Friday, June 13, 2014

National Geographic Traveller: India & Let's Get Busy!


I am back from a wonderful trip to England with some VERY exciting news to announce! Before I left, I was asked to create illustrations for the Indian edition of National Geographic Traveller magazine to go with an travel article about places throughout India that were important in the life of Gandhi called, "In the Footsteps of the Mahatma". They used illustrations from Grandfather Gandhi to represent several of these places, and asked me to create three new illustrations in the same style to show different points on Gandhi's life.

As a huge fan of National Geographic and travel illustration, this was a dream job to get. Even more, they surprised me by putting one of my illustrations on the cover of the issue! It was an amazing feeling seeing that iconic golden rectangle around one of my illustrations. Thank you to the innovative editor Niloufer Venkatraman for the opportunity! You can preview the issue on their site, here: National Geographic Traveller: India


First, was his childhood home in Porbandar, which is maintained as a historical site. Here, young Gandhi is shown in his favorite room on the upper floor of the house. He liked to read up there because the room was so airy and well-ventilated.


The second was Rajkot, where Gandhi lived as a boy. He attended the stately Alfred High School in the background (now known as Mohandas Gandhi High School) and loved to play cricket.


The last (and my personal favorite) was Gandhi as a young lawyer in Mumbai, getting off the train in the Churchgate Station.

In other news, I was also recently featured on the Let's Get Busy! Kids Literature podcast, where I was interviewed by the wonderful Matthew Winner! We talk about travel, my upcoming projects, and the story of how I came to work on Grandfather Gandhi! It was a great pleasure to do, so I hope you enjoy listening! (Link below)