What Color is My Patka?

Project Overview

What Color is My Patka? by Deepika Kaur Pujji introduces young readers to Sikh traditions through one of the most accessible entry points imaginable: colour. Ricky, a spirited Sikh boy, shares the significance of his patka — the special head covering that protects his uncut hair — and invites children to help him choose a different colour for each day of the week. The interactive structure turns cultural learning into a game, making the story feel like participation rather than instruction. Along the way, the book weaves in the values of kindness, respect, and community that sit at the heart of Sikhism.

The illustration challenge was making each day’s patka the visual centrepiece of its spread — the colours needed to be vivid and joyful enough to carry that interactive energy, while Ricky’s personality and warmth remained the emotional constant that held the whole book together.

Role

The illustration challenge was making each day’s patka the visual centerpiece of its spread. Colour had to carry real interactive energy, vivid and joyful enough to invite a young reader into the choosing, while Ricky’s personality and warmth stayed the constant that held all seven days together as one story rather than seven separate scenes.

Full illustration across seven daily spreads covered character design for Ricky and his family and community, colour as a primary visual storytelling element, cultural accuracy in costume, setting, and symbolic detail, and print-ready file preparation for Paw Prints.

Character Design

Before a single page is illustrated, I develop the main characters in full — defining their proportions, expressions, and personality. This is the foundation that keeps your characters recognizable and consistent across every scene, every lighting condition, and every emotional moment in the project.

Process

Every project follows this same structured path, so you always know where we are and what comes next. You review and approve at the sketch stage and the line art stage — nothing moves to color until you’re happy. By the time the final spread is rendered, there are no surprises.