KOCHI: For this 20-year-old, caricaturing is his favourite activity and he makes each day count by drawing at least one person. Shyam C Shaji, a student of applied arts at RLV College of Music and Fine Arts, Tripunithura, is delving into caricaturing and experimenting with various mediums like watercolour, charcoal and pencil. “I started doing caricatures after Class X when my portraits were not coming out right. I sought the help of artist Ratheesh Ravi’s work and internet videos to improve caricaturing skills,” Shyam said. He mentioned his father who is also an artist supported him. “Initially, I started drawing caricatures of my friends from Facebook. That was a practising phase and I could complete my picture within 5-10 minutes,” he added.
Shyam noted he started posting his works on Facebook and received rave comments. After getting an idea on caricatures, for the next three years, he concentrated more on portraits and could succeed in it. “Then my teacher also encouraged me to focus on caricatures as I had the skill in it. Also, portraits are done by many people unlike caricatures. Hence, I chose to go with it,” he said.
On using different mediums, Shyam noted pencil and charcoal take less time than watercolour. “Usually, one to one and a half hours is taken to complete a work in watercolour. Due to the monsoon, the paper takes time to dry, which increases the overall duration,” he said. It was artist Ratheesh who influenced Shyam to try his hand at drawing famous people so that even when he uploads photos, people can easily relate to it.
Shyam noted he does freelance work for people and social media helps him get a better reach. “When I put my work on Facebook and Instagram, I receive different opinions from a wide range of people. This helps me correct my mistakes and shows me where I should improve,” he said. He mentioned his followers are also increasing steadily. He highlighted that passport size or inexpressive photos are tough to draw and he always encourages people to be expressive. “First I make a rough sketch, which takes less than 5 minutes, and then I start working on the real one and complete it in one hour,” he said. Shyam said as he daily travels two hours to attend college, he gets time only in the night to make the drawing. “I reach home by 6.30 pm and start working on the caricature. I do one caricature a day,” he added.