The earth Laughs in flowers :)- references and research

The Valley of Flowers references.

this is where I need to live too :D

inside a tree, in a valley of flowers.

this research is driving me crazy!! I'm constanly finding new things that are totally awe inspiring.

ZZJANG!

wanderlust is happening. But i will not leave to the himalayas.

instead i will create an ipad app. 

WOOHOO

:D

anyway

research about the valley of flowers.

So I was seeing the Flower personification as these keywords-

beauty, abundance, romantics, giggling, flowery (hee)

feminine- bhakti.

been reading about hindu flowers.

So cyoote. 

ashok means 'one without grief'

its said to alleviate people from grief..sita cries under it to soothe herself waiting for rama.

parijita falls in love with the sun, is scorned and so becomes a flower that only blooms at nigth because she can't stand the sight of her lover.

sheds her petals like tear drops at sunrise!!

and we all know the significance of the lotus so i'm not even going to get into that!

champas adorn krishna's ears. malati adorn womens braids,

vakul blossoms only when sprinkled by nectar from the mouth of a beautiful woman,

kamadeva, the indian god of desire, uses flowers like champa and chamelis as his arrows to make people fall in love. :D

SO MUCH LOVE!!

another eenteresting local legend about the valley of flowers in the himalayas, is that people

believe it's inhabited by fairies. and that if you wander around, you can get abducted by fairies hiding amongst the flowers.

and and and! remember in the ramayan when lakshman falls ill, hanuman is sent to the himalayas from lanka to get a certain herb to heal him? And hanuman doesnt know what to do so he just picks up the whole mountain? 

Same place! its said to have the most amount of medicinal flowers and plants!! 

eeeeenteresting indeed. 

so I started to imagine the valley of flowers to be a place that's a mixes these myths

with the Lotus Eater myth. Remember that?

A space of oblivion and languor. 

of sweet nothings.

the Odyssey IX says 

"I was driven thence by foul winds for a space of 9 days upon the sea, but on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eaters, who live on a food that comes from a kind of flower. Here we landed to take in fresh water, and our crews got their mid-day meal on the shore near the ships. When they had eaten and drunk I sent two of my company to see what manner of men the people of the place might be, and they had a third man under them. They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-Eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eaters without thinking further of their return; nevertheless, though they wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made them fast under the benches. Then I told the rest to go on board at once, lest any of them should taste of the lotus and leave off wanting to get home, so they took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars."^[1]

So there we go!

the valley of flowers.

a place where maya and talisma

wander into. At first enamoured and overwhelmed by all the beauty. Giggling flower fairies totally in love with them

giving them all the abundance in the world, but so ignored post the taqseem that they don't want these two children to leave.

and they find themselves unable to escape. 

Now, for the fairy feefle.

I'm thinking, that I'm a little tired of conventional depictions of fairies.

mainly because it's a little predictable and overdone

also because it's a very victorian depiction. very western over tea and scones types.

so i started thinking...indian fairies.

and pari is a literal translation of angel.

however Parees are also depicted with like lofy white feather wings and all

too victorias secret.

an Apsara is like a nymph and also known to seduce *wiggles eyebrows *

and thats what these flowers in the valley do.

not seduce in a sexual sense though because this is a kids book and I don't want to go to jail.

So i started to look at pictures at apsaras and they are quite beautifully depicted me thinks. 

So lovely :) 

and i started to think about other such Indian elements that could bring in that feeling.

and came to - 

Old indian actresses.

Madhubala 

definitely fairy material yo!

except adorned and decked with flowers. :) 

YUMMY

Beautiful reference images!

I want to live in a house like that.

or a temple would be nice too.

This is BIG time inspiration for sarpa's environment.
old temples and trees.
perfection :)
Notice how the stone sculptures of snakes are always under trees in India?
So many connections!

snake images courtesy Priya iyer.

and this one is stolen from picasa.

INDIANS LOVE SNAKES.

YES WE DOOOO!

Inspired!

So I discovered Benjamin Lacombe the other day.
Whoosh! what a total brilliance!
check that out

totally inspired :)

SO lovely :) see more of his stuff - Here

Another inspiration this week is 

Dave Mckean

I was gifted this book by Chocka

last week and I've been tripping on this artwork.

it's line drawings,photographs painted over, textures and random type!

I love it!

he's also the genius behind MIRROR MASK

and CORALINE.

Check him out :)  

Sarpa

this is a rough character sketch

Sarpa means serpent.

So many connections. A common theme in creation myths is the symbol of the snake and the world tree

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(symbolism)

This is where our world is created too.

We begin the chapter of the earth with an entry into the folds of a tree.

dark chambers. snakes curled up.

Here we meet Sarpa.

this is another interesting link to note- the connection and reoccurence of snakes and women.

Eve, Lilith, many of our Indian Goddesses, Minoan matriarchal figures,

the earth mother. A chthonic link it seems.

Lots of very intruiging feminist interpretations of the Serpent's bride.

Post genesis, both eve and the serpent are condemned but perhaps this is a patriarchal edit.

read : 

http://thequeenofheaven.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/asherah-part-ii-the-serpents-bride/

for more :) 

So there we have it. The serpent. Eternally reborn, a guardian, symbol of wisdom, secrets, intuition, 

mystical, magical and forked tongue.

this is where our story begins..

Some of the ideas I'm working with in order to create a convincing character with sarpa- Symbolism of Snakes in Indian Mythology, vishnu's coiled serpent, Nagas, ancient esoterics and some red and green. :) 

some of my references.

Snakecharmer

As the gods began one world, and man another,

So the snakecharmer begins a snaky sphere

With moon-eye, mouth-pipe. He pipes. Pipes green. Pipes water.

Pipes water green until green waters waver

With reedy lengths and necks and undulatings.

And as his notes twine green, the green river

Shapes its images around his songs.

He pipes a place to stand on, but no rocks,

No floor: a wave of flickering grass tongues

Supports his foot. He pipes a world of snakes,

Of sways and coilings, from the snake-rooted bottom

Of his mind. And now nothing but snakes

Is visible. The snake-scales have become

Leaf, become eyelid; snake-bodies, bough, breast

Of tree and human. And he within this snakedom

Rules the writhings which make manifest

His snakehood and his might with pliant tunes

From his thin pipe. Out of this green nest

As out of Eden's navel twist the lines

Of snaky generations: let there be snakes!

And snakes there were, are, will be--till yawns

Consume this piper and he tires of music

And pipes the world back to the simple fabric

Of snake-warp, snake-weft. Pipes the cloth of snakes

To a melting of green waters, till no snake

Shows its head, and those green waters back to

Water, to green, to nothing like a snake.

Puts up his pipe, and lids his moony eye.

-sylvia plath

Strangely enough...I did this snake charmer illustration randomly a few weeks before Khoya.2 began.

Khoya- Back in Black

So right now, I've just started working with Khoya in it's second avatar with the Toy Lab (website coming sooooon)

 I've been thinking about all the narrative possibilities with the I-pad and how 'storytelling' would evolve through it.

So far, a lot of the narrative explorations with the Ipad haven't really opened up to what 'Touch' can do to a story, they seem to be a translation of a book onto 

another medium with minor adaptations like being able to turn a page or make somethings on screen move around.
Imagine...it's the first time we have here Word, Image, Sound, Movement, Time and Touch come together to create a narrative experience. 

It's fascinating! :) 

As you may remember, 'Khoya' means lost, and it's a fantasy narrative for children and adults about the disappearing natural world and the power of the imagination to re-establish a link with childhood, with love and with nature.

In the second chapter, it deals entirely with the Earth element and becomes a journey into the imagination. I've just about started initial interactive explorations with the Ipad but some of the ideas are turning out to be very exciting and unlike anything I've ever heard before.

Bringing together the technological and the tangible. Magic and Machinery. :) 

Back in Black

Lets do a Recap Shall we? :)

Khoya is an interactive fantasy novel for children Illustrated, Animated, Conceptualized
and partly written by me.
What makes it interactive is that is uses a technology called Augmented Reality to bridge the gap between the tangible (a book) and the technological.
It also bridges my two loves (amongst many)- animation and print.
How it does this is that the book has a variety of 'markers' or symbols with limericks on how to use them, the reader, while reading a page, picks up these markers and brings it to their webcam, and using visual recognition the marker triggers off an animation in real time. So in a sense one 'brings the book to life'.

Using this technology one can become different characters in the book, unlock riddles or simply watch as the illustrations in the book start to move. :)
A User-interaction Video coming soon. But here are some spreads from chapter 1 for now.
It's designed for children above the age of 12.


Credit Roll:

Original concept, Illustration, Animation and Design by Shilo Shiv Suleman

Augmented Reality, programming and further conceptualization
Dhruv Nawani
Anders Sandell

Written by Shilo Shiv Suleman and Avijit Michael with inputs from Hari Adivarekar.

Contributers and Conceptualizers

Nilofer Suleman, Arshia Sattar, Molly and Maya, Anders Sandell, Ampat Varghese, Gayatri Ganju, Kunal Sen, Vani Sreekanta, Mana Dhanraj and the Toys Lab

Some writeups about Khoya :)

http://www.timeoutbangalore.com/kids/kids_preview_details.asp?code=114

from TIME OUT BANGALORE Delving into the realm of interactive books, Priya George reports on the changing modes of storytelling. “Children love to relate to the characters within narratives in books; that is what captivates them,” said Shilo Shiv Suleman, an illustrator who is attempting to turn that fascination into an actual immersive experience by creating books that kids can “interact” with. A final-year student of animation from the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, the 21-year-old, who has also worked extensively as a freelance artist, will soon publish Khoya, a book which she wrote and designed. Khoya is a traditional fantasy story about a boy and a girl in a dystopian setting in which all the spirits of the natural world have been banished. Where it differs from other children’s books is that Khoya is an experiment in interactive storytelling incorporating a technology called Augmented Reality. “Khoya came about as an attempt to bring together two very distinct, yet similar, narrative experiences – that of animation and that of books,” said Suleman. Describing how AR works, Suleman said that each page of her book has a card with a symbol on it. The child has to hold the card up to bring this symbol in front of a webcam, which reads the image. On the screen the symbol transforms into an animated story element which takes the story forward, or provides answers to riddles on the page. “By adding an interactive element, one feels not just like an observer but a participant in the magic of the story,” said Suleman, who was helped in the software and tech aspects of the work by Dhruv Nawani, also from Srishti. Suleman’s efforts are indicative of trends in the publishing world that expand the ways in which stories are told. Childrens’ books publishers Tulika recently introduced two of their popular titles as downloadable books that can be read on the iPhone and iPad. One of the titles they chose were Who Will Rule? ,by Meena Raghunathan, illustrated by Harsha Nagaraju, which is based loosely on an Australian aboriginal tale about what happens when a group of creatures decides that the largest sect amongst them should rule the world. The second title, Ekki Dokki, is a bilingual tale in Hindi and English written by Sandhya Rao, accompanied by Ranjan De’s illustrations, adapted from a Marathi folktale about two sisters named Ekkesvali and Dhonkesvali who meet an old woman living alone in a clearing in the middle of a forest. With the help of Fliplog, an e-book publishing framework designed and developed by Apptility Software, Tulika developed e-versions of the books with page-by-page audio (the text can be accompanied by audio, with multiple language options) and a feature where readers can record their own voices for dialogues and narration to accompany the story. Brij Singh, Founder and CEO of Apptility, who worked on the development of the Tulika titles, said, “Fliplog is based on a belief that the reading experience as we know it is about to undergo a significant change thanks to iPad and similar devices.” Singh cited features such as the inclusion of sound and video into book packages as advantages of new book formats, along with basic elements like page swiping, the audiovisual representation of turning pages on screens. According to him, these features allow young readers to feel they are in command of the experience. “They control navigation and easily find their own way to enjoy the book,” he said. Renu Kaushal Singh, a pre-school teacher, is mother to ten-year-old Pranav, who uses his father’s iPad to read interactive books. She felt that the fact that the book was on a gadget was what got her son interested. Although she sees advantages to the format, especially while travelling, she maintained that she would “still love to read Amar Chitra Katha and Panchatantra for my children, and would push them to read physical books”. When asked if children are moving away from reading traditional books, Suleman said that she does notice that children prefer to google information rather than sift through books in libraries, and that movie versions of tales catch on much faster than their book counterparts. However, she remains convinced of the encompassing power of stories, regardless of their format. She recounted the origins of Khoya in a childhood fantasy she had that if she ate a seed, a tree would sprout from her stomach or her head. “This seems to be a very common childhood fantasy,” she said. “It’s this collective consciousness which makes Khoya an engaging read. So nothing much has changed.” Downloadable book apps for Who Will Rule $1.99 (approximately Rs 100) and Ekki Dokki$2.99 (approximately Rs 200) are available on iTunes. Visit www.apple.com/itunes.

And in DNA mumbai

http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report_more-than-just-a-storybook_1473141

The initial drafts and illustrations of Shilo Shiv Suleman’s soon-to-be-released children’s book, Khoya, look promising. It narrates a tale of two children trying to change their dystopian world. But Khoya is not just a book. It holds its own secrets between the pages.

If the child has access to a computer, the internet and a webcam, Khoya lets her explore a technology called Augmented Reality. Each page comes with a card that has a riddle and symbol on it.

The child can visit the website listed in the book, switch the webcam on, and put the card in front of it. If she takes out a card shaped like an eye patch, slips it over her eye, and stands in front of the webcam with another card held close to her heart, the screen will identify the cards, while the child sees herself transform into one of the characters on screen. In some cases, the image serves as a clue to where the narrative is headed; in others, the child will suddenly find herself with one of the story’s characters sitting on her shoulder and cawing into the ear.

Technology in fantasy
Suleman, however, wasn’t so ambitious when she first set out to write and illustrate the book. The idea of Khoya came from the song Khoya Khoya Chand from the film Kala Bazaar (1960), a favourite of Suleman’s. That, and a childhood story she believed to be true: if you eat a seed, a tree will grow inside your stomach.

“I wanted to play with the ideas of a lost world where bizarre things happen to people. I wanted the book to be much more interactive than an ordinary book that only makes you imagine inside your head,” she says. At first, Suleman thought a pop-up book would do it, but then her animator friend, Dhruv Nawani, introduced her to Augmented Reality and she discovered how it can change the whole experience of reading a book.

The techie feel of Khoya does not, however, render it any less absorbing for kids who don’t have a computer and webcam. One can read the book as it comes, too. 
Till recently, interactivity in children’s books meant encouraging participation by introducing textures, volvelles (paper discs that can be rotated and used for calculations or to solve word games), flaps and pop-outs. But the latest innovations in IT may just change children’s storytelling forever.

redone (once again) number 3

spread 9 (there is too much text in spread 9 as of now..thats being edited)

wip for spread about the priests of the nasha.

7

However this is very much wip at the moment. the guy needs a haircut and there are people who are prostating under him and throwing money.

crow work in progress.

reworked spread 3

and one more :)