🎨 art & chai ☕ Issue #2

Back pain is a 🐝tch! 💢 (And a kinda BIG news!)

I don’t know about getting wiser with age but getting hurt, pulling a muscle, ending up on bed-rest??? PIECE. OF. CAKE. 🙃

As I am on a MAJOR, STRESSFUL DEADLINE, let’s get right into it! 🔥

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New character designs for portfolio~

i) I’ve been meaning to draw new art for my portfolio but keeping up with paid projects has taken priority. In December, I did manage to start sketching an idea and only got as far as the above sketch before taking a break from it.

That means, it’s summer now and I will have to give these girls new outfits. 😂

ii) #The100DayProject is back! It’s a project where you create (something specific) for a 💯 days.

Last year was my first time participating and boy, it took me many months to get to 30 pages before I concluded my project there. I was losing motivation and chose to stop there. This year, I am hoping to get to a 100 drawings of “something”!

You can learn more about the project on

#The100DayProject Newsletter

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Last year, my choice of project was do line-drawings of outdoor places in my sketchbook and below are some of my drawings. 😊

Some pages from my project~

You can check out all 30 pages by supporting me on Ko-fi!

And I will be sharing more about this year’s project in the next newsletter~

iii) And now, the kinda BIG news!!! 🎉 I am very excited to share that I will be illustrating stories for CHAMPAK MAGAZINE! 🎇

For those who don’t know, CHAMPAK is one of India’s oldest and leading children’s magazine which has been in publication since 1969! I grew up reading it and absolutely loved it. I am so very happy that I would now be contributing to it and kids would be looking at my drawings. 😊

I had to do a test for their process and below is one of the illustrations I drew.

A market scene for Champak~

My first story illustrations will be published in March 2023, Issue 1, coming out on the 1st of March!~ 💛

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i) In the middle of January, I ended up with a back/shoulder injury which put me on bed-rest for 2 weeks. 🤧 It meant I was behind my work schedule, losing days and also, bored out of my mind.

I was strictly on bed-rest and could only sleep/lie down on ONE side, all the time, any time I was in bed (which was a lot LOL). And, that sucks. But, it also led to a 90% recovery in those 2 weeks!

Super grateful for my family for all the help and support, literally, they helped me get up from bed in the middle of the night when I had to use the bathroom. 💛

A comic documenting my back/shoulder injury. I drew this after recovery. 💛

ii) Another celebratory news!!! Harper Collins Union has voted to ratify the contract!!!!

This means that, after being on strike since November 10, 2022, the union workers have returned to work from February 21, 2023! Super happy about this! 🎉

On the next issue, I will be sharing pre-order links to the GN I am coloring! (It will definitely be finished by issue #3, woo-hoo!) 👻

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You can read each issue of this newsletter a week early by supporting me on Ko-fi~

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See you all next time! 💛