365 days 365 sketches!
365 blogs!
More than 30 book reviews!
That’s 2025!
My son had a project in which he was supposed to draw a camel; I saw him painstakingly try to get the legs right!
The proportions and the final structure was coming out slowly but he was not happy!
At one point I told him, “Why don’t you simply trace it!?”
He looked at me and said what I would have said if someone had suggested that to me! “That would not be right; I would not feel satisfied!”
I was proud of him!
Art needs truth!
Even if at first your work is not good, all you have to do is be consistent! Even if it does not look good (like my sketch and rarely blog sometimes!); I still post it!
Nowadays you can use the best tools to write a blog or make a sketch! But like my son says; I would not feel satisfied!
Of course many are gifted artists who can get these results faster; many like me need to be persistent and consistent and cannot take this lightly!
In the book mastery by Robert Greene it is said that you need at least 5-10 thousand hours to be a master! It roughly translates to around 6-10 years of consistent work!
So even if the work is busy like today when I saw more than fifty patients or the other day when I was travelling the whole day with no rest; you can still give around ten to fifteen minutes for your skill!
Just like your body needs your time, your mind also needs it! A sketch and a blog and the NYT puzzle corner are the three things I have to do if I have to sleep with a satisfaction of accomplishing something!
The aim is to make the blog readable and crisp! The issue is that writing a short one is more difficult! The ‘facts’ are taken verbatim to maintain authenticity but the topic and the whole text is pure ‘human’ and original! In this day and age though it is difficult to be neutral and clean! I try! Most of the time it works! I have a clear bias towards India and this ‘shows’ most of the time!
But apart from that I have no ulterior ‘motive’ since I have better things to do!
The sketch is usually of the birthday celebrity or someone ‘famous’ right now or someone whom I respect! Here the issue is when I sketch someone who is controversial when actually anyone can be controversial! I would urge then to look at his or her good stuff and ignore the bad! No one is perfect! Not the person I sketch or the person who is sketching them!
Sometimes though I may sketch someone ‘controversial’ for someone else but here also I have no personal affliction to him or her! It would simply have been his or her birthday or he or she would have won the Padma or some award! If he or she can win an award then me sketching him or her is a simple thing! It does not mean that he or she is my friend or I am his or her ‘agent’!
Then again since I also want to be an artiste one day, I have huge respect for artists! They have been given the gift to entertain and how! Like the sketch of the day; Chetan Anand! Even he is not perfect like my sketch!
So I try to see through the imperfections and sketch them! Imperfectly!
Then again that is life! It is not perfect! It simply goes on however it is…
Sharing both the sketch and the collage of 2025!
Let’s see how it’s goes!
Shubh ratri…
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