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My blog
Thoughts on art, design, courses and the creative process.


Sunprinting
I attended a workshop at Boston Figure Art Center, instructed by Eve Sage — you can find her on Instagram @eve.sage.art. It was an introductory workshop to an introductory workshop to cyanotype printing — a type of sun printing done with light sensitive chemicals that produce that characteristic blue tone. All sorts of materials and examples were provided to experiment with. Preparing the paper Finished prints Watching others make theirs was really inspiring and gave me ideas
jayanthi chesetti
May 32 min read


Poster Designs
I watched news reports about air pollution in Delhi and how people needed air purifiers just to breathe indoors. That gave me a thought — instead of advertising an air purifier, what if I made an ad for an indoor plant doing the same job, using that old advertisement style with its witty and exaggerated tone? I had a few other ideas in a similar vein but never acted on them. When I recently decided to apply to a design institute that mentioned environmental concerns as a focu
jayanthi chesetti
May 32 min read


Linoprint Portrait Series
I like the idea of making things that feel handmade and unique — even if a work is reproduced, there is something special about a process that carries a personal touch. So when I carved a face for my orange portrait as part of the color portrait project, it got me thinking — could I use this same block to make multiple different portraits, each one feeling distinct? Linoblock used The first one I had in mind was an American/European portrait with that classic old Hollywood ha
jayanthi chesetti
May 32 min read


Color Theme Portraits
I had been doing watercolor flowers — I had this obsession to fill an entire folder with watercolor flower paintings, so that was all I was doing. After filling my folder, I wanted to try a different subject. I didn't want to just do flowers and stick with watercolors, and to be honest I still struggle with watercolors. So I decided to do portraits. Simply doing portraits felt like it would get boring, and I didn't want to repeat what I did with watercolors — being stubborn a
jayanthi chesetti
May 37 min read


Learning to Trust the Process
I came across an Art2Life advertisement about a 25-day Bloom Challenge. Like most art tutorials and workshops I stumble upon, I blindly signed up and then forgot about it. I happened to come across it again in my email, clicked on it, and Nick talked about the Bloom practice — the idea of feeling your emotions and just painting without worrying about the outcome. I was already late to the challenge and was watching the replays. The comments echoed my own thoughts: what if you
jayanthi chesetti
Mar 244 min read


Exploring Surface Pattern Design
Usually, the way I make surface patterns is to scan or take a photo of my artwork, remove the background, and then build the pattern. This meant my patterns were raster-based, and while scaling them is simple enough, it created unnecessary extra work. I had always been intimidated by SVG, but pattern + print revival workshop by @bonniechristine showed me a simpler approach — a method I hadn't known before — for making patterns. It was a nice introduction to surface pattern d
jayanthi chesetti
Mar 233 min read


Denotation and Connotation — My Take
Whenever I search for courses on graphic design, most courses teach about the software — maybe they cover the fundamentals alongside it, but this is one of the few that teaches fundamentals on their own, without the software component. I took Fundamentals of Graphic Design by CalArts — the first course in their Graphic Design Specialization on Coursera. I have only completed this first one, and it serves as a good introduction. My only complaint is that I wish an actual instr
jayanthi chesetti
Mar 232 min read
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