Illustration: Sameer Kulavoor paints a beautiful portrait of metropolitan India

Date
9 July 2013

Sameer Kulavoor’s most recent project as Bombay Duck Designs is Blued, an illustrated documentation of the use of tarpaulin, or Taad-Patri as it is colloquially known, in India. The waterproof, strong and convenient nature of the material lends it to a whole variety of everyday tasks, as Sameer explains, from sun, dust and pigeon-proofing to packaging and building temporary refugee camps. His illustrations paint a beautiful picture of the sights that result; a street market is transformed into a sea of cobalt when viewed from above, a block of leaky flats are cloaked in blue to protect them from the monsoons, and a pair of fishermen use a sheet of tarpaulin as a sail on their boat. Combined in a beautifully printed publication with a small square of tarpaulin attached, these illustrations combine to create a sweet urban portrayal of daily life in metropolitan India.

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Sameer Kulavoor: Blued

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Sameer Kulavoor: Blued

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Sameer Kulavoor: Blued

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Sameer Kulavoor: Blued

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Sameer Kulavoor: Blued

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Sameer Kulavoor: Blued

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Sameer Kulavoor: Blued

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About the Author

Maisie Skidmore

Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 as an intern before joining full time as an Assistant Editor. Maisie left It’s Nice That in July 2015.

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