cutouts from magazine
• Coloured Papers

Children's Park : Elements of Design (3D Model)

Following was an assigment where we were to use the various techniques of Elements of Design to create an aesthetically appealing and technically correct theme based 3D Model.

Colour plays a very big role in Elements of Design and can prove aesthetically most appealing if used in the right ways. And I felt that a children's park mixed with some interesting colours could be a great way to create an interesting 3D Model.

This model used techniques of Kirigami, Insertion, Paper folding, Shadow effect

The swing in the children's park.

I particularly used the insertion technique for the trees so as to give them a fuller and 3D look and I gave it a textured flooring to add a more covered n grassy feel to it.

Catch: We were only to work with paper to create the model.

Top view of the model

Burberry Brit Cologne Bottle

Here are images from an assignment where I was to create a scaled up/scaled down version of any product. Being a connoisseur of fragrances, I chose to work with my current favourite Burberry Brit.

I have created 2 versions of the same 100 ml (vol. 3.3 FL.OZ) Bottle signature chequed bottle.

From left to right : The original size version of the bottle, the scaled up version; ratio being 1:2, the original bottle



The following softwares & materials were used to create this :
Softwares used :  Photoshop CS4

Materials : Cardboard, sticker paper