I drew as much as any other kid but I just never stopped! When I went to university, I studied Communication Design and, by the end of my degree, realised that all I really wanted to do was draw. Looking back, almost every project I created somehow ended up being illustrated. On the day of my portfolio review, I landed my very first freelance project with the local newspaper, and that pretty much set the ball rolling. I've been drawing professionally ever since. 🙂

For years, I drew almost everything on paper using a Pentel brush pen. I'd scan the finished ink drawing and colour it digitally in Photoshop. Nowadays, I work almost entirely digitally, both for sketching and colouring. My go-to tools are Photoshop, Procreate, and Premiere Pro.

I don't think I ever found my style…I think it's still finding me. It continues to evolve as I grow as a person and an artist. That said, drawing every single day naturally leads you towards a way of illustrating that feels comfortable and unmistakably your own.

In university, my style changed every few months depending on whatever medium I found fun. It only stayed put once I started illustrating full time, with more to draw than time to experiment, and even since then it has evolved tremendously.

One of my early mentors, Bill Wood, could draw in many styles, and clients came to him for everything from kids’ books to instructional booklets. That’s when I realised style may not be the only reason one gets clients. I settled into mine because it was what I was most comfortable with, and the quickest.

The honest trade-off is that my style is now an expectation, which also means some clients won’t approach me for things it doesn’t look suited to, even if I could do them. So if you don’t feel comfortable with a style, you need not have one. Experiment! You may stick to one ultimately, or you may not. Both can work.

I've (accidentally) developed a system that makes it almost impossible to face a blank page. I jot down ideas whenever and wherever they arrive because inspiration seems to have terrible timing. They may pop into my head while I'm walking, in the shower, or halfway through making my fourth cup of coffee. The ideas that end up being in a notebook or on my phone become an eternal bank of things to draw when I get back to my desk.

Before I started doing this, I definitely went through creative slumps too. The best cure, I've found, isn't forcing yourself to come up with ideas bur rather changing your routine or environment. A walk, a good conversation, books or even just stepping away from the studio can do wonders.

You just decide that it’s finished. Or you run out of time.

You never really stop practising. Or rather, you never stop creating, and creating is, in itself, a form of practice.

I wouldn’t worry too much about how many hours you’re putting in. Just keep making things. Draw often, try new things, make terrible things, make things you love, and somewhere along the way, you’ll realise you’ve got better.

I think copying, in a very broad sense, is actually part of learning. You look at work you love, figure out what you love about it, try things, borrow techniques and experiment. The important thing is not to try to become one particular artist or mimic directly. 

Look at lots of different work. Try different mediums. Draw things you actually enjoy drawing. Over time, bits and pieces of everything you’ve learnt gets mixed in with your own quirks, preferences and way of seeing things.

And mostly, just keep making. The more you draw, the less you have to consciously try to find a style. Eventually, something that looks like you starts showing up all by itself.

Both! I draw almost entirely digitally for client work, but for personal work, I love experimenting with different mediums, including paints and colour pencils.

For briefs or work that’s going to print, I tend to stick to digital simply because my process is tried and tested, and it makes for a much more predictable delivery when it comes to timelines and final output.

I'm a big scheduler. I don't plan my life down to the minute, but I absolutely plan by the hour. With a child to raise, a business to run, client deadlines and feedback to juggle, and a household that itself raises an endless to-do list, my brain has enough going on already. My planner is basically my second brain. If it's not written down, it simply doesn't exist. But this also goes hand-in-hand with my absolute goldfish memory. And also, how I got into making planners! 

Every project is a little different, so illustration fees vary depending on the brief, timeline, complexity, size, and intended usage. If you have a project in mind (or even just fancy saying hello), «drop me a line.»

When you illustrate commercially, you’re never really given a blank canvas. It’s challenging in a nice way: working creatively within constraints. Sometimes those constraints push you to come up with solutions you might never have thought of otherwise, and find the best way to make a brief work.

But it’s also very important to take the time to draw simply for the sake of drawing. That’s your blank canvas. Your soul speaking. Your happy place.

I’ve been lucky enough to be contacted by all the clients I’ve worked with, possibly because I’m quite public with my work. Get a portfolio online first, then approach people. We live in a time when most people are just an email or message away. Reach out, and keep reaching out. Showcase your work. Pitch ideas. And keep at it until your portfolio is full of projects that have made their way out of your head and into the world.

First of all, congratulations on writing a book!

Over the past few years, I've limited myself to illustrating just one or two books a year, simply because they require a much bigger time commitment than most of the other projects I take on. As a result, I'm usually booked up in advance.

I'd still love to hear what you have in mind, but these days I generally only take on projects that already have a publisher, or a clear publishing route, in place.

I wish I had the time to teach in person, but I never seem to! I did put together a couple of «Skillshare classes »(on business and merchandising), and I'd love to create some drawing classes in the future.

I work from home with a fairly erratic schedule, constantly switching between client work, running my own brand, admin, marketing, content creation, and everything else that lands on my plate depending on the day (or month!). Because of that, I don't usually have interns or assistants. I also happen to work best on my own in my hermit-y ways.

I do have a lovely team who run the online store, and they occasionally accept interns, so you're very welcome to «send them your portfolio». I pop into the studio from time to time, but sadly I don't get the chance to mentor interns one-on-one.

Oh, this is probably the question I get asked the most. I’ve seen illustrations being done for as little as ₹2,000 and go all the way up to lakhs. I don’t particularly like telling people what’s right or wrong to charge, but if you consistently charge too little for your work, it may simply not be sustainable as a career unless you increase your rates over time.

Estimates depend on so many things: the intricacy of the illustration, how and where it will be used, the scale of the campaign, your experience in the market, and, eventually, what you specifically bring to the project.

When you’re starting out, honestly, there can be a lot of throwing numbers around and hoping for the best. When I was just starting out, I once asked someone at an agency, after we’d started working together, whether I had priced the project correctly. He was kind enough to tell me I could have charged a little more! And that gave me an indicator of where to start from next time I got approached.

Sometimes you can literally just ask. Clients have budgets. Some have room to stretch and some simply don’t. But it helps enormously to have your own rate card or a set of base rates to work from, so you’re not inventing a number from scratch every single time.

In India, I’ve found this can still be a bit of a grey area. For regular print work, I usually quote with an understanding of where and how the illustration will be used, and that may include the right to use it across multiple applications.

Campaigns and advertising are a little different. There can be an additional usage fee over and above the illustration fee, depending on how long the work will be used, where it will appear and how widely the campaign will run.

The important thing is to know what you’re actually giving the client when you send over the final artwork. Creating an illustration and giving someone unlimited rights to use that illustration forever and everywhere aren’t necessarily the same thing. Have everything in writing on mail when you’re giving your estimates so it’s all clearly spelt out.

I feel like I’ve been very lucky to have worked with considerate clients. Feedback has generally been minimal and, more importantly, a conversation.

If you receive feedback that you genuinely feel doesn’t make sense, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with discussing it and explaining your point of view. In fact, I think that’s often appreciated. Your knowledge, experience and perspective are part of the reason you were hired in the first place.

At the same time, it is their project too, so sometimes the answer is simply to make the change if it’s truly what they want and move on!

I say yes to almost anything I know I can deliver well, as long as the timelines, budget and expectations make sense.

Of course, it’s wonderful when the project is something I’m genuinely excited about, but not every job has to be a dream project. Sometimes it’s interesting because of the challenge, sometimes because of the people, sometimes because it pays well, and sometimes because it lets you try something you haven’t done before.

I tend to say no when I know I can’t give the project what it needs, whether that’s because of time, budget, the scope of work or simply because I’m not the right person for it. It would be unfair to take a project I know I can’t deliver on.

I’ve never had an agent, so I’m probably not the right person to answer this one! I’ve managed my own client work throughout my career and it has worked for me, but that doesn’t mean having an agent wouldn’t be enormously useful for someone else.

Scheduling. A lot of scheduling.

I try to treat work for my own brand like client work rather than something I’ll get around to when I have spare time, because spare time has a funny way of never coming around.

There are definitely times when client work takes over and times when my own projects take priority, so I don’t think there’s ever a perfect balance. It’s more about constantly moving things around and making sure neither side disappears completely.