The City of Renton WA invited me to participate in their 'Dragon Days' celebrations by creating a public art display in a vacant storefront. I decided to highlight some of the dragon art and poems from my book A Hatful of Dragons and created a large sized display 5' high and about 80' long featuring both poetry and art. This video shows it best:

The drawings in my book are pretty small, just a few inches max, so I had to redraw the drawings and then add color. These were then sent to a sign printer and printed out as large size window clings, which I then manually installed for the display. Putting up these clings was harder than it looks - not for the faint hearted! 

I was honored to be invited by the prestigious School Library Journal to take over their Instagram account on 4/24/2020 and present my work and new book to school librarians, teachers, and the general public. The session is now available on Youtube for everyone to watch: 

Post Launch Update: If you missed the launch event, you can watch the video here:
https://www.facebook.com/ArtByVikram/videos/667321847413818/

With social distancing in place and all physical venues closed, please join me in an online celebration of my book release! 

I will be streaming on Instagram, Facebook and Zoom and you can join in on any of those. Zoom lets you join into the conversation on Video, with FB and Instagram you'll primarily be watching and commenting.

I'll be doing the event in 2 parts so hopefully you can join in wherever in the world you are:

• April 11 6-8 p.m.
• April 12 2-4 p.m.

To join the event on ZOOM, register in advance for one (or both) of these meetings:
  Apr 11, 2020 06:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada) 
  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/uJEsfuGgrT0ttQVtKdIwRajq3i5gYId3Lg

  Apr 12, 2020 02:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada) 
  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/vp0vc-6qpzIus_-KtGIskkL-u3K7uQUy0w 

To join the event on FACEBOOK:
  Go to my Facebook Art Page https://www.Facebook.com/ArtByVikram at the meeting time and join the LIVE VIDEO
  
To join the event on INSTAGRAM:
  Go to my Instagram Art Account https://www.Instagram.com/ArtByVikram at the meeting time and watch the LIVE VIDEO

​Best way to get a reminder is by responding to this facebook event:
https://business.facebook.com/events/340006630291846/

There will be poetry reading, book signings, magic tricks, learn how the book was made, see behind the scene pictures.. and plenty more!

Kid-friendly and dog-friendly event - bring the kids and dogs to meet the author.
​
The virus sure makes this an interesting time to release a book given the impacts to publishers, printers, distributors, bookstores, and libraries. I probably can't do author appearances for a while so I hope you will join me at this online event.

Oh Coronavirus, why did you have to cancel all my author signing events?!??

But never fear! If I can't sign your book in person I can still sign it for you remotely!

If/when you order a copy of my new book of funny poems 'A Hatful of Dragons' just send me a note (through my website or via social media) with your mailing address and whom the book is for, and I will mail you a bookplate label with a personalized message. You simply peel the label and stick it on the inside cover page, and - ta-daa -  you have a signed book!

Uhm yes I am aware that the cost of a label + mailing will probably exceed my per-book royalty... so I would be ever grateful if you can return the favor, assuming you've enjoyed the book, by spreading some word-of-mouth buzz about the book (tell some friends, give it as gifts, etc) and leaving a positive review somewhere. 

I spent 7 months in 2019 working on the a 'Spirit Animals' mural for Stevenson Elementary in Bellevue WA. Each of the 80 animals on this mural was designed by a kid.

Click here to read more about this project, see a making-of video, and look closer at all the creature art.

When life gives you TOILET PAPER PANIC .... make ... TOILET PAPER PANIC Art! 

To commemorate the Great Toilet Paper Panic of 2020, I am making commemorative original art ON TOILET PAPER.

And let me assure you, drawing on TP is NOT EASY - the paper is soft, tears easily, moves under the pen, and absorbs the ink in unpredictable ways. I had to experiment to find the right pen and hand pressure to make this art happen. Here's a little video: 

The original TP art is available in two, uhm, flavots - regular (1-PLY) and deluxe (2-PLY). Comes mounted on an acid-free board with text.

Clck here to order from my etsy store.

Available only while supplies last (i.e. until I run out of TP).

Not waterproof or archival. In case of emergency, you can still 'use' this artwork.

I will be doing an online book tour via blogs introducing my new book and giving folks a behind-the-scenes peek into the book. I'll add links here as the blog posts go live:

* Suma Subramanian's Mixed-Up Files: 
https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/2020/02/writing-and-illustrating-funny-poetry-for-kids-author-interview-with-vikram-madan-and-giveaway/
​* Jane MacCulloch's DeoWriter Blog
https://deowriter.wordpress.com/2020/03/19/poetry-friday-a-hatful-of-dragons/
* Matt Forrest's Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme Blog
https://mattforrest.wordpress.com/2020/03/24/poetry-friday-celebrating-poetry-with-a-hatful-of-dragons/
* Sylvia Vardell's Poetry for Children Blog
http://poetryforchildren.blogspot.com/2020/03/tla-virtual-poetry-round-up-irene-latham.html
* Irene Latham's Live Your Poem Blog
https://irenelatham.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-hatful-of-dragons-and-dash-of-hope.html
* Sylvia Vardell's Poetry for Children Blog (2nd Appearance)
http://poetryforchildren.blogspot.com/2020/04/guest-post-vikram-madan.html
* Linda Mitchell's A Word Edgewise Blog
https://awordedgewiselindamitchell.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-hatful-of-dragons-review.html
* Mrs. Knotts Book Nook
http://mrsknottsbooknook.blogspot.com/2020/04/spotlight-friday-hatful-of-dragons-blog.html  
​
​Many thanks to my publisher, Boyds Mills Kane, and to Kerry McManus and Chelsea Abdullah for organizing this tour.

My third book of self-illustrated funny poems, A Hatful of Dragons,  will be releasing April 21, 2020. I am very excited for this book - it's taken years of effort and is loads of fun, and suitable for poetry lovers of all ages. Here is a quick flipthrough of what the inside looks like:

You can already order the book via your favorite bookstore or online (Indiebound, Barnes & Nobles, Amazon).
​Learn more here.

If you look closely at the background patterns in these paintings, you will note that each painting has the same 14 ‘tiles’ rearranged differently. What allows these tiles to be rearranged in an almost-endless number of ways is that they rely on unique mathematical properties of the Golden Ratio, ø.

---
Definition of Golden Ratio:
In Mathematics, two quantities are in the Golden Ratio if their Ratio is the same as the Ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities.
With two quantities, a and b, a > b > 0, the Golden Ratio, ø =  a/b when  a/b = (a+b)/a
The Golden Ratio is frequently found in patterns in nature, such as spiral arrangements in shells and plants.
ø is an irrational number with a value of   (1+SqRt(5))/2 = 1.6180339887....
Note that  a/b = (a+b)/a = a/a + b/a = 1 + b/a  In other words   ø  = 1 + 1/ ø 
---

While the Golden Ratio (see Wikipedia) itself is often mentioned in art (e.g. Leonardo Da Vinci used it to compose his paintings), architecture (the Greeks used it to design their buildings), and nature (mathematical basis for naturally occurring patterns), less well-known is the fact ø has some fascinating mathematical properties. 

For example starting with ø = 1+ 1/ø  (see above), we can derive:

• (Multiply both sides by ø)  ø^2 = ø + 1
• (Multiply both sides again by ø) ø^3 = ø^2 + ø

Using such derivations, we see that a Geometric Series based on ø, (that is, a series where every element is obtained by multiplying the previous element by ø)

        .....,  1/(ø^2), 1/ø, 1, ø, ø^2, ø^3,  ..... 

also happens to be a Fibonacci Series, in which the sum of any two consecutive terms generates the next term.
A property that then emerges from this Geometric Fibonacci series is that sums of many different terms in the series can equal the sums of many other terms in the series. E.g.:

       ø + ø^2 + ø^3  = 2ø^3 = 1/ø + 3ø^2 = 2ø + 2ø^2 =2 + 4ø etc.
 
The Swiss architect Le Corbusier, in a quest to design easily-reconfigurable modular buildings, realized that a set of ø-series based modules, i.e. modules whose dimensions were members of the ø series, might allow for building designs with large numbers of permutations and combinations for any given fixed space and fixed set of modules. While Le Corbusier did not succeed in actually creating such modular buildings, his research did bear one fruit: these paintings J.

These paintings incorporate, in their backgrounds, tiling patterns created using ‘tiles’ whose dimensions are based on two INTERLACED ø-series, one series of which is formed by taking the arithmetic mean of consecutive terms of the other series. That is, the elements of one series lie halfway between the elements of the other series, which increases the number of possible ways in which the elements may be combined to add up to other combinations of elements.

All the paintings have the exact same 14 tiles in the background. Every edge of every tile relates to other tile edges in the painting by multiples of golden ratios.

If the Golden Ratio is truly a natural number wired into nature, these tiling patterns should feel naturally aesthetic.
The juxtaposition of a whimsical, illogical form on top of the logical mathematical pattern hopefully creates an anachronism that draws the viewer in to look at the image again and again.