Rukmini Poddar is an artist, designer, and educator. Her creative passion lies at the intersection of emotional wellness and creative storytelling.

Rukmini is the author of Draw Your Feelings: A Creative Journal to Help Connect with Your Emotions through Art, forthcoming from Penguin Random House.

She has found her creative voice in participating in the #100DayProject for over 9 consecutive years and has grown her instagram community to over 100,000 followers. She is best known for her drawings that give life to her emotions.

She teaches people how to draw their emotions and leads workshops with corporate teams, schools, and large gatherings of over 400+ people.

Clients I’ve worked with

FAQ

  • I offer online zoom workshops throughout the year, as well as multi-week courses that you can sign up for. I am planning to develop pre-recorded workshops that you can download and access anytime. Those will be coming in the near future!

    I also offer a FREE workshop 2-3 times each year. I do this especially around New Years as a way to give back to the community.

    You can find out more information on my workshops page.

  • Great! Learn more about the workshops I offer for corporate teams here.

    You can send me a note in my contact form stating what you are looking for, and I will get back to you shortly.

  • I started my first #100DayProject in 2015 and have been participating every year since! So this makes my ninth year.

    I want to state also that although I participate in the project each year, I don’t always complete it. And if I do, it often takes me more than 100 days. I am totally OK with this, because I have learned that this project is a huge part of my creative process. I participate each year so I can stretch my creative muscles, let go of perfectionism, and say “Yes!” to a new challenge.

    You can see my previous #100DayProejct art here.

  • Thanks for asking! I’ve been working on my book since the summer of 2021 and it’s finally going to be available on October 10, 2023. Although I have so much more to share about the process of creating it, I will keep it short:

    The most challenging thing was my mind. My own lack of experience made me feel like I was totally under qualified to write such a book to help people draw their feelings. There was a lot of imposter syndrome. I also didn’t know how to even START such a huge project. How do I create a book structure? How do I write this book so that others will get it? Did the exercises make sense?

    My mind clearly felt a lot of uncertainty and doubt. But I did work with some amazing people (shout out to my art mentor and coach, Annameika Hopps!) who helped me get started. I also started to involve friends and share my exercises with them to get their input and feedback.

    The most rewarding experience was seeing the MAGIC of it coming together. It wasn’t until towards the end that I felt so much pride when I saw my manuscript. When I saw how all the exercises fell into place. When I saw that the chapter structure felt complete. And the most rewarding is…when people do my exercises and have a moving, deep experience. Then it feels all worth it.

    I can’t wait for you to get your hands on this book and try out the Draw Your Feelings exercises.

  • Sorry, I’m not available for commissions and won’t be able to illustrate your book.

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I affectionately call myself an "essence seeker" because I try to search for simple, deep truths hidden within everyday life.

I'm inspired by complexity and human emotion. I love translating things that are otherwise hard to understand into an image. I love the enneagram and understanding human personality.

I'm deeply inspired by nature and the lessons She teaches. I enjoy reading books on mindfulness and spirituality and I try take a notebook wherever I go because I never know what may inspire me.

I keep this list of 10 lessons close to my heart when creating art. I wrote this list in 2016 and these values still drive my creative process.

PS: I’ve had people e-mail me asking if #6 was a typo. I promise - it’s not!

Want to get in touch?

Reach out on my contact form or e-mail me at dearruksi@gmail.com