KOCHI: The world of art always enthralled Keerthy Raj. When she was little, she would play around with colours. But it was only after college that she started pursuing art seriously. With a lot of time in hand before joining the techie milieu post her campus selection, Keerthy turned to art. An ardent fan of detailing and intricate work, creating portraits in charcoal and pencil is her forte. Keerthy uses photographs and recreates it in monochrome using charcoal and lead pencil. “For me, it is all about bringing the same emotion in a photograph into the artwork,” says Keerthy, who works at UST Global, Technopark.
It was a photograph of her father in his younger days that turned muse for her. Keerthi still remembers how her parents were deeply touched when she turned up with her father’s portrait. And that is how her journey in art began. “I have immense patience when it comes to creating art. It is the sheer pleasure of working with human portraits. I can spend hours detailing and that is what I love about doing portraits. I get to work on each feature on the face and go about perfecting it,” says Keerthy, a self-taught artist.
It is not just human portraits but she also recreates the photographs she captures by creating art out of it. A night owl, Keerthy starts working once the night settles in. “The silence is a prerequisite for me. So I start at two and continue until I finish. One artwork can take at least six hours and I won’t budge until the work is finished. And once I am done and left with just the shading part, I turn on the music,” chuckles Keerthy.