Somehow this pandemic year is coming to an end and I can’t really complain, I learnt more than I ever thought possible and I was always into something; there was no time to get bored or dejected. Except that one time when I was quarantined due to anosmia and that’s when I pulled out my sketch note and started sketching late into the nights. This pandemic year will stand out for this… for the late night sketchings, for discovering watercolours again, for stumbling upon Tantra Yoga, for our evening zumba sessions, for all the time spent in the terrace playing shuttlecock, for experimental baking, and for cherishing love that only seems to grow stronger and magical with each passing day.
While cutting out these little boxes to make Christmas cards, my niece was fashioning an open box like the one above and she was telling me how they did some school project. That’s when it struck me, the idea of a miniature crib and here’s the one I made that is the size of my palm. When I sent this picture to a cousin’s group, one of them exclaimed “Breathtaking. Jesus must be rolling wherever he is now for not being born in this one.”
Anyway, I drew, painted and cut out figures of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus and attached them to the bottom of the box. I drew a midnight sky, and a star in the distance and I put three cute little angels on each wall.
Painted these cute little angels on the sides of the box… here’s one hanging on the moon.
Here’s another in green with long hair…
And here’s another little one hovering near baby Jesus.
And here’s the divine child… just added some strips of paper around and when the hometown gang dropped by home, I was showing them this crib when one of them quipped, what is baby Jesus doing among french fries? Well, life can never get boring when there’s so much colour everywhere.