Jenn & her elefriends tale

A little oondu & a little gundu

A playful & minimalist take on our elephant; hand crafted with locally sourced handloom cotton is one of our all time favourites at Viakerala. They are available in different textures and colours, though with every new batch slight variations in colour are inevitable.

Who says soft, chubby, round elephants are only for kids!? 

Lovely Jenn & her herd.

Sometimes, like how it happened with Jenn, it gets hard to be without them. On one of her visits to India, she carried along with her a bunch of Viakerala elephants who lost their way on the flight back to Canada. This time around, we made sure she was reunited with her herd of elefriends who flew all the way from Cochin to meet her at Delhi.

She sends her regards with Toompa (Red), Ramu (Blue), Deepthi (yellow) and Uma (green), as she lovingly calls them.

Size does matter!

The Godzillas of work for our artists have been the tiniest of the lot.
The invertebrates. 
For one, its next to impossible of get a real life study and second, a single photograph is difficult to get them right. To get a realistic illustration of any species, especially insects require going through multiple images and watching videos to understand their physiology, explains our artist Usha. After finalizing the image, comes the play of light and shade, and on a colourful insect it is trickier owing to their body texture. Most emphasis is on getting the shimmer on the them right, for which a lot of techniques are applied. Manipulating the strokes of pencil colour from extremely soft on highlights to pressured on the depths, and so on.

Along with invertebrates are series of illustrated mammals, birds and amphibians translated into a set of collectible playing cards that have a definitive collection of the fauna of the Western Ghats.

These cards are available for sale in Viakerala Thekkady, Viakerala Cochin, NCF Valparai & Periyar Tiger Reserve Bookshop, Thekkady.

Lizard, lizard on the wall!

They may not be your best of friends but they are for sure, the ubiquitous listeners on the wall. In a traveler they induce concern and for most Malayalees there is at least one childhood story associated with them. Now, no matter what your perspective is, they definitely make the list of creatures-most-seen-in-Kerala!

Understanding these sentiments clearly, we designed and produced these simple looking household geckos. Fear not! because they are neither slimy nor do they fall on your shoulders, they sit quietly; listening.  

Other designs available at our stores are the well-rounded elephants, the wise owl, and as always, majestic hornbills; crafted with terra-cotta (fired-earth), these magnets add quirk to your metal surfaces.