Diary notes from Delhi
A public work of art is created

Our author Faizal Khan has been watching the Graphic Travelogues project from the beginning. Every day he visits the two artists Aasthi and Greta in the Lodhi Art District to look over their shoulders. Here are his observations.

Day 1:

The giant wall in Block 6 of the Lodhi Art District is given a base paint layer to scrub away the previous street art first painted eight years ago, marking the start of the project Graphic Travelogues #Murals.

The base colour for the mural is continental green.

The two artists - Aashti Miller and Greta von Richthofen - placed a projector and laptop on the top of large paint cans to project the digital image of the mural sketch onto the freshly painted wall to create the first outline of the mural

The artists projected the digital sketch after the sunset on the first day to create a part of the outline on the massive wall leaving the rest for the second day

Day 2:

The work on the mural begins as Aashti Miller and Greta Richthofen paint a shade of pink, the first colour on the wall.

The first dash of colours drew a lot of curious onlookers to the project site. There were residents from the neighbourhood, school and college students, and shoppers returning from the nearby market. Incidentally, it was the first day of college in Delhi in two years since the pandemic began. The artists are delighted to hear encouraging words from the public. They say the conversation with the public is as important as the making of the mural. 

A flamingo and a fish rise out of the wall at the end of the second day of the project. The artists are spending long hours after the sunset to complete the remaining outline.

Day 3:

More colours are splashed across the massive wall. Aashti Miller and Greta von Richthofen say their work will be 100 feet wide and 35 feet tall when completed.

The GT #Murals project site in the Lodhi Arts District has become a playground for children who are impressed by the colours and objects springing up on the giant wall.

For foreign tourists too, the work in progress at the project site is the perfect material for a Postcard from India.

Some serious onlookers are even giving suggestions like keeping the GT #Murals work for future generations by making it available on YouTube.

Day 4:

The day has suddenly become warmer in Delhi although it is still winter. Aashti Miller and Greta von Richthofen have decided to start their work early in the morning to beat the heat.

There is more colour on the wall and many more objects are now visible like balloons and a giant whale.

Still, there is plenty of work to be done. The outline created by the two artists on the first and second day of the project is visible on the bottom of the wall.

With the wall transforming into a massive canvas, there are more and more people stopping by to witness an artwork being born in front of their eyes.

Day 5:

Aashti Miller and Greta von Richthofen continue their early morning work routine as the city is getting warmer and the winter is slowly fading into a distant memory.

Collaboration, the signature theme for the two artists, is given a further boost as an aspiring young artist living nearby offers to lend her services to the project. Rakshita Sharma, a first-year commerce undergraduate of Delhi University, says she is learning a lot from the two artists.

At the lunch break, Ms Sharma invites the two artists to her home to savou the local delicacies prepared by her grandmother, who had backed her interest in art from childhood.

There are more colours and even more objects visible on the giant wall. And there are more and more people coming to the project site to view the work in progress.

The day is going well for Aashti Miller and Greta von Richthofen, in the both artistic and culinary sense. The Goethe-Institut staff behind the project hosts the two artists for a dinner.

Day 6:

It is now the middle days of the project, progressing as per schedule. A bird wearing a roller skater and a fish with wings appear on the wall.

The manlift carrying the artists to the height of the wall is powered by diesel, but now has a gender-neutral name, thanks to Aashti Miller and Greta von Richthofen. The two artists have decided to call it “boom lift.” 

The renaming of the lift truck is not a solitary event. In an environment-friendly gesture, the artists had earlier added a natural shade of colour to the repository of colour swatches numbering 37. The natural shade is from the branches of a nearby peepal tree sneaking into the mural. They have named the new colour “tree.”

The interest in the project can be seen from the return of many people who had witnessed the opening days of the work. Sneha Singh and Ritika Gupta, two final-year maths under-graduate students of a nearby college, have their lunch at the sidewalk in front of the mural these days.

Day 7:

The toughest work is waiting on the window shades, the concrete patches protruding from the wall above the windows of homes behind the wall.

On the first day, the artists projected the digital sketch of the mural onto the wall for creating the outline. They also left the outline on the window shades to achieve harmony of the drawing.

"We sometimes have to improvise on the window shades," says Greta after the two artists negotiate the edges to create the effects of a two-dimensional viewing from afar. Now the mural has merged into the protruding concrete shades.

Two employees of a Delhi walk tour arrive to enquire about the mural. They want to include it on their list of places to visit for the tour..

Day 8:

The warm weather in the past few days has now improved and the cooler day is benefiting the artists. The artists are crisscrossing the wall on the boom lift to paint the difficult spaces they had left behind.

One such space is a bicycle driven by a pink-coloured flamingo. Miller says painting the straight lines on the bicycle is very difficult.

The artists and their assistants are determined to complete the work in time for the curated walk.

As the artwork draws close to the finishing line, more localites are arriving to look at the images and objects depicting the possibilities of travel. Vehicles passing by slow down for a better view of the mural. Mothers are amongst the happiest to see the faces of their children lighten up at seeing the flying fishes, a giant whale, and rollerskating birds.