“…Hope It Brings a Smile to a Child’s Face Soon” – Sangeeta Das on the #6FrameStoryChallenge
10 years ago
We knew of Sangeeta Das’ talents when she volunteered to be a Pratham Books Champion in 2013. We saw how she created masks and soft toys for her storytelling sessions, but we had not seen her illustration work till… well, the #6FrameStoryChallenge. Sangeeta found out about the challenge a lit late and was unwell and had to push herself to finish the images as early as possible. “I enjoyed every moment of this challenge as it was not too easy for me. But I am happy with the results and hope it brings a smile to a child’s face soon”, says Sangeeta. Dive right into the story Sangeeta has created for us – ‘The Big Haul’.
On why Sangeeta took the #6FrameStoryChallenge:
Well as a writer I first imagine the story and then the visual. So that way I know how to work with words. But I have never done so with images. Often when I see a strong visual I start imagining what went on behind the image & how it came into being. So when this challenge came up it was something I could relate to. As a matter of fact I wouldn’t even give away my 6 words to the writer, at first. It would be really interesting to just let the author see the images randomly not in any order and imagine what I might have thought about. That would be a real test of my illustration and how well we can communicate non verbally. Whether at all my pictures can speak a 1000 words or not. It might lead to wild imaginations and that would be fun.
(Sangeeta Das calls herself an artist without a license. “That means I don’t have any formal training or degree in art.
I am largely self taught and have been working as a graphics artist, designer and visualizer for the
past 15 yrs. I have worked as a programmer to web designer, to animation and film designer,
anything that provided ample creative challenge to me. I worked with some NGO’s and
I am also a writer. I travel extensively and write travel stories. Recently I started writing short stories
for children. I published two short stories for teenagers. I am also a theater performer and a crafts
enthusiast. So I combine my interest and skill in making paper toys and stuff toys and theater to do
storytelling”, says Sangeeta)
I am largely self taught and have been working as a graphics artist, designer and visualizer for the
past 15 yrs. I have worked as a programmer to web designer, to animation and film designer,
anything that provided ample creative challenge to me. I worked with some NGO’s and
I am also a writer. I travel extensively and write travel stories. Recently I started writing short stories
for children. I published two short stories for teenagers. I am also a theater performer and a crafts
enthusiast. So I combine my interest and skill in making paper toys and stuff toys and theater to do
storytelling”, says Sangeeta)
Read the other interviews by illustrators who took the challenge:
Rajiv Eipe, Kalyani Ganapathy, Prashant Miranda, Kavita Singh Kale, Megha Vishwanath, Priya Nair Panicker, Sweta Roy Choudhury, Paneendra Suresh, Priya Kuriyan, Yulianto Qin, Manjari Chakravathi, Sonal Goyal and Sumit Sakhuja, Samidha Gunjal, Preeti Lata, Shwetha Elisha,Mithila Ananth, Sunandita Mehrotra, Vedavathi Narasimha Murthy, Jithin Jacob, Vidya Gopal,Archana Sreenivasan, Somesh Kumar, Gumani, Antara Mukherji, Anjora Noronha,Vinayak Varma, Soumya Menon, Jisha Unnikrishnan, Kruttika Susarla, Ninoshka Dias, Isha S Valentine, Neelima Raparla, Vallabhi Shegaonkar, Sangeeta Das, Hari Kumar Nair,Lakhsmi Mitter, Lily Banerjee, Aditi Dilip, Niloufer Wadia, Deepa Jayaraman, AnupamaApte, Nishith Mehta, Muhammed Shafi, Amar Soni, Krishna Prakash K,Lavanya Karthik, Sonal Gupta,Kabini Amin, Jason Dvorak, Tanvi Bhat, Ranjani S, Shikha Nambiar, Aritra Roy Chowdhury, Vaishali Chudasama, Sharanya Kunnath, Priya Manikandan, Milan Nayak, Delwyn Remedios, Geetanjali B, Ambica Vinod, Shailja Jain Chougule, Chitra Chandrashekhar, Nikita Modi, David Knight, Geetali Tare, Nilomee Jesrani
If you missed the #6FrameStoryChallenge, but are inspired by the work of fellow illustrators and want to contribute to the open source story platform – do send us your stories! Story guidelines are available here.
