Ekata Mandal, a children’s book illustrator from India, loves to draw with her gouache, pencil, pastels. She loves the messy textures on paper while she is illustrating. Finding her inspiration from everyday little things which surround us all the time. She believes in ‘the art of noticing’ and brings out the essence and beauty of those simple things in her works. Ekata also channels her ideas from nature from people, animals, bugs. The world is full of colors and she tries to capture that through her palettes. She really loves painting fairytales and folklores from all around the world. She has done her masters in Biotechnology but was a painter from her childhood. Her base was oil painting on canvas as she used to visit her grandpa and his studio a lot when she was a child. He was a fine art painter. The passion of painting grew on her and eventually she landed as book illustrator in 2020. She always finds it peaceful with her art tools, sitting in the lap of nature, seeing birds, hearing river sounds. Her works are a reflection of all of these things together.