Yash

Drawn from a single held pose — the moment before the beat lands, when the whole body is decided but nothing has moved yet. The halo behind her is the only invented thing in the drawing.

Charcoal, chalk, and nine sittings.

Tusker,
Blue

Painted close enough that the animal will not fit inside its own frame. The blue behind him is flat and untroubled; everything difficult is in the skin, built up in layers until the surface holds light the way hide does.

One of four studies. The only one on canvas.

Two birds facing each other across a single stem, drawn in the temple-panel tradition — every curve laid in by hand, no repeats, no ruler. The paper has aged into the colour the design was always going to need.

The Boy
and the Sitar

He is laughing at whoever is holding the brush, not at us. The sitar is nearly as tall as he is and he has no intention of playing it — the lotus in his fist is the real instrument here.

In the artist's original frame.