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