Shafali
Pen and Ink Portrait of an Indian Tribal Woman from the Gadaba Tribe of Odisha
I completed this pen and ink portrait of a woman from the Gadaba tribe of India. The most important piece of their jewelry is the twin-neckrings they were all their lives. The neck-rings that together weigh about 1.5 kgs are called Khagla that all grownup women of the community wear. The Khagla is put around […]
Portrait of an Indian Tribal (Dhaneta Jat) Woman.
Dear Visitors, How’ve you been? The Covid Lockdown has been hard on all of us in different measures. However, we must do the best we can with what we have – and I had these drawing pens threatening to go dry on me. So I present to you this portrait of an Indian woman. She […]
The Highborn Lady – A Pen and Ink Caricature-drawing.
Read the Story, “The Highborn Lady and the Golden-haired Girl” here. Off to fetch some animal-drawings 🙂
Pen and Ink Portraits of a Different Kind…
… and of a different era 🙂 Here are two illustrations that I did quite long ago (in 2003) and they belong to a genre called fantasy art. The one I loved best was that of a woman warrior. I had got it framed too, but some years ago, our office was robbed and the […]
Pet Portrait Commission: A Handsome Lhasa Apso.
Another portrait that I did for a Christmas gift was this handsome Lhasa Apso with a devil-may-care attitude. It was a challenge to get those eyes right, because they were often hidden behind his fur, but in the end I did get them right, and got an approval from Ike’s human dad, “Yep, that’s Ike!” […]
Pet Portrait Commission: A Cute Border Terrier from Fairfax, VA.
While I am not totally healed, I am trying to return to my normal routine 🙂 For the first time in my life (I think,) I’ve not sketched nor drawn or painted for one straight month. While I’ve tried to blog, most of my blogging attempts have been feeble at best. As I’ve said in […]
Welcoming the New Year with some Crazy Pen and Ink Portraits.
The year was tough…and it ended on a tough note. Actually, I am rather relieved to see the back of this year and I am looking forward with hope and anticipation toward the New Year. Here are a few pen and ink caricature-portraits that just spilled out of my pen, uncalled, unbidden. I’ll shortly share […]
Christmas Gifts of Pet Portraits – A furry pawsome reason for not blogging enough.
You can tell when an artist blogger is busy. It’s when she isn’t making any new posts. Unlike writer bloggers who don’t have to get out of their writing-mindset for making a blog post, we artists need to break the flow of our artistic endeavors to step into our awkward writing shoes, before we make a post, […]
Terrier-ized for Life!
A simple Terrier drawing that just happened. Life has been pretty rough lately and when what started as a simple doodle changed into this drawing, even I was surprised. Lesson Learned: Life is full of little surprises. Every little thing you do, results in something. Inaction, however, results in nothing. This drawing began with that little […]
Presenting the Portrait of Her Furry Majesty, Ms. Khyra of Pennsylvania!
Ladies and Gentlemen of both furry and non-furry kinds, I take immense pleasure in introducing you to one of the most beautiful Siberian Huskies in the world. Please meet Ms. Khyra a.k.a. Ms. Fluffy Tail, who rules the heart of Ms. Wise. You can meet her at Khyra’s Khorner (http://khyraskhorner.blogspot.com) I always, always, always wanted […]
Father’s eyes fastened to the summer-skies…cross-posting from my other blog.
The most terrible and unimaginable fate that can befall a father is that his daughter is raped violently and then killed. The two cases that made me cry silent tears were the Badaun Rape case or the Delhi Rape case – just two among thousands of other such cases.  I’ve talked about the experience of writing and drawing […]
Artists and Writers who don’t deserve to be seen or read!
Recently, I’ve had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that some artists and writers have been criminals of the worst kind. Last year I came to terms with the reality of Enid Blyton’s unfortunate treatment of her daughters and her husband. I sometimes wonder why a person who was smart enough to write such good […]
A Portrait of a Terrific Terrier in Pen & Ink – A commission from the Past.
This is the portrait of Mr. Dewey Dewster. This handsome dog is a bachelor-boy who lives with his mom and his adopted brother who is a Lakeland Terrier. One of these days, I’ll be drawing his mom too. I’ve already received the photographs for reference 🙂 You can read the post that I made about […]
A Nice Little Tutorial on Pen and Ink Drawing coming up shortly :)
This week is dedicated to a huge scene that I am creating (literally, and I am using the word to mean what it meant several decades ago. If you didn’t know, “Literally” now means “figuratively. Go Figure!) I’ll share more details on my caricatures blog when I can. In the meantime, I am here to […]
A Pen and Ink Portrait from a Photograph.
First, the story. Quickly. This portrait is of an FB friend of mine and it was inspired by her avatar image (which you see as an inset in the following picture.) I love drawing people too and though this blog has so far not displayed many of my people-portraits, I have done many in the […]
The Bengal Tiger – Beautiful and Mighty
“For millions of years, on average, one species became extinct every century…. We are now heaving more than a thousand different species of animals and plants off the planet every year.” – Douglas Adams  Author of “Last Chance to See.” Portrait of Bengal Tiger Bengal Tiger is the name the given to a species of tiger which […]
Portrait of the Super-awesome Pup – The Pet Portrait Artist gets the Commission of her Dreams.
My dog had been hounding me to do her portrait. No, she hadn’t approached me directly. That definitely would’ve been beneath her station. She did what pets always do. She sent her dad for the negotiations. Here’s the result: You can see the details in the following picture. Portrait of Oorvi – A Custom Commission If […]
Dog and Pup Tattoos: Miley Cyrus gets Floyd tattooed on her Torso.
Miley Cyrus has found a new way to stay in news. She’s got her dog Floyd tattooed on her torso, about six inches under her left underarm. Floyd was an Alaskan Klee Kai. The newspaper says that this is Miley’s way of beating the depression that she’s been experiencing since Floyd’s death. I think it’s […]
My dog’s dad commissioned me to do her Portrait :)
Finally, it’s happened. A Pet-portrait Commission; I’ve been commissioned to do my own dog’s portrait, and believe it or not, it isn’t a-portrait-for-an-eat-out/order-in kind of art-commission; it’s a fee-based commission.  So I worked a little harder this week and now I am all set to start inking the portrait of my fur-kid. Not that she hasn’t […]
Portrait of a Horse and Poetry in Motion
“The essential joy of being with horses is that it brings us in contact with the rare elements of grace, beauty, spirit, and fire.” – Sharon Ralls Lemon Portrait of a Horse Horses were first domesticated more than four thousand years ago. Except some in North America, almost everywhere else, the horses you find are […]
The Feline Mystique – A Young Cat with Hypnotic Eyes.
“Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the gods, and the judge of words, and the president of the sovereign chiefs and the governor of the holy Circle; thou art indeed the Great Cat.” – Inscription on the Royal Tombs at Thebes. Portrait of an adolescent short-haired tabby Cat Cats have always been considered […]
The Caring Protector – The Rottweiler
“I have a dream that one day I will not be judged by my appearance…but by the content of my character.” –  Though based on martin Luther’s speech, this was adapted for the Rottweiler by Anonymous. Portrait of the Rottweiler Rottweiler have been named after the ancient town of Rottweil in Germany. (I sometimes […]
The Cute and Fun-loving Chihuahua
A Chihuahua is the littlest dog you can find anywhere. I am sure that Edith Wharton was talking about us the Chihuahuas, when she wrote this: “My little dog – a heartbeat at my feet.” But why at her feet, when we could easily snuggle into her lap and she wouldn’t even feel the weight? […]
The Gentle Giant – The Mastiff
Sydenham Edwards, wrote in 1800 in the Cynographia Britannica: “What the Lion is to the Cat the Mastiff is to the Dog, the noblest of the family; he stands alone, and all others sink before him. His courage does not exceed his temper and generosity, and in attachment he equals the kindest of his […]
Shafali's Pen & Ink Portrait Art 