India Part 1: Patterns patterns patterns

My trip to India was very interesting. I hadn't visited the place for 3.5 years. When I first left almost 5 years I was quite disillusioned by the country and just couldn't fit in or identify myself as an Indian. After staying in the UK for a while I think I have a greater appreciation for the place. I feel very proud of it now, the culture, the heritage, the values it's given me. I don't think I would be able to go back and live there anymore but this time when I did go, I could see beauty in things I would have totally dismissed when I was living there.

I guess discovering photography as my expression helps me narrate my experiences. Here is India (more like New Delhi) through my eyes...
I'm obsessed with patterns! Anything that is repeated or tiles instantly attracts me. And I finally realised where my obsession came from. I could see pattern everywhere I went... art, architecture, textiles, food, clothes, on the street. I particularly loved taking pictures of street sellers with their neatly stacked-up objects. You could see they are really proud of their products with the amount of effort they take in displaying and make them look so beautiful!

My first handmade book

It's been a mad mad week and just a week left before I'm off to my holiday to India and I still have sooo much to do. So as part of the course I'm doing on creating an artist book using hand printing and basic book making & binding techniques, we were taught how to create a very basic three-hole binding technique that I used to create my very first book. It's quite simple but the results that come out are fantastic. I think the toughest part is to cut the paper precisely because even a millimetre off can look quite shabby. I decided to bling it up with this hand-drawn, hand-cut type S and send it as a present for my blogger friend Serena. Hope she likes it.

Robochef packaging

Ever since I attended the rubber stamp carving workshop at The makelounge with the amazing artist Louise Best, I've been pretty bizzy carving loads of stamps for my Etsy shop and have been happily creating wrapping paper to go with all the My Cuppa mugs.

GIANT everything

So everything at work seems to be GIANT today! First I spotted my friend Ross drawing with this MASSIVE pencil and then I spotted this BIG purple balloon in the meeting room! So exciting... I can't wait to see what's next?

Bob the snow angel

Just a lil doodle I did in my sketchbook that I quickly coloured in photoshop. Hope this is what Bob's been doing in Cat heaven. Just miss that boy so damn much!

Winter balloons: Miss Boobie

A new series of illustrations I've been working on called Winter Balloons and the first in this series is Miss Boobie. This illustration was inspired by the dancers of Moulin Rouge. Miss B loves purple and that's all she wears.

A visit to the Museum of Brands

So anybody as fed up of the "the snow" as I am? I still haven't started going to work properly without the whole drama of, will I reach in time or how long will it take me to get there. That's exactly what happened to me last Friday when I got a text from my boss saying there's no point coming to work and that I could take the day off... so to make the most of it and not wanting to battle tubes etc I decided to go the Museum of Brands close to home. It's been on my list of places to visit for a while now. It's hidden in a mews in Notting Hill and is about 15 mins away from Notting Hill gate station but totally worth the effort.

It's not a very big museum but I ended up staying for couple of hours going through the beautiful collection with original products dating back to the late 1800s. Most of the collection use to be a private collection of consumer historian, Robert Opie.


I spotted a lot of brands that I grew up seeing in India and are still available there but had disappeared from the UK markets long ago.

Also spotted a point of sale display and packaging for Real Indian Curry in the 1930-40s section!!! Can't believe people were having curry even then!


Was really interesting to see a lot of know brands with their packaging in linear timeline to see how they've evolved over the years. Some of them still there after 100 years.
The museum also has a online shop. A definite recommendation to anyone who loves packaging, typography, advertising or even just have an interest in history from a consumer point of view.

A walk in the park

Five shadows... Headless Mr. S... Stacked up logs... A snowball fight... A black dog...A lot of snow... A walk in the park...

White before Christmas

So it turned out not to be a White Christmas after all in London. After the madness I faced because of the snow I'm glad that it didn't snow again. This year was a very quiet holiday for us, just relaxing and watching loads of bad bad TV. I decided that with all the meat eating frenzy everywhere I'll give balance it out with not eating meat this year. And even though fish for me is technically meat I had a very fishy Christmas! Just the thought of no prawns or sushi was too much to handle.

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone has a wonderful time!