Instagram - neurotic egg

Follow me on Instagram for a peek behind the scenes into book covers, drawing, sketching, printmaking, and sundry other distractions.

neurotic.egg

#flashlinocut to assess states of sharpness of ver

#flashlinocut to assess states of sharpness of very old and very new tools and degeneracy of three-year-old lino sheets. Things can only look up from here...

#flexcutwhimsy #baghermashicheshirecat #verylikelythinkingofcalvinandhobbes

Pebblemonkey just won the 8th Oxford Bookstore Boo

Pebblemonkey just won the 8th Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize, and I seriously cannot stop jumping for joy! Huge thanks once again to Oxford Bookstore, the fantastic jury, and to Professor Abhijit Gupta of Jadavpur University Press, and our translator Arunava Sinha, for making this possible.

Jadavpur University Press, housed on campus and peopled, naturally, with mostly literature graduates and professors, never gives a design brief to any of its designers, but expects that they will read the book and interpret it in their own way. For ‘Pebblemonkey’, though, they did ask for drawings of a monkey skulking across a mountainscape, and doing other ineffably monkey things, which are now inside the book – on the title page and around the chapter headings.

But for this cover option, I had thought of a ‘badly-drawn’ pebble-shaped monkey, with the untidy, messy, scribbled quality of, say, an entry in a personal journal. In this, I was also trying to make a tribute to the author, Manindra Gupta’s own sketches in his three-volume memoir ‘Akshay Mulberry’, which was a literary cult classic when I was an undergraduate at Jadavpur University.

The bright pink derives from the apple, because I kept thinking of the shifting objects of desire in terms of the apple – Doenna the doe (also apple-shaped on the back cover), Pebblemonkey himself, the apple that the forestfolk eat, and towards the end, as the object of contention standing in for labour, land, and indigenous rights in the political, economic, and ecological context of the region.
It is a strange, and partially baffling book following Pebblemonkey, who springs to life from a pebble, and is equally wise, and full of childlike wonder, mischievous, and prurient at times.

Please read the book, I think you’ll enjoy puzzling it out, and at the same time help support Jadavpur University Press, which does this with a lot of love and with very limited resources.

@oxfordbookstores @arunavasinha @jadavpuruniversitypress @gafthehorseintears @devalinam

‘The Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful

‘The Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day’ by Peter Linebaugh – came out, in its Indian edition, some time ago from @yeruvakabooks

Taking off from a heated argument on a university campus about the eight hour work day, the collection of essays in this book research, explore, and celebrate May day and its varied histories and ramifications.

The lines quoted below are from the essay that the book takes its name from – it also guided my design of the cover.

“To the history of May Day there is a Green side and there is a Red side… Green is a relationship to the earth and what grows therefrom. Red is a relationship to other people and the blood spilt there among. Green designates life with only necessary labor; Red designates death with surplus labor. Green is natural appropriation; Red is social expropriation… Green is useful activity; Red is useless toil. Green is creation of desire; Red is class struggle. May Day is both.

[...] With the leafing of the trees in spring, people celebrated “the fructifying spirit of vegetation,” to use the phrase of J.G. Frazer, the anthropologist. They did this in May, a month named after Maia, the mother of all the gods according to the ancient Greeks, giving birth even to Zeus.

The Greeks had their sacred groves, the Druids their oak worship, the Romans their games in honor of Floralia. In Scotland the herdsmen formed circles and danced around fires. The Celts lit bonfires in hilltops to honor their god, Beltane. In the Tyrol people let their dogs bark and made music with pots and pans. In Scandinavia fires were lit and the witches came out.

Everywhere people “went a-Maying” by going into the woods and bringing back leaf, bough, and blossom to decorate their persons, homes, and loved ones with green garlands. Outside theatre was performed with characters like “Jack-in-the-Green” and the “Queen of the May.” Trees were planted. Maypoles were erected. Dances were danced. Music was played. Drinks were drunk, and love was made. Winter was over, spring had sprung.”

#bookcoverdesign #handlettering #mayday
#theredandthegreen #maypole

Underpaintings under way. (COMING SOON!) #house

Underpaintings under way.

(COMING SOON!)

#householdmuses #analoguedrawing #foodillustration #brandnewpaints #messypalette
#paintandpencils #henshelathome

A quartet of covers for @jadavpuruniversitypress i

A quartet of covers for @jadavpuruniversitypress in 2022. Two novels, a novella and two plays, all from a translation list to die for.

Clockwise from top left:
Amare dii tomar haate – Inês Pedrosa's Nas Tuas Mãos (1997), translated from Portuguese into Bangla by Rita Ray.

Nishite paoa desh – Mia Couto's Terra Sonâmbula (1992), translated from Portuguese into Bangla by Rita Ray.

Congote ek ritu, Ekti tufan – Aimé Césaire's Une Saison au Congo (1966) translated from French into Bangla by Kanchana Mukhopadhyay, and Une Tempête (1969) by Rita Ray.

And finally, Pebblemonkey – Manindra Gupta's Nuri Bandor (2016), translated from Bangla into English by Arunava Sinha.

#translation #booksintranslation #literaryfiction #literarytranslation #booksinbangla #lookingback2022 #bookcoverdesign #bookjacketdesign #bookcoverillustration #bookstagram #bookstagramindia #unitedbookstagram

New cover for another marvellous anthology of Dali

New cover for another marvellous anthology of Dalit writings from Bengal, from @streesamyabooks – edited and translated by Debi Chatterjee and Sipra Mukherjee.

#dalitwriting #bookdesign #coverdesign #bookcover #bookcoverdesign #bookcoverdesigner #bookjacket #bookjacketdesign #bookstagram #bookstagramindia #unitedbookstagram
#illustration

A remarkable anthology of fiction and poetry on in

A remarkable anthology of fiction and poetry on inequities, resilience and hope – 'Dalit Lekhika: Women's Writings from Bengal' is edited by Kalyani Thakur Charal and Sayantan Dasgupta, with two introductions that set the political, literary and personal contexts for the book. Published by @streesamyabooks.

The visual motifs –like the winged pens and the date palm on the front cover – have been borrowed from the writings themselves, which I had the amazing privilege of reading at the beginning of 2020.

#dalitwriting #dalitwomenswriting #bookdesign #coverdesign #bookcover #bookcoverdesign #bookcoverdesigner #bookjacket #bookjacketdesign #shedesignsbooks #bookstagram #bookstagramindia #unitedbookstagram
#illustration #lookingbackat2020

About this time last year I was sketching – sket

About this time last year I was sketching – sketching supplies!!

(Prompted by extremely short-lived resolution to draw something, however rubbishy, every day.)

#lookingbackat2020 #dailysketch #householdobjects

Detail from the back cover of a much awaited, marv

Detail from the back cover of a much awaited, marvellous anthology forthcoming from @streesamyabooks

#illustration #quicksketch #forthcomingbook

More #pastelpractice #pasteldrawings Tried out pa

More #pastelpractice #pasteldrawings

Tried out pastels because of the lockdown, they're my favourite things to draw with now, I think 😊

Sketching random things around the house – raide

Sketching random things around the house – raided crisper tray in the fridge for no.1 in #householdobjects

#thingsaroundthehouse #pasteldrawing

Super quick sketch with tea and pencils prompt by

Super quick sketch with tea and pencils prompt by @adolfoserra – I cheated, this is coffee 😛

Very proud to have had the opportunity to make the

Very proud to have had the opportunity to make the cover for 'The Deoliwallahs: The True Story of the 1962 Chinese-Indian Internment', by Joy Ma and Dilip D'Souza (@deathendsfun) from @panmacmillanindia – the book addresses an aporia in our history, when about 3000 members of the Indian-Chinese community were rounded up and sent – overnight – to an internment camp in Deoli, Rajasthan, during the Sino-Indian war of 1962.
.
.
What broke my heart watching Rafeeq Elias' documentary 'Beyond Barbed Wires: A Distant Dawn' before I began work on the cover, was the fondness with which Deoli survivors, now settled in other countres, would sometime recall their Indian neighbours, and Bollywood songs and local food, without the slightest trace of anger.
.
. 'The Deoliwallahs' brings together several accounts of families from places like Hasimara (Ma's own family), Kalimpong and the Tangra Chinatown in Calcutta and the horrific experience they underwent just because they suddenly became the 'others'.
.
.
'The Deoliwallahs' is being featured on @panmacmillanindia Reading Space today, and is available as a free e-book from @kindleindia
. .

#bookdesign #coverdesign #bookcover #bookcoverdesign #bookcoverdesigner #bookjacket #bookjacketdesign #shedesignsbooks #bookstagram #bookstagramindia #unitedbookstagram

Woodcut print (12 x 12) inches . Proof print from

Woodcut print (12 x 12) inches
.
Proof print from an unfinished woodcut back from 2018 again. Found the reference photo as well.
.
I don't much mind the large black spaces, so not going to add anything to this one just as yet, I think.
.
#woodcut #woodcutprint #woodcutprintmaking #printmaking #reliefprint #reliefprintmaking #inkprintrepeat #printmakersofinstagram #womeninprintmaking #get_imprinted #printspotting

Lino-cut print (10 x 13) cms . Found a few unfinis

Lino-cut print (10 x 13) cms
.
Found a few unfinished and/or botched wood- and lino-cut blocks back from 2018.
Thought quarantine's as good a time as any to proof and fix them – or at least try.
.
This one was proofed and printed on newsprint, since I had no other good (and thin) paper at home.
Don't have a press either, so used the back of a teaspoon like old times to lift prints. (I'm going to use a wooden spoon next time though, so it doesn't heat up so much.)
.
I'm really really going to hoard stacks and stacks of lino-sheets to carve when the art-shops open again, and I'm going to work hard to get better at this, and sign up at a studio with a press – as soon as this is over.
.
.
#linocut # linocutprint #linoprint # reliefprint #printmaking #printmakingathome #get_imprinted
#quarantinelife

Mustard and fenugreek seeds from the kitchen have

Mustard and fenugreek seeds from the kitchen have sprouted and grown in a week, will hopefully be good for cooking in another.
.
There's also some Bengal gram in there, don't know what to do with those just yet. Does anybody know if they can be cooked and eaten?
.
#balconygarden #balconykitchengarden #quarantinelife

From earlier this year: I was delighted to make th

From earlier this year: I was delighted to make the cover for this beautiful novel by #arunachakravarti from @panmacmillanindia – which presents its protagonist Dr. Suralakshmi Choudhury, a gynaecologist, as a narrative rebus slowly unravelled through several layered plotlines, in the form of letters, reminiscences, and straight up third person storytelling anchored in different time frames.
.
.
It weaves in and out of several families and their lives in early twentieth century Bengal, from different regions, religions, classes and their respective cultural vocabularies of songs, rituals, food, and everyday household practices, beliefs, prejudices, and injustices – told in carefully archived tangible material detail.
.
.
There are also the occasional historical vignettes – like the the story of the Hindu begum from Hazarduari – recounted by a woman, who guides tours at the Palace – who worshipped at her personal shrine to Shiva and lived the life of a Hindu widow after her husband, the nawab's death.
.
.
It's a gripping read that brings alive all the different spaces and people that are so meticulously depicted, and it will resonate with added nostalgia for Bengali-speaking readers owing to the familiar words, phrases, endearments, curses, and folk and other songs dispersed throughout the book.
.
.
Drawn with the luscious new watercolour set from @sennelier1887 that I've been lusting after forever, and finally got myself on my birthday last year.
.
.
#bookdesign #coverdesign #bookcover #bookcoverdesign #bookcoverdesigner #bookjacket #bookjacketdesign #shedesignsbooks #bookstagram #unitedbookstagram
#sennelieraquarelle #watercolour #illustration #handlettering #workinprogress

That time of the year

That time of the year

This was my first cover assignment for a spiritual

This was my first cover assignment for a spiritual, self-help book from @panmacmillanindia early last year. I had made covers for mostly academic books till then, and was not that familiar with either genre. So I imagined the reader as someone finding their way, metaphorically, through a dark forest trail for this book, which asks you to stop, think and choose 'compassion, healing and forgiveness' in your everyday life decisions.

#bookdesign #coverdesign #bookcover #bookcoverdesign #bookcoverdesigner #bookjacket #bookjacketdesign #shedesignsbooks #bookstagram #unitedbookstagram

It's been just over a year since the publication o

It's been just over a year since the publication of the worldwide and Indian editions of this terrific book by @johnhutnyk – in which he uses the 'mela', i.e. the fairground, as an analytical category to look at films from the Raj era, Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, diaspora films of systemic subversion, and the televisation of a hanging, among many other things.

For the two covers, I took photographs of fairground toys, trinkets, and my wooden sketching mannequin, and then put them together with a few illustrations, vintage advertisements and patterns, and the author's own scribbled notes for the book (these bits I was the happiest with), as well as a juicy excerpt headed 'A mela for the memsahib'. The yellow and beige paperback is the India only edition from Aakar Books and the red hardbound is for the rest of the world from Bloomsbury Academic.

#bookdesign #coverdesign #bookcover #bookcoverdesign #bookcoverdesigner #bookjacket #bookjacketdesign #shedesignsbooks #bookstagram #unitedbookstagram #bloomsburyacademic @aakarbooks

Load More Follow on Instagram